Everybody Hoops

The term "hula hoop" came from British sailors who had seen hula dancing in the Hawaiian Islands and thought it looked similar to the movements of hooping back home. Hooping was again popular in England in the 1800 where children would roll hoops with a stick or spin the hoop around their waist.

Tony White Cloud ushered in modern Native American hoop dancing in the 1930s when he began using multiple hoops to perform stylized dances to weave stories of how life is connected with changes and transitions.There is an annual Native American Hoop Dance competition at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

The hula hoop craze of the late 50's can be traced to Australia, where children twirled hoops made out of bamboo. When the production of bamboo hoops could not meet the demand, Toltoys was engaged to make hoops out of plastic and sold 400,000 hoops in 1957.

Childhood friends Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin began the Wham-O Company in a Los Angeles garage in 1948, originally selling slingshots. Legend has it that Wham-O founders first heard about twirling hoops from a visiting Aussie. They began manufacturing polyethylene hoops in 1958. Wham-O passed out free hoops and gave demonstrations across southern California playgrounds and the hula hooping frenzy was born. This craze lasted from January to October, then died out suddenly. It is estimated that over 100 million hoops were sold in its first year. The original price per hoop was $1.98.

By the mid 60's, hula hoop sales were lagging so Wham-O added several ball bearings inside the tube to make noise. This helped launch a second hooping craze, including a National Hula Hoop Contest that ran from 1968 - 1981. The 1980 World Hula Hoop Championship was held in more than 2,000 cities with an estimated two million participants. Judging was done on compulsory moves, including the Knee Knocker, Stork, Hula Hop, Wrap the Mummy, Alley Oop, as well as freestyle dance routines.

Interesting to note, Wham-O was not able to patent the hula hoop as it had been in use for thousands of years. Merely using a new material did not meet the requirement of originality to secure a patent. They were, however, able to trademark the name"Hula Hoop" in the United States.

Hoops were part of the circus world in the 1960's with Russian and Chinese acrobats in particular incorporating multiple hoops into their acts.

In the 1990s, The Cohen Brothers' fictionalized the invention of the hoop in a film called The Hudscker Proxy.

The jam band The String Cheese Incident is widely credited with spurring a renewed interest in hooping. Band members have been throwing hoops into their audiences since the mid-90's, encouraging their fans to dance, spreading the word and the fun.

Since 2003, the annual Burning Man festival of arts and freedom in the northern Nevada desert has been a hotbed (literally!) of hooping, providing an uninhibited and clothing-optional forum for hoopers from all around the world to share tricks, techniques, and energy. Fire Hooping is encouraged!

Hooping has now found its way into mainstream gyms and studios as a fun and effective form of exercise. Classes can be found all across the US as more and more people rediscover that exercise can be entertaining!