Handmade Hoops by Peachysteve

Waist To Knee

Taken from Chapter 5 of
"Hooping"
An Instructional DVD by Peachysteve

Taking the hoop down from your waist to your knee should be fairly straightforward, it is going down.
Some people find they can do this straightaway. For others it's really tricky.
There are two basic methods for keeping the hoop going on the knees.
The first is to "catch" the hoop into the back of the knees and then go back and forth to power the hoop.
Even better is to do that but making subtle circles with your knees slightly bent.
The second is to power the hoop with one leg, a move I call "The Elvis Leg".
The Elvis Leg may look less elegant but it enables you to bring technique into your knee hooping which can later be employed to bring the hoop up from the knees.
Bringing the hoop up from the knees is a move which many never learn simply because they have no technique to apply to practising it.

Starting with the hoop on the waist. I need the hoop to lose power so that it will drop. I don't want it to lose so much power that it falls to the floor. So I'm going to stop circling my waist and start making circles with leg one. This can be a problem as this is probably not your dominant leg.
To start making circles with leg one, I draw my foot backward. I line up my toes with the instep of my other foot. I keep my feet together. This brings my foot upward. It also brings my knee slightly above the other knee.
I now start drawing circles with my knee. When you first do this you probably need to think of circling at the twice the speed you'd use for waist circles. The hoop will start to fall from the waist and hopefully fall into the new momentum.
Now the hoop is being carried on the raised knee. Momentum is being generated each time I carry the hoop around at the front.
Here you can see how the knee crosses over the front and carries out to the side.

Here you can see the Elvis Leg in action

Because the power is being generated mainly at the front, the hoop will tend to lift at the front and drop at the back.
You can minimise this by pushing out with the back of the knee as the hoop passes over it.