Hula hooping offers healthy fun

By DAMIIAN LANG

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Ironwood - "There's no wrong way to spin a plastic circle around your body."

That's the motto of the Ironwood Hoop Club, led by Amy Nosal of Ironwood and Anna Wakefield of Watersmeet.

The Globe followed the suggestions of the Hoop Club Facebook site: "Join the Circle" and "Be there or be square."

As I arrived at Longyear Park across the street from Ironwood's Riverside Cemetery, the hula hoopers were on the grass, spinning hoops in the early evening sunlight. It was a colorful and welcoming sight.

According to historians, the hula hoop has been used by children and adults since at least 500 B.C.

Whatever the reason you come to hoop, Wakefield assured, "You'll likely discover something magical and new."

Spinning a plastic circle around your body has many benefits.

"It's a mix of physical activity, mental challenge and creative expression," said Nosal.

It's also fun and builds confidence. It's a solo or group activity, organically original to each hooper. No experience is needed, and Nosal and Wakefield are friendly and encouraging. They are yogis, after all, each teaching yoga in other moments.

Heidi Barron of Ontonagon is equally enthusiastic about encouraging the playful activity. On July 27, she was teaching Emerson Pintar, 7, and Mireya Sanchez, 6, both of the White Pine area, how to use the hula hoop in a variety of ways on the grounds of American Legion Post 462.

"If you're smiling, you're doing it right," assured Barron. "When's the last time you smiled on a treadmill?"

Barron hopes to start what she calls "Spinjoy" classes in Ontonagon.

Here's the history, courtesy of a number of online sites:

The modern hula hoop was inspired by Australian Bamboo hoops.

In 1957, Wham-O toy company founders Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin learned that kids in Australia twirled bamboo hoops around their waists in gym class. Within a year, Wham-O had created a hollow hoop out of Phillips Petroleum's newly developed plastic. In the first six months of sales, 20 million hula hoops were sold in America.

Today, hula hoops are still popular at festivals, dance shows, parties or just to bring to the park. There are hula hoop dancers; hula hoops in gymnastics; and giant hoops that a person fits inside of using his or her hands and feet to hold the hoop, while spinning gracefully across the floor.

There is strobe light hooping, and there are fur-lined hoops, multicolored hoops and hoops made out of creative materials. The hula hoop is so simple, it's sublime.

Hoops symbolize the never-ending circle of life to Native Americans, as they have no beginning or end. Native American hoop dancers use anywhere from one to 30 hoops as props in a dance to represent animals, symbols and other storytelling components.

Although many tribes lay claim to the Hoop Dance, it wasn't until the 1930s that a young man named Tony White Cloud of New Mexico began using multiple hoops in a stylized version and became known as the founder of the modern hoop dance.

There's an assumption that you keep a hoop up by swirling your hips in a circle, but the official directions are to pulse forward and backward with the belly, engaging your core muscles, while standing tall and physically pushing into the hoop.

"There are endless possibilities when experimenting with different moves and tricks, and a lot of celebration when something clicks," said Wakefield. "Hooping is an excellent confidence builder, on top of being great for brain and body."

The hula hoop has been around for a long, long time. The Greeks used hula hoops as a form of exercise to tone their abdominal muscles. Around 1300, "hooping" was introduced in Great Britain. In the 1800s, British sailors first witnessed hula dancing in the Hawaiian Islands.

For more information, check out the Ironwood Hoop Club on Facebook.

"Anybody can hoop," promise Nosal and Wakefield."

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