Shaken… and stirred

Published Jul 11, 2012

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Beset by memories of poor childhood co-ordination and playground ignominy, I approached this year’s latest fitness craze with a certain sense of gloom. But it’s hard to stay gloomy when you’re flinging a DayGlo hoop around your waist and waggling your hips like Ricky Martin.

Hula hooping first rose to prominence in the 1950s as a cheap and faddy phenomenon that somehow took hold of an entire planet’s imagination. From housewives hooping at holiday camps to kids on the beach, even geishas in their kimonos, the hula hoop has proved its universal appeal, and its timelessness. Like the bicycle, it feels like one of those inventions that has just always been around. It was immortalised in the 1994 Coen brothers’ film, The Hudsucker Proxy, with the line: “The hula hoop! You know – for kids!”

Except it isn’t anymore. Those 1950s housewives had the right idea: there’s nothing like developing your core strength (that is, your abs and stomach muscles) for keeping you trim. And there’s no better way to give them a rigorous going over than to stand and loop the loop with a hoop for half an hour. “The reason it’s such a good tool for exercise is that core strength is key to your whole body,” says Marawa Wamp, a circus-trained hooper.

She has performed across the globe with companies such as Le Clique and now runs classes geared specifically towards teaching hula as a means of fitness. She also has an app that will teach you how to get started, as well as a few simple exercises.

“You can work on your calf muscles and do lots of chin-ups and have strong arms, but if your core’s not right then forget it,” she says. “Then there’s the theory that… it’s breaking up fat cells every time it runs over you – so it’s a two-in-one: tightening up the core and keeping that area nice and firm.”

Wamp has been hooping for 10 years and has the fluid but strong posture of a ballet dancer. I want to be like her, I decide. I will slay all those memories of having a hoop flutter to the ground past my skinny pre-teen knees and I will master the hula hoop.

My first move is to Google for tips, of course, and I soon discover a whole hooping community, not to mention oodles of testimonials from women who claim it has changed their lives.

People hoop at home or in the park, some dressed as fairies (not something I’m willing to try) or simply in their pyjamas. One woman, Jen Moore, claims to have lost 65kg by using her hoop at home as she watched television; she’s now a spindly spokeswoman for Hoopnotica, the company that helped her get fit. It all serves to confirm my exercise-starved dream of becoming incredibly thin by not doing very much.

Fitness

Hoopnotica is one of many companies that have sprung up to teach the ways of hula to those looking to make their fitness regime slightly more fun. With its instructional workout DVD comes an adult-sized hoop that breaks apart and reassembles for ease of storage. It is much bigger than I remember; I feel dwarfed.

“Most people I talk to about hula hoops say: ‘Oh, I used to be able to do it when I was a kid, but not any more,’ “ Wamp says. “But of course you can!

“They haven’t thought about the fact that when they were a child, they were probably half the height and a bit smaller – so you need a bigger hula hoop. For most people, they pick up one of these and pretty quickly they can do it.” She pauses. “For some people it can take a little longer.”

Before I meet Wamp, I have a go with my hoop at home in front of the Hoopnotica DVD, which is presented by several gazelle-like creatures who promise that hooping will not only give me great abs but will also boost my confidence, sex drive and feelings of positivity. Having silently scoffed at this, I realise after a few minutes of gyrating in the way they tell me that I do feel slightly more confident. That’s just what pelvis-thrusting can do for you, I suppose.

After a few false starts, I manage to keep the hoop up for more than three spins. Then six, then 12, then suddenly it just keeps going. I try hooping to the left and to the right; the DVD teaches me how to turn round in the hoop and to keep it spinning and how to walk around the room with it still whirring away. I am thrilled, confident and filled with positivity.

Terribly excited, I explain to Wamp when we meet that I’ve been watching the video and following the instructions and that, yes, I am now a hooper too.

“It’s very difficult to engage your core,” she smiles, ready to appraise my technique. “I thought I was doing it for a couple of years, even when I was performing, before I realised I wasn’t actually using those muscles at all.”

Oh. I have been doing it wrong, it turns out. Lesson one of hula hoping: simply spinning the hoop on your waist is not good at all if you’re rocking back and forth on your feet. You’ll burn some calories, but you won’t get those stomach muscles working.

Revolutions

The technique she teaches me is rather different, standing with my feet parallel and shoulder-width apart, then flicking the hoop around my middle by pushing out with my stomach as it comes into contact with my navel. It is much harder and I can’t do it. After three revolutions, it just clatters down to the floor again. Oh, well.

Hula hooping takes practice and patience, but once you’ve mastered it, it’s a bit like riding a bike. It works best when you simply don’t think about it at all, but just let your body get into a rhythm. I’m no pro, but the creaking of my abdomen the next morning is proof that just a few spins will awaken even the most neglected of cores.

After 26 years of searching and despairing, I think I’ve found my sport. - The Independent

They’re hooked on hula

A Durban girls’ school is starting hula hoop classes.

“Hoops are a great tool for kids to exercise with,” said Durban Girls’ College sports teacher Shelley Jameson.

“It’s a low impact cardiovascular workout that improves co-ordination, motor skills, agility and balance.

“Hula hooping builds core strength and educates the body to respond to rhythm. It’s also great for children because it’s one of those activities that helps to overcome shyness.

“Hula hooping develops an ‘I can’ attitude,” she said.

However, you don’t need to be a child or join a class to get hooping, just do what the founder of hooping.co.za did and go online for inspiration.

Driving the hooping trend in SA is Maddy Wolmarans, who came across the trend in a UK club in 2005. Afterwards she found moves on YouTube.

“In one year I lost 20kg from hooping for fun, about a half hour a day.”

Now she runs classes in Cape Town, where she lives. “It’s simple, stand up straight and spin the hoop hard around your waist.

“The movement is not as a child plays, from side to side, but must be a forward and backward thrust.”

She said an upright hoop should stand between your navel and chest.

“The larger you are, the larger the hoop should be.”

Another tip: she uses UV material tape over the hoops she manufactures to ensure better grip.

Wolmarans, who was overweight and suffered from depression when she first discovered hooping, said what she loved most about it was that it was about getting in touch with your inner child.

“It always feels more like playing than exercising.”

Actress Sandi Schultz of Binnelanders holds monthly hooping classes in Parkhurst, Joburg.

“Hooping has just exploded in Cape Town and is only just now taking off in Joburg.

“I am sure Durban is next,” she said.

“It’s great for the party scene, particularly at music festivals. You can’t do it without smiling, which is why I think its becoming so popular; it’s an opportunity to play once again.” - Omeshnie Naidoo, The Mercury

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