My 14 year old son can hula-hoop for an hour, while reading a book.
My Mom has legendary hula-hoop skills.
Clearly, it’s in my genes.
When I was a kid, I could hula-hoop and I still love how it feels when I make that hoop go around a few times. However, I seem to have lost the knack of it.
I suspect… and try not to pass out from the shock of this statement…I suspect that I am overthinking to process.
As a result, I spend a lot of time with my hoop like this…
When I’m working on a new skill, my ADHD plays mind games with me.
I think that, on some level, I get too quickly bored with practicing. So, even if I am not conscious of that boredom, my brain tries to rescue me from it by telling me that it is the ‘wrong time’ to practice because there is some aspect of the skill that I haven’t learned yet.
Basically, it is trying to save me from ‘wasting time’ by practicing when I don’t know what I’m doing yet.
The fact that I might build skill through practice?
My ADHD thinks that’s nonsense.
Luckily, there is more to my brain than my ADHD* and I know some techniques to work around my automatic tendencies.
So, hula-hooping – terribly, but with enthusiasm- is now on my schedule for regular practice this summer.
Any day that it’s not pouring rain**, I’m going to practice in my yard for at least 5 minutes.
If I’m not any better after a month, then I’ll believe that there’s a skill that I’m missing. 😉
PS – In case you don’t know the title reference, it’s a play on a phrase from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. It’s a good thing to be a hoopy frood who knows where their towel is. He had nothing to say about being a hula-hoopy frood though. 😉
*Yes, I know that this is imprecise, I’m speaking from my experience of ADHD, not from medical accuracy.
**Given the weather here in Newfoundland and Labrador, this may not be a huge promise to make! Ha!
