For weeks I just loved saying it. I loved telling people: “I’m going to Hoop Camp.”
“What camp?” “Poop camp?” “What’s Hoop Camp?”
Here I’d like to share with you my favorite, fairly unedited impressions of my first Hoop Camp Retreat:
Hoop Camp, Day 1: Getting the Lay of the Land
Baxter opening session. To be honest, some of the teachers at Hoop Camp were names I didn’t recognize. But as a fan of Baxter’s Hoop Path retreats, I looked forward to his opening session. As I pieced together my arrival into Hoop Camp, I told myself that as long as I made it to that workshop, I would be happy to to spend the rest of the week hooping under the trees by myself, enjoying the solitude and quiet away from the city. As it turns out, quiet solitude is not quite what Hoop Camp is about…
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- Baxter opening session
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- Natasha, Baxter and me, after the opening session
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- Setting up house with cabinmates
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- My paws
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- Symphony in pink
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- Hippie hoop van (This picture practically captioned itself.)
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- Lining up for dinner
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- First dinner menu
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- Outside meal line
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- Hoops After Dinner
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- Meeting Raquel
Best bear paws. As we wheel our luggage up the hill to Hoop Camp central, Philo Hagen passes by, holding a giant pair of rubber shoes shaped like bear paws. I am delighted to meet Philo after reading his hooping.org posts for years but become fixated on his rubber shoes. He directs me to the vendor tents up the hill.
At the vendor area, everyone else is trying on sexy hot pants with ruffled hems and sparkly jewelry that hangs down to their shoulders. I pick out a pair of pink rubber bear paws from a plastic bin sitting in the dirt. I cannot imagine these shoes seeing the light of day in NYC. Nonetheless, I consider buying a pair for all of my friends in New York, starting with my boyfriend. My new Hoop Camp friends discourage this practice. Eventually I agree that maybe you can have too much of a good thing and one pair of pink bear paw shoes is a whole lot of good thing.
