About Hoopsmiles
Hoopsmiles, originally a business founded by Jon Coyne in 2010, to sell hoops and to teach people how to hula hoop, has transformed into more than just a business. In the summer of 2011, after the release of The How to Hula Hoop Rap Song, on YouTube, the name, Hoopsmiles, officially became Jon Coyne’s hooping and performing name. Hoopsmiles is a hoop dance performer and teacher of hula hoop dance in the Seattle area.
Have you ever witnessed a person hula hoop for the first time? Have you ever found yourself lost in an amazing hoop session? Have you ever smiled or experienced joy for some reason related to hooping? It’s in these hooping moments where numerous smiles and great joy have been generated. Hooping inspires a joy that can change the world and bring people together in peace.
Hoopsmiles' mission statement: "To make people smile"
My Hooping Journey: The Discovery of Hoopsmiles
In Seattle, May of 2009, I started hooping. It wasn't until around the summer of 2009, where I met a woman in Cannon Beach, Oregon, who showed me how to make hoops. She also taught me some basic hoop tricks. Inspired by our meeting, I began to practice hooping on what seemed to be a daily basis. Hooping became more than just spinning a circular piece of plastic around my body, it became a life style, a great healing practice, and most of all, a way to connect and share with people.
As time went on, I became obsessed with watching hoop videos on YouTube, as well as connecting with other hoopers, in the Seattle area, to learn and become a better hooper. Not too long after getting a better feel for the hoop, I started teaching others how to hula hoop dance, as well as making and selling my own hoops. One of my favorite activities during that time was to take a bunch of hoops and a portable boom box to a local park, and share my hoops and hooping gifts with others. In those moments, I encountered multiple people who were intrigued by hooping. As a result, I gained opportunities to teach others how to hoop. As I progressed and became more confident as a teacher, I began teaching hoop dance at Taj Yoga, a yoga studio in Seattle. There, I created multiple hoop classes and engaged a new community of hoopers.
In the summer of 2010, I posted my first hooping tutorial on YouTube, on how to lift a hoop up off your body into lasso. However, the original video I posted had copyrighted music in it. After having received a copyright notice on a different video posted on a separate YouTube channel, which stated that the video was banned in certain countries and could possibly have advertisements appear on it, I worried that my lift up tutorial would encounter a similar fate. To avoid future copyright issues, I removed the video from my channel. What turned out to be blessing in disguise, the copyright conflict gave birth to a new idea to use my own music in my hooping tutorials. Now, my Lift Up tutorial, which contains my music, has over 50,000 views on YouTube. As time went on with my YouTube channel, I received messages and comments from people around the world, asking me questions about hoop tricks. At that point, I started to really enjoy posting videos and got how much my videos were impacting people around the world.
To think when I first started learning hoop tricks, I found myself watching a number of online hooping tutorials. I remember sitting in front of a computer screen, searching and ogling over hoop videos, for what seemed like hours and hours at a time. Sometimes, I still ogle over hoop videos. The level of passion put forth by hoopers, in their flow and performances, around the world, is quite astonishing. Now that I have had the experience of sharing my own hooping tutorials and hooping gifts with others, the thought of someone else learning something from my hoop videos brings me great joy and many smiles.
Before I started hooping, for a large portion of my life, I have encountered off and on moments of sadness and even at one time was diagnosed with depression. After I discovered hooping, it’s like I found a new dance partner in life. I remember finding myself, in countless moments, inside the hoop, experiencing what felt like pure jubilation. It didn’t matter if I was sad or angry or what happened earlier that day. I could pick my hoop up and just hoop dance like no one was watching. The hoop has forever changed my life. It has become part of my self-expression, a form of communication with myself and others, a connection to music, and a way to find balance in life. Hooping, besides love, is perhaps the best medication I have encountered along my journey through life. Having the opportunity to give my hooping gifts to others through my hooping performances and hoop videos has been quite a blessing and wonderful experience.
If it wasn’t for all the other hoopers out there posting their own tutorials and flow videos, along with major hooping Web sites, such as hooping.org and hoopcity.ca, I don’t know if I would have had as much success creating my own YouTube channel and advancing as far as I have in my own hoop journey. Thank you to all the hoopers out there and for sharing your hooping gifts with others.
Thank you so much for watching my videos and supporting me along my hoop journey. Thank you to all the people out there who have written me kind supportive messages, some of which, I have read many times over and over.
Hoopsmiles On YouTube
Along with my hooping tutorials, some of my most popular YouTube videos have included other fun hooping videos, such as the "How to Hula Hoop Rap Song," the "Hula Hoop Appreciation Song Featuring Cats," "Saint Patrick’s Day Hula Hoop Dance," and my Gopro hula hoop cam video to my song, "Changing Moods."
Checking out my Hoopsmiles YouTube channel by clicking the link below:
