In Hula Hoop Rebirth, A Fad Comes Full Circle

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Jamming and Gyrating: Summer Series Hula Hoop

Fifty years after the Hula Hoop burst onto the U.S. toy market and became a summertime sensation, the hippest toy that once was the province of children is enjoying a renaissance among adults. On Aug. 8, 2008, people in cities around the globe will celebrate World Hoop Day, a holiday on which hoopers give away Hula Hoops and spread their love of hooping.

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This new wave of hooping was born out West. During the 1990s, the Colorado-based jam rock band the String Cheese Incident would fling Hula Hoops into the crowd at concerts. Soon people started dancing with hoops at countercultural parties and burlesque shows.

Powers, 31, was living in Seattle a few years ago when a friend got her hooked.

"I got a hoop right away, and I started making them, bringing them to parties and performing impromptu, improv kind of things, and it took off from there," Powers said. "I just totally fell in love with it."

For just a few dollars, Powers makes her own hoops, of various weights and sizes. She makes them out of irrigation tubing from a hardware store and a connector piece, then decorates them.

When the Rockville native moved back to Maryland in 2006, Powers couldn't find a hooping network. So she made one.

"I definitely thought that the mid-Atlantic could use a lot of loosening up, and hooping hadn't hit here yet," Powers said.

A certified instructor, she also performs at birthday parties and carnivals. Powers teaches herself new tricks, such as spinning the hoop backward, by watching hoopers on YouTube.

"The online community has really tied a lot of hoopers together," she said.

On the Internet, hoopers have virtual hooping identities. There's Hoopadelic, Catwoman and Bunny. And Hoopin' Annie, Hoopnotiq and Hoola Monster. Those who perform professionally have stage names, like Talia Melcer of Silver Spring, who goes by Miss Joule.

Melcer, 30, hoop dances at venues including Palace of Wonders, the sideshow and bar on H Street NE. She has been hooping for five years, and it still brings a smile to her face.

"You can hoop and just kind of forget about what's going on and focus on the current moment," Melcer said.

Some, like O'Keeffe, dance with flaming hoops. (Warning! Do not try this at home.)

"I have so many tricks under my belt. I hoop with fire. I hoop with lights," said O'Keeffe, 35, a nursing student in San Francisco who founded World Hoop Day three years ago.

It's not just 20- and 30-somethings drawn to hooping. Rhonda Lindenbaum is a 62-year-old hooping nurse in Martinsburg, W.Va.

For years, Lindenbaum struggled with her weight, and when she lost 65 pounds three years ago, she had a hard time keeping it off. She's not very coordinated -- "actually, clumsy," she said -- but when she heard that hooping was good exercise, she tried it. Within a month, she built up her muscles and lost two inches from her waist. And hooping has done wonders for her balance.

"Sometimes I hoop to very fast music, reggae music, soul, sometimes even Andrea Bocelli or Indian chants," Lindenbaum said. "If I don't get to hoop one day, I feel like I'm missing something.

"I sound like a fanatic, but I'm really not."