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I was feeling a little frustrated tonight (and on such  an amazingly warm midwinter’s day!)  because I’ve been having such a hard time getting the vertical shoulder skill down. I can hoop vertically on the chest just fine, but once I get my arms in the hoop, it goes all wonky and hits my ankles on the way to the floor. So instead of beating myself up about what  loser I am (an old habit I’ve been trying to kick), I decided to list out what I’ve learned over the last eight weeks.

Things I learned during the 30/30 challenge, December:

  1. Horizontal shoulder hooping
  2. Core & chest breaks & reversals (using hands)
  3. Barrel roll isolation
  4. Half chest roll (front)
  5. A number of different isolations (non tracing) and folds

Things I learned during the 30/30 challenge, January:

  1. Barrel Rolls (in current)
  2. Chest breaks, reversals & stalls (vertical)
  3. Reverse weave
  4. Leg hooping
  5. One-leg hooping
  6. Arm breaks & reversals / early paddling
  7. Core hooping in countercurrent (waist, hips, chest)
  8. Horizontal elbow pass / duck-in
  9. Vertical duck-in
  10. Vertical (isolation) jump/step through
  11. Vertical chest hooping
  12. Tracing isolations / two-handed
  13. Brass Monkey (step-out/reverse… almost!)

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So all in all, I can’t really complain. It seems like this vertical chest/shoulder hooping is the last core move I need to learn to have a really solid foundation. Justin likes to remind me that just a few weeks ago, I was crying about how I couldn’t do a barrel roll to save my life, so I guess all good things will come in time.