Mike Hayataka

Mike Hayataka — known across the flow arts community as "That Hoop Guy" — is from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and has been hooping for over 12 years. In that time he has become one of the most respected and widely-traveled hoop educators in the world, with a teaching career spanning 60+ domestic and international events across 8+ years. His approach to both movement and teaching has made him a defining voice in modern flow arts.

He first gained community-wide recognition from his 2013 Electric Forest Hoop Troupe video — a viral moment that introduced his dynamic, floor-filling style to audiences far beyond his home scene. What followed was a decade of deliberate work: refining his techniques, building his workshop portfolio, and earning a reputation as one of the most committed teachers in the circuit.

Mike's movement vocabulary is built around folded hooping — escalators, arm wraps, carousel, folded vortex, folded tosses — and he was one of the first artists to fully develop and codify this genre as a teachable system. He describes folded hooping as forcing a hooper to explore the third dimension rather than staying in standard wall and ceiling planes, with the added reward that almost all folded moves flow directly into and out of each other.

His most significant technical contribution is the Multi-Planar Grip (The Vulcan Grip) — a new hand technique that allows a hooper to hold multiple hoops on multiple planes simultaneously. Before this invention, multi-hoop manipulation was largely constrained to a single plane; the Vulcan Grip opened entirely new expressive territory.

He is also one of the defining voices in chest rolls and hoop balance, having launched the 30 Day Chest Roll Variation Challenge that directly challenged the community's standards — and shifted them. His 30-day challenge drew participation from major figures in the community including Gaile and Emma Hornell, and set a new bar for what a genuine chest roll looks like.

"I was sick of everyone pretending to do chest rolls and tried — successfully, I think — to change the standard."

Mike spent six years as a substitute teacher for high school math and science — a background that gave him something rare in flow arts education: the analytical tools to make intuitive, hard-to-explain concepts genuinely legible. His method breaks technique into single, repeatable mechanics, removing the mystery from moves that most teachers simply demonstrate and hope students can imitate.

A few years into his hooping career, he made a discovery that changed everything: his deepest flow state came from teaching, not hooping. That realization became the engine behind teaching at 18 flow events in a single year, earning the Flow Arts Institute's Instructor of the Month award, being nominated for Instructor of the Year, and ultimately building a workshop portfolio that spans 60+ events on multiple continents.

His workshop specialties include:

Mike values the flow community for something specific: the acceptance and encouragement he's found there, and the people he now considers family. That personal connection to community is what drives the scope of his teaching — he has traveled domestically and internationally to share his knowledge, building relationships at festivals and events across the country and beyond.

A partial list of events where Mike has taught:

"If my stature in the community has made it so more eyes are on me more often, then I am grateful for the opportunity to teach others — through my actions outside of class — how to treat people with respect and love."

Mike is a maker in every dimension of that word. Away from the hoop, he is a professional leather worker with 16 years of sewing experience — a craft that demands the same qualities he brings to his hoop practice: precision, patience, and a deep respect for material.

The two practices — hoop and leather — share more than a maker's sensibility. Both require building muscle memory through repetition, finding the edge between control and flow, and trusting your hands to do something your mind can't fully explain.

• Grand Rapids, Michigan
• 12+ years hooping
• 8+ years teaching flow arts
• 60+ domestic & international events
• 2013 Electric Forest Hoop Troupe
• Inventor — Multi-Planar / Vulcan Grip
• 30 Day Chest Roll Variation Challenge
• Flow Arts Institute — Instructor of the Month
• Nominated — Instructor of the Year
• Taught at 18+ events in one year
• Astral Hoops Sponsored Artist
• Consent-forward workshop framework
• Professional leather worker — 16 years
• Available for private online hoop classes