A hula hoop is a toy hoop that is twirled around the waist, limbs or neck. The modern hula hoop was invented in 1958 by Arthur K. "Spud" Melin and Richard Knerr, but children and adults around the world have played with hoops, twirling, rolling and throwing them throughout history. Hula hoops for children generally measure approximately 71 centimetres (28Â in) in diameter, and those for adults around 1.02 metres (40Â in). Traditional materials for hoops include willow, rattan (a flexible and strong vine), grapevines and stiff grasses. Today, they are usually made of plastic tubing.
Origins
Native American Hoop Dance is a form of storytelling dance incorporating anywhere from one to thirty hoops as props. These props are used to create both static and dynamic shapes, which represent various animals, symbols, and storytelling elements. The dance is generally performed by a solo dancer with multiple hoops.
Before it was known and recognized as the common colorful plastic toy (sometimes with water or sand inside the actual hoop), the traditional "hula hoop" used to be made of dried up willow, rattan, grapevines, or stiff grasses. Even though they have existed for thousands of years, they are often misunderstood as having been invented in the 1950s.
According to author Charles Panati, there was a "craze" of using wooden and metal hoops in 14th-century England. He reports that doctors treated patients suffering from pain and dislocated backs due to hooping âˆ' and heart failure was even attributed to it. Panati also says that the name "hula" came from the Hawaiian dance in the 18th century, due to the similar hip movements.
Modern history
The hula hoop gained international popularity in the late 1950s, when a plastic version was successfully marketed by California's Wham-O toy company. In 1957, Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin, starting with the idea of Australian bamboo "exercise hoops", manufactured 1.06-metre (42Â in) hoops with Marlex plastic. With giveaways and national marketing and retailing, a fad was started in July 1958; twenty-five million plastic hoops were sold in less than four months, and in two years, sales reached more than 100 million units. Carlon Products Corporation was one of the first manufacturers of the hula hoop. During the 1950s, when the hula hoop craze swept the country, Carlon was producing more than 50,000 hula hoops per day. The hoop was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York, in 1999.
The hula hoop craze swept the world, dying out again in the 1980s, but not in China and Russia, where hula hooping and hoop manipulation were adopted by traditional circuses and rhythmic gymnasts.
Modern hooping
Recently, there has been a re-emergence of hula hooping, generally referred to as either "hoopdance" or simply "hooping" to distinguish it from the children's playform. The jam band The String Cheese Incident is widely credited with fostering a renewed interest in hooping. Band members started throwing larger adult-sized hoops into their audiences in the mid-1990s, encouraging their fans to hoop and dance, spreading the word and the fun. It wasn't until 2003 with the launch of Hooping.org that these small bands of hoopers began to find each other online and a real community and movement began to grow. Bay Area Hoopers began in San Francisco at that time holding regular "hoop jams" with music to hoop to and the hooping group began being replicated in cities around the world. In 2006 Hoopin' Annie had the idea to create a hooping holiday and the first World Hoop Day was held in 2007. Modern hula hooping is seen at numerous festivals and fairs in the USA, UK, Australia and Europe.
Many modern hoopers make their own hoops out of polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene, high-density polyethylene, or polypropylene tubing. The polyethylene hoops, and especially the polyvinyl chloride hoops, are much larger and heavier than hoops of the 1950s. The size and the weight of the hoop affect the style of the hooper. Heavier, larger hoops are more often used for slow hooping and body tricks, while lighter, thinner tubing is used for quick hand tricks. These hoops may be covered in a fabric or plastic tape to ease the amount of work in keeping a hoop twirling around the dancer, and can be very colorful. Some use glow-in-the dark, patterned, or sparkling tape, and others are produced with clear tubing and filled with plastic balls, glitter, or even water to produce visual or audio effects when used. LED technology has also been introduced in the past few years, allowing hoops to light up at the flick of a switch. Programmable 'Smart Hoops' are available which provide a range of special effects.
Modern hooping has created a wide range of tricks. Hooping now includes many 'on body' moves and many 'off body' moves. A few examples include breaks, isolations, leg hooping, and double hooping.
Hooping has now become popular fitness activity, with classes taking place in many towns and cities across the world. It is easy for beginners to get started with many great online resources popping up.
A recent development in hooping has been fire hooping, in which spokes are set into the outside of the hoop and tipped with kevlar wicks, which are soaked in fuel and lit on fire.
Some companies produce collapsible hula hoops for easy transport and versatility.
World records
Duration
The longest verified record for keeping a hula hoop spinning is held by Aaron Hibbs from Columbus, Ohio who kept a hoop spinning for 74 hours and 54 minutes between October 22, through 25, 2009.
Most hula hoops twirled at once
The record for most hula hoops twirled at the same time is 160, by Marawa the amazing
Betty Hoops 2005 Bolder Boulder 10k: 1 hour 14 minutes Guinness Book Records 2006 / 2007 / 2008 Bolder Boulder 10k: Guinness Book Records faster times than 2005 2012 Hollywood Half Marathon: 3 hours and 3 minutes Guinness Book Records The hoop has not stopped or dropped once
Hula hoop dancing
On 19 February 2013, 4,483 people swung hula hoops to dance music for seven minutes. They did this without interruption at Thammasat University stadium in Thailand, setting a world record for the most people dancing with hula hoops simultaneously in one place. Guinness World Records was there to confirm the record.
Other records
The largest hoop successfully twirled was 5.04Â m (16.5Â ft) in diameter, by Ashrita Furman of the United States in September, 2010.
In 2000, Roman Schedler spun a 53-pound tractor tyre for 71 seconds at the 5th Saxonia Record Festival in Bregenz, Austria.
In April 2010, 70 hoopers on Team Hooprama hula hooped the Music City Half-Marathon (21.0975 kilometres (13.1094Â mi)) to raise awareness and funds for Hooping for Hope.
In March 2013, the largest hula hoop workout (407 participants) was achieved at Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility in Scotland by North Lanarkshire Leisure and Powerhoop Fitness.
In popular culture
- On September 6, 1958, singer Georgia Gibbs appeared on US TV's The Ed Sullivan Show to sing "The Hula Hoop Song". Her last (US top-40) hit, it competed with four other songs created in the wake of the huge fad.
- Hula hoops are referred to in the 1958 Alvin and the Chipmunks song, "Christmas Don't Be Late". Wayout Toys, under license to Emson, introduced the Alvin Hula Hoop Doll, which dances with his hula hoop and sings the song based on wanting his hula hoop.
- Joel and Ethan Coen's 1994 comedy film The Hudsucker Proxy tells a fictional story of the hula hoop's invention by a mail room clerk (Tim Robbins) who is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of an intended business scheme.
- Around the time when the Pixar Animation Studios film WALL-E was in production, Disney.com released a clip of Wall-E's first encounter with a hula hoop, swinging it across its neck.
- Artist Keller Williams released a song "Hula Hoop to the Loop", dedicated to the toy.
- In the final season of M*A*S*H there is an episode called "Who Knew?" where Sergeant Klinger sees kids playing with barrel rings and fashions a hula hoop-like toy made of metal tubing. He then tries to get Major Winchester to fund putting them into production, but is unable to because the major thinks they are silly because he was laughed at while trying to play with one.
References
Further reading
- Caughey, T. K. (February 1960), "Hula-Hoop: An Example of Heteroparametric Excitation", American Journal of Physics, 28 (2): 104â€"109, doi:10.1119/1.1935069Â
- Seyranian, Alexander P.; Belyakov, Anton O. (July 2011), "How to twirl a hula hoop", American Journal of Physics, 79 (7): 712â€"715, arXiv:1101.0072 , doi:10.1119/1.3576177Â
External links
- Wham-O Hula Hoop
- Largest Online Hula Hoop Community
- Smart LED Hula Hoops
