50 years on, hula hoops have come full circle
CAMBRIDGE - When Marria Kee runs errands in Central Square, she carries a homemade hula hoop around her shoulder. Wednesday nights, she and fellow members of the Boston Hoop Troop meet at the Cambridge Common to practice and perform the art of hooping. Kee is so committed to her hoop lifestyle that she recently quit her graphic designer job to share her love for the toy full-time.
"You never see somebody in a bad mood when they are hula hooping," said Kee, 27, who now gets paid to teach and perform hooping and also sells homemade hoops. "It makes everyone smile. It feels really good. It's rhythmic and meditative. It tones your body. It's relaxing. Hooping is the new yoga."
The hula hoop, born 50 years ago this summer, is hip again, coming around as the latest fitness tool as well as a growing subculture.
At Cambridge's Dance Complex studios, hoop lovers teach beginner and advanced classes twice a week. Similar classes were held last winter and spring at the YMCA in Greenfield, and another started this month at Spontaneous Celebrations in Jamaica Plain.
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Wham-O, which owns the trademark for Hula Hoop, wouldn't divulge exact figures, but the company says sales are up 20 percent this year alone. "It's definitely a resurging sport," said Chris Guirlinger, Wham-O's vice president of marketing and licensing. "It's become a fitness activity."
Canyon Hoops in Portland, Ore., started making adult-size hoops from polyethylene tubing in 1995. The company saw sales double from 1,900 in 2006 to 3,800 in 2007 and expects them to 7,000 this year. "I cater to the exercise crowd, mostly women," said owner Ron Klint, "but I see more and more men getting into it."
The Hula Hoop craze started in 1958, when Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin sought a trademark for a thin plastic version of a bamboo ring used by Australian children in gym classes. The men, who founded the Wham-O toy company in 1948 in California, called their new toy the Hula Hoop after the Hawaiian dance. It initially cost $1.98 and sold 100 million units in the United States after a year on the market. In 1965, as the hoopla began to spiral downward, Knerr and Melin introduced an enhanced Hula Hoop, with ball bearings inside the plastic tubing that made shooshing sounds when spun. Since then the hoop has rippled through American pop culture, from Joanie Cunningham on "Happy Days" to the Tim Robbins movie "The Hudsucker Proxy," which celebrated the toy's invention.
The hula hoop's recent surge in popularity began on the West Coast, where dancers and performers have popularized the art of hooping at underground dance parties and music events such as Nevada's Burning Man festival.
"Over the years, kids have figured out things you can do with it besides twirling it around the hips," said Tim Walsh, a toy industry expert and author of the upcoming "Wham-O Super-Book: Celebrating 60 Years Inside the Fun Factory." "They are so simple and inexpensive. It's just a piece of Americana."
Patricia Wright got looped into hooping in San Francisco, where she and her friends twirled after work with a group called the Bay Area Hoopers. When she moved to Newton three years ago, the human resources manager discovered other followers, and they founded the Boston Hoop Troop. Every Wednesday night at 6 from May to October, she meets up with her hoop crew to swivel freestyle. They balance their hoops over the heads, legs, arms, and hips at the Cambridge Common until dark. On weekends they perform at schools, birthday parties, and events such as this weekend's Quincy Beach Bash.
"It makes me feel like a kid. It gets my endorphins going," says Wright, one of 10 women and four men who hoop regularly with the group. Last year, after onlookers began asking her and fellow troopers where they could learn to hoop, they launched classes. "It's a cardio workout, and not only do I feel good but I am making friends. I am having fun," Wright said. "There is a hoop revolution."
Kee, Wright, and friends don't necessarily use Wham-O's traditional hoop. They produce their own using plastic industrial tubing, electrical tape, and colorful ribbons, and tailor them to adults.
"It's bouncing back with the improved design of the hoops and a more open-minded population with people more in tuned to their bodies and interested in improving their bodies," said Kee, who hoops at home, parties, roof decks - "whenever I'm in the mood. The reason many of us stopped hooping when we were 12 years old was because we got bigger and the hoops stayed the same size." Kee makes her own adult-size hoops, which are heavier and wider. She has a "hoop rack" with 30 of the rings for her students and herself. "With these new, larger, heavier hoops, we're given a second chance to revisit an awesome childhood pastime."
Laura Pitone of Somerville discovered hooping after she saw the Boston Hoop Troop perform for a fund-raiser at her son's preschool. "I dropped my jaw the whole time," she said. "It was so much fun." Pitone was among 12 women armed with colorful giant hoops for a recent Thursday night class at the Dance Complex. Over the course of 75 minutes, Kee and another instructor led the women into various poses and exercises to thumping house music.
This wasn't kid's play. Like circus performers, the women twirled their hoops over the heads. They stretched from side to side with the hoops. They shimmied clockwise and then repeated the motion in the opposite direction. They sprinted while hooping. They ran backward with their rings.
Other times, they tossed the toy toward each other. They also stepped inside and out of their hoops while oscillating. The exercise induced giggles as the class twirled up a sweat.
"I feel more toned and more flexible," said Lauren Mayhew, an MIT health educator during her third hooping class. "It's a little like dancing. The more you do it, the easier it gets."
Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com.
