I bested all comers Saturday morning and please allow neither the nature of the sport nor the size of the competitor to lessen your enthusiasm for my accomplishment.
Aww, thank you. Thank you very much.
And, should you be inclined to challenge me some day, let me issue you this fair warning: hula hooping requires a more specialized range of abilities than you might imagine.
Oh sure, there are the hips, but anyone who’s jutted one out to rest a squalling infant can master that. That warrior stance may look intimidating, but it’s really just the same position an ordinary launderer takes to snap a king size fitted sheet and then fold it into submission.
The real test of the skilled hula hooper lies in the posture and this is something I mastered long ago. Shoulders back, spine straight, head high, eyes forward — these are the keys to the hula master and, frankly, the same skill set that allows a mother to purchase a jock strap or an extra long size O pair of jeans, which so clearly are not for her, with dignity.
I call upon these skills every day of my life.
So, there I stood amidst the brisk, celebratory traffic of a Farmer’s Market Opening Day, eyes intentionally focused away from my tiny, oblivious competitors, ears deaf to the screeching of the disturbingly enthusiastic saleswomen “Faster! Faster!” and body turned away from the assembling crowd, hooping away.
Poor Molly vacillated between utter mortification and intense desire to digitally capture my shame/triumph, depending on your perspective.
In the end, I bought the hula hoop and I intend to use it every day. I’m not sure I also bought our saleswoman’s charming claims that it will lessen belly fat (a general benefit I’m sure, but one she failed to point out to the parents of my knee-high competitors).
I just think the hula hoop is fun.
