Alicia
Dart

Alicia Dart is a hula hoop artist, educator, and advocate born in Monterey, California. Her father served in the Army, and she was raised across many states — from Alaska to South Carolina. She is half CHamoru, the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, and her heritage is a central part of who she is.

Alicia is currently working to learn the CHamoru language — a language in danger of going silent due to historical "English Only" laws imposed on the islands — and speaks openly about her experience as a diasporic CHamoru. Her interview on the podcast Machalapon: Conversations from the CHamoru Diaspora offers a window into that journey.

Alicia's first hoop was a giant, heavy one from Walmart — picked up in fall 2013 with hopes of adding some exercise to her life. Shortly after, she found out she was pregnant with her third child, and the hoop was shelved. It wasn't until the summer of 2014, searching for postpartum fitness help, that she found it again.

"I expected to find basic waist hooping videos, but here were people moving and dancing with their hoop. I had to learn more."

What she discovered online changed everything. Self-taught almost entirely from free online content, Alicia built her skills and her confidence one trick at a time.

For Alicia, hooping was never just fitness. It became a lifeline through years of anxiety, shyness, and depression — a slow, steady climb out of the fog with every skill mastered.

"If I can stand on my head and spin a hoop around my foot, then what else can I accomplish?"

• Confidence built skill by skill
• Movement as mental health medicine
• Courage comes from proving yourself wrong
• Free community knowledge changes lives
• Heritage & identity fuel creativity
• Every body can hoop

Because free online resources made Alicia's own journey possible during a time when her family was struggling financially, she is deeply committed to giving that same access back. She values the hoop community's generosity above everything else, and is working toward launching online classes to share the love and magic of the hoop with anyone who needs it.

No matter where her road leads, her goal remains constant: share the hoop.

Alicia uses her platform to speak for Guåhan (Guam) and the CHamoru people. The U.S. military is constructing a massive firing range over the island's primary aquifer — the main water source for the entire island — threatening contamination for generations to come.