World champion hoop dancer Lisa Odjig can slip her 5 foot 9 inch body through a single hoop like a slender thread passing through the eye of a needle.
Then, before you know it, she has added 2 or 3 more hoops to arms and legs and she is spinning around, one foot always off the ground. The routine may last
for 8 or 9 minutes with Lisa's foot touching the ground for the last time at the exact moment the drummers strike the last beat of the song.
Dancing is a "true blessing"
An Odawa/Ojibwe from Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island, Lisa did not know she would win two world championships and six other hoop
dancing titles across Canada and the United States.
Growing up, she could not predict that she would perform twice for Queen Elizabeth II and twice for the Prime Minister of Canada.
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She had no notion she would ride on a float during the Calgary Stampede’s parade and then dance in front of thousands of people at the Stampede's Grandstand show.
"It's just so much fun and a true blessing," Lisa says about hoop dancing. The stamina, strength, and flexibility she needs to be a winner means that "I need to
be in balance and that I have to pray and work hard to keep that balance."
In 1994, Lisa knew she wanted to be the best athlete she could.Six years later, her hardwork paid off when she won her first world championship.
"Winning World Champion hoop dancer was a dream come true," she says. It put her at the top of the hoop dancing world.
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