We had the good fortune of connecting with Liz Arruda and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Liz, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
A lot of my decisions have been fueled by my desire to find happiness and follow my heart. Right around the time I graduated high school I started getting into hoop dance after learning a few moves from a friend. It became the hobby I had taken to the quickest in my life and for the first time I felt inspired. I took the $200 I got from my 18th birthday and invested in my first small batch of supplies to start making hoops. My business really started to take off when I began vending at local music events, craft fairs, and community gatherings. My journey as a professional hoop performer was starting at the same time, and shortly after that I began teaching classes and workshops. The sales from my shop, as well as the income from live performances and the lessons I was giving, all came together to make it possible for me to live the lifestyle I love which has always been my motivation in business. I value myself, my body, my mind, and my time too much to feel taken advantage of by an employer that isn’t offering me a wage I can live off of. I became so discouraged in my early attempt at working a conventional job, and seeing issues in “the way things are”, that I knew I had to pave my own path in order to be happy.
Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Flow arts and hooping are kind of a niche world. Once you’ve stepped into that world you see how deep and elaborate it really gets. When you’re speaking to people who aren’t into the hobby you can see how different it is to a lot of things they see in everyday life. Spinning props lit with LED or fire, unconventional forms of dance and movement, circus style athletic training, all of it can be really exciting or intimidating (depending on how you look at it) when hearing about it for the first time. Once you’re part of the community, it quickly feels over saturated. I might be one of the few, if only, hoop shop’s in my state, but the online market seemed to have a never ending field of competition. When I started making hoops, I had just enough money to get basic supplies while all of my competitors seemed to have a never ending list of color options for customers to choose from. My online sales were not nearly as great at my in person sales the first few years I was around. It took a while for me to get my footing in business as I was also struggling to get my footing in life. When I chose to divert my time, energy, and money into an untraditional career path I lost the support of a lot of my family members and friends I had grown up with. Having an unstable support system in my personal world made it hard for me to stay as focused and as dedicated as I needed to be to really thrive. I was comparing the success of myself as a shop owner and performer to people who were a decade older than me, had other career jobs to fund their side businesses or just had a different life story than me.
For a while I had a lot of great ideas and was having a hard time executing them due to mental health issues. What helped me overcome them was to be realistic with myself. Having S.M.A.R.T. goals, and taking the concept “always do your best” from “The Four Agreements” into my real life. “Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.” That applies a lot to my own story as I realized a lot of what was holding me back was the way I viewed myself and how my journey should be going. My motivative behind self employment was always to be happy and true to my authentic self while making enough money to live my life comfortably. When I started comparing myself to other performers or small shops, I stopped living with the purpose I started my business with. It was creating the anxiety I was trying to avoid in a conventional W2 job. Finding a balance to strive for success while also not being too hard on where I’m at personally has been the hardest lesson.
I’m excited to have found the direction I needed to let my art shine the way it was truly intended too. I’m even more excited to spend more time creating hoop programs in 2023 to bring to New England. While I love making hoops and performing and will continue to do them both full time, I am excited to dedicate more of my efforts to teaching and sharing my love of flow arts with others. The positive impact hoop dance has had on both my mental and physical health is something I want to share with anyone else in need of an outlet and that is the real reason Apogee Flow Toys is still in business.
Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Visiting Rhode Island is great because its so small, that you can see almost all of the major spots in a week, depending on what time of year it is. Providence has a lot of great food all located in a close proximity which makes restaurant/bar hopping easy.
On weekdays I’d suggest hitting up a bakery/coffee shop in the morning like LaSalle or White Electric, or somewhere like PVDonuts if im looking for something a little more extravagant. Follow that up by walking with my dog around one of the many parks or trails around here, my favorite is either Chase Farm (where Hocus Pocus 2 did some filming) or Wolf Hill Preserve. Then in the afternoon we could hit up either an aerial class at The Dancing Loon, or take a barre class over at The Barre and Yoga Experience. Follow that up with one of the many places in Providence that have great food options like Den Den Korean BBQ or grab the Masa Taqueria signature “quesabirria” over at Rock n Rye bar. There is a ton of options for places to go outdoors, take a fun class at (which is one of my favorite things to do with friends) or grab basically any type of food. If its the summer I’d suggest visiting the weekend of Newport Jazz Fest so we could take the ferry there and enjoy a weekend of music in one of the most scenic spots in the entire state. In the fall I would recommend checking out the pumpkin spectacular at the zoo, or in the winter visiting La Salette Shrine for the light display. I love being outdoors and active whenever possible, and I’d do that all week with my visiting bestie, bringing us both a couple of hoops that are color coordinated with our outfits so we can take cute videos together along the way.
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d like to give a shoutout to all of the flow artists who have taught me or let me teach them, all of those who have let me make their favorite hoop for them, and all of the people who have given me the opportunity to make them smile by hiring me for a hoop performance. Without the cumulative support from all of the people I’ve met along the way, I would have given up a long time ago. Turning a passion project into a career with not a lot of money or training only happens when there are enough people out there who believe in you and want to see you succeed. The people who have gave me that blind faith chance are the reason I’m here.
Website: https://apogeeflowtoys.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apogeeflowtoys/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apogeeflowtoys/
Image Credits
Adrian Feliciano, Daniel Nyman