Department: Fresh
Zooey Deschanel Hoops It Up In The Sun
She & Him are back with their second album being released on March 23rd. The duo consisting of singer/actress Zooey Deschanel and indie-folk star M. Ward have a video for their new single entitled "In The Sun" too that has them going back to school like Rodney Dangerfield. Ward is the leading man who plays hard to get, while Deschanel portrays the girl who is helplessly in love with him. A lot of dancings seemingly inspired from Disney's "High School Musical" series are featured in it. Also, there is a scene when Deschanel shows off her hula hooping skills and Ward does a solo performance with his guitar. Watch the video below:
The New York Times On Hooping For Fitness
Hooping.org last spoke with the New York Times in 2004 for a story primarily focused on New York hoop instructor Loren Bidner: "According to hooping.org, a Web site for people interested in Hula-Hooping, there are classes like Mr. Bidner's in nearly a dozen cities across the country, and a handful of companies have begun to market hoops specifically designed for adults." Only a dozen cities? A mere handful of companies? Oh how far we've come! And The New York Times today took a much broader snapshot of hooping for fitness - from Academy Award winning actress Marisa Tomei (pictured with Anah "Hoopalicious" Reichenbach) to Michelle Obama, from Hoopnotica to Gaiam, from Susan Guralnik in California to Jonathan Baxter in North Carolina - there has already been a veritable hooping explosion - and we look forward to showing hoop skeptic Neal Pire just how wrong he can be. Gaiam, the company that brought yoga to gyms, schools and local communities, has shot a hooping workout video with Tomei that is scheduled to be released in May, prompting writer Sean Hamill to call Tomei the "Jane Fonda of Hooping." Marisa's response? "I’m not even going to go there. I’m just a girl with a pink hoop.” Full story: The New York Times.
Allyson Makiej's Triple Approach To Weight Loss
Round and round go the pounds according to 46-year-old hula hoop fitness instructor Allyson Makiej. Based in Lowell, Massachusetts, Makiej is introducing students to hula hoop training as the latest exercise regimen targeted to tone muscles, gain balance and lose weight. She uses a three-way approach to fitness: yoga, hula hoop movements and natural foods nutrition. “The combination of those three for me has been phenomenal,” she said. She also introduces the hula hoop regimen to women who are having gatherings and parties. She has taught classes at hospitals, bariatric weight loss groups, even birthday parties. She says hula hoop exercise can also improve one’s self-esteem. Full story: Taunton Call
Hamline Law Staff Spin Campus Right Round
At Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, it's law school staff members that are teaming up to host free, weekly hoopjams on campus. "The hula hoop is a good workout because it's fun, so people stick to it," said Colleen Clish, Assistant Registrar at the law school. Clish, has already lost five pounds and the hoop group is only a month old. Officially an intramural sport at Hamline, the group of six members is looking for more staff and students to join them. Local resident Paige "DJ Hoopster" Wagner (pictured) is making custom hoops for the participants. Full story: Hamline Oracle
Hula Hooping In Music Videos? Of Course!
It used to be that a hula hoop appearing in a music video was a pretty big deal around here. They were few and far between in Hooping.org's early years, but that simply is not the case anymore. While hooping has taken the world by storm, it seems the best way to add a little energy to a music video these days is to find yourself a hooper. Take Martin Bisi (pictured) and USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker) for example. Bisi is a musican and record producer who has put his stamp on a lot of big names, releasing albums by Sonic Youth, The Dresden Dolls, White Zombie, Helmet, and Herbie Hancock, among others. With the release of his latest EP "Son of a Gun" comes the single "Drink Your Wine" - and the video with a hooper! As for USS - the Canadian duo consisting of Ashley Boo-Schultz and Human Kebab - even if you cross the border you might find a hula hooper on screen, which is exactly the case with Sadie Spin's appearance in "Laces Out" - the band's new single. Watch these videos below:
Global Xchange Gets Young People Volunteering
Global Xchange is a program run by Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and the British Council that brings volunteers from some of the world’s most impoverished nations to England, one of the richest. Why? To help the poor. Tracey Seboru's volunteer work had her supervising three young girls on their hula hoop routine. Seboru, 26 and from Kenya, had practiced the routine with her students many times, two Somali immigrants in traditional Muslim headscarves and an English friend. But the trio lost their cool just moments before going on stage. The hoops, they decide suddenly, are the wrong size and they don’t think they can perform in front of their fellow pupils at Bristol City Academy after all. Seboru to the rescue. Full story: Times Online UK
Whirled Peace Comes To Watertown
Enjoying the benefits of hooping isn't just for kids and fitness Instructor Jozette Borrmann (pictured, of Whirled Peace Hoops) says that the evolution of the hoola hoop crosses not only generations, but genres too, from dance performance to everyday workouts. That's why people are going to the Fairgrounds YMCA in Watertown, New York, to attend her classes, including Mel Busler of WWNY-TV. WWNYShe told the station, "There's many directions you can take it into multiple hooping, LED hooping, fire hooping, you can perform - and you can just treat it as an every exercise. It's the most fun exercise you'll ever have." Watch the video below. Note: Hooping follows the sports scores.
Hooping It Up in Danville, Virginia
When Cindy Jones set out to find some interesting classes to offer at Ballou Recreation Center in Danville, Virginia, she found the perfect one in a hoop dancing class. At a class last week, women of all ages and shapes — and a man wanting to work out his abs — gathered to “hoop.” “It’s inter-generational, good exercise, fun and a stress reliever,” said Jones. Karen Maute, the hoop instructor, had first seen hoop dancing at the Floyd Fest three years ago. “I thought it looked interesting, so I went online and found hoops for sale and DVDs on how to do it and taught myself,” Maute said. “Having a teacher and the support of the class enables you to learn more quickly,” she said. Full story: GoDanRiver.com
Wild About Houston is Wild About Hooping
NiaMoves is a fitness and movement studio offering a variety of classes in Houston, Texas - including Hoopnotica instructors teaching the men and women of Houston how to get in shape by hooping. In fact when Wild About Houston's Host Lara Bell needed to see what all the hoopla was about for herself, Laura Palmer (pictured) put her in class. "Hula hooping is terrific exercise because obviously it's cardiovascular and it involves the entire body," Palmer told her. It appears it was all a big success as well. Bell went online and ordered an adult-sized hoop of her very own. Watch the Wild About Houston news video below:
How To Make Your Own Hula Hoop - UK Style
When you want to make your own hula hoop we can tell you how, but if you live in the UK the materials you use aren't always the same. Instructables highlights what these differences are, like which blue tubing to use, including some great visual aids for just how to make it happen. "This is how to make a hula hoop using components you can buy in the UK. I've been making hula hoops for about two and a half years. I've tried to include here the wisdom I have gained from making lots of hoops. I use the tools that I've found in my mum's garage, as you may not have the same tools, I've tried to suggest possible alternatives. Instructables.com
Colorado School of Mines Gets New Hooping Club
We've been seeing more colleges start hooping clubs, but The Colorado School of Mines? Even other students on the campus that specializes in geosciences are surprised: "We have clubs and organizations for all other types of activities, so why not a Hula Hoop Club? This is the thinking behind fellow student Liz Major's idea to start the club. But don't be fooled, this is a far cry from those innocent little plastic hoop you played with in 2nd grade gym class. The Hoopers' hula hoops are much bigger and heavier, for better performance. Average hoops come between 30-40" and weigh around two pounds. "People at Mines will understand the physics of it," Major assured, "bigger hoops are easier to keep rotating around your body." Oredigger
Hoop La La and Alan Titchmarsh Hoop It Up
Alan Titchmarsh is an English broadcaster and novelist, particularly famous in the field of gardening programs on British television. In 2007, he began having a talk show for ITV, The Alan Titchmarsh Show, and his recent guests were the British hoop performance sensation Hoop La La. The professional circus trio featuring Jesse Rose, Craig Reid and Tiina Tuomisto became UK celebrities when they went to the semi-finals on Britain's Got Talent in 2008. On the show with Titchmarsh, Hoop La La performs and shares the health benefits of hooping before getting Titchmarsh and company in on the act. Watch the video below:
Katina Dunkerly Gets Auburn Hooping
The Auburn Plainsman in Auburn, Alabama, reports: "It’s a Tuesday night at Katina Dunkerly's hula hooping class at the Frank Brown Recreation Center. "I love hooping," Dunkerly, said, "and I’m really wanting to try to just spread the word of hooping wherever I go. I know it sounds weird, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in a bad mood when I’ve been hula hooping." Which was exactly what Dunkerly, aka The Happy Hooper, had to do when she first came to Auburn. Not finding her fellow hoopers she resorted to forming a Facebook group to get more people interested. "I’m really happy that I’ve gotten it started here in Auburn and that its really starting to spread,' Dunkerly said." Full story: Auburn Plainsman
Hula Hoop Heiress Loses Big On Divorce Appeal
Elena Bowes Marano, the Hula Hoop heiress, is being forced by a British court to pay her ex-husband £5 million to cover half the losses he suffered in the property slump, following their divorce battle in Britain's Court of Appeal. Marano, who has a personal fortune of more than £19 million, was asked to pay the sum after her ex-husband Peter Marano's equity in two office blocks went from being £88 million to £10 million in the red within just two years. The American heiress's legal team argued that the £5 million bill was "unfair" and "invaded" the trust fund left by her late father. It is believed to be the largest sum that a spouse has been ordered to pay to cover property losses in a divorce settlement heard by the court. Full story: Telegraph
How to Make High-Performance White Plastic Hoops.
Rich Porter has been hooping with white plastic hoops since he first began experimenting with them a year and a half ago. "When I started my extensive research trying to find a lighter, more rigid plastic for my regular hoop, Patrick of psihoops was one of the first people I contacted. He’s been using alternative plastics for over five years for LED hoops. Back when he started using these types of plastic, the desire for faster, lighter hoops than could be made with black irrigation tubing just didn’t exist in our community." Now he outlines how to connect the tubing in a comprehensive post sharing everything you’ll need to get started. Isopop
Hooping Is Hip Again
The Staten Island Advance in New York reports, "Stomach out. Then suck it back in. That’s the way to keep a hula hoop spinning around your middle, explains Rachel Attardi [pictured] to her class of eager hoopers. But the students in Ms. Attardi’s class at the Staten Island YMCA’s Broadway branch aren’t kids picking up their first hula hoop. They’re grown women looking for a way to exercise and have fun at the same time. “I never put a hula hoop around me that spun for more than a minute and now I can hula hoop,” said Donna Zulch of West Brighton after a recent Wednesday night class. “I go to the gym a lot, to spin class and boot camp, and I wanted a time to go do something different.” Staten Island Advance
Hooping It Up in Huntsville
In Alabama, The Huntsville Times reports, "Amanda Norman, 22, of Huntsville took up her first hoop in 2008 after seeing fire hooping in a YouTube video. Her fascination with the performance led to learning about hooping for fitness. "I started researching it and made my own fire hoops," Norman said. "It started as kind of joke and turned into something very real. I'm getting certified to teach hooping for fitness." She's also a living example of the benefits. "I lost 25 pounds my first year of hooping," she said. "It's helped my confidence, I feel good about my body, and I feel active and healthy." Huntsville Times
NGO Promotes Hula Hooping in Pakistan
When it comes to hula hoops, Pakistan has thirteen-year-old Marium Akhter and her family. In fact they've founded a hula hooping based non-governmental organization and Marium is teaching 800 children how to be the center of their rotation for free, children that have never known peace or programs before. Marium says, "My children are afraid due to the blasting in my country. My organization is giving hope by hula hoop. It is free to learn or join come all. Our little kids are poor and financial help is needed." Their program was recently on the news in Pakistan when Dunya News paid her a visit at Rizwan Park in Karachi and interviewed her parents (video below, translation most appreciated). When I spoke with Marium's father, their organization invited Hooping.org to come to Pakistan. He said, "By helping we will make a difference in the world. By working with us there will be publicity to serve humanity. This is the power of the hula hoop for the world." I couldn't agree more. While the U.S. State Department may not think so, I'm starting to think otherwise. In the meantime, how can we help? "We need old used hula hoops and materials for making them." YouTube, Facebook, Dunya News video and mailing address below:
Their mailing address:
Akhtar jawed
.A3/1.Abuzae squre.sc12.nlock N.north Nazim abad.
post code 74700.
Karachi/Pakistan
Derrick Suwaima Davis Hoop Dance World Champion
Derrick Suwaima Davis (pictured) captured the title of World Champion at the 20th Annual Heard Museum World Championship Hoop Dance Contest this month in Phoenix, Arizona. Davis, who is Hopi & Choctaw, lives in Old Oraibi, Arizona, and scored 240 points. Approximately 70 hoop dancers from across North America showcased their skill and talent in the competition this year. The tradition of dancing with a hoop has an extensive history among Native people. The hoop or circle is symbolic to all Native people. It represents the Circle of Life and the continuous cycle of summer and winter, day and night, male and female. Full listings from the competition can be viewed here. Watch the video of Davis' award winning hoop dance below:
Spilly In The Snow
Let's stop by Baltimore's 32nd Street Farmers' Market in Waverly. The Baltimore Messenger writes, "On that median most Saturdays is hula hoopster Andreas "Spilly" Spiliadis, of nearby Oakenshawe, hooping it up in even the coldest weather. Though he sells a few hula hoops, Spiliadis is mostly out there for fun and is not a vendor at the market. But the median was too big of a mess even for Spiliadis on this Saturday, so he stood atop a snowbank Baltimore City had plowed in the lot. "So I'm vending today," he said with one hula hoop circling his waist and several more at his feet. "I'm also previewing my new spring line," he quipped." Full story:
Explore Baltimore County.com
Hooping For Haiti Helps Her Own Hoop Life
Rachel Stahl in Norwich, Connecticut, had previously been a closet hooper, until fate struck when co-workers were looking for a creative way to help a 2nd grade Haitian native raise money for the recent earthquake. She tentatively suggested making hoops with the kids and selling them at a hoop-a-thon. She soon found herself helping 200 kids (ages 6 to 13) make and decorate almost 80 hoops. Then the local high school's diversity group got in on the act, WFSB Channel 3 showed up, they're raising earthquake relief funds for Haiti and introducing hundreds of families to hooping. And Rachel was pushed to not only hoop for hours nightly in public, but to start her own hoop business. They're Hooping For Haiti on February 24th. The Day
Reflections on The New Hoop
Sara Munro of FlameFatale.net brilliantly writes for the Mythopoetry eZine, "There is something mystical and inexplicable about the hoop experience. I have seen people who have never hooped, who don’t think they could, hoop for up to three hours. I have had marathon sessions in the hoop. Stories of people hooping for five to six hours at a time are not uncommon. What is so galvanizing? For me, there is the sense of coming home. Through direct physical participation with the sacred geometry of the hoop, hoopdance becomes a form of experiential, interactive “sacred physics.” The hooper becomes the axis of hundreds of invisible circular hoop pathways around the body. Together hoop and human become a spirograph spinning trajectories of energy through space. If you could trace these shapes, they would be explicable through mathematical equations, but their felt sensation is difficult to articulate in language." Full Post: Mythopoetry.com
WXII Channel 12's Hoopapalooza Olympic Showdown
WXII Channel 12 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, kicked off their Office Olympics coverage with a "Hoop Off" between their lead anchor Cameron Kent and Jenny, their morning traffic girl. Calling the event "Hoopapalooza," in order for Kent to really compete he went into training, taking a class from Monica Casey of Monkeyhooper.com. Cameron told viewers, "If you want to give your workout a push, this is the hip way to do it - emphasis on the word hip." Casey told Hooping.org, "It was great fun and stirred up lots of buzz in the community about hooping!" Class attendee Angie Richardson told Kent, "It's fun, it's exciting and I'm getting a great cardio workout!" Watch the video here.
Hula Hoop Shortage Caused By Olympic Fever
A surge in Olympic spirit has led to a shortage of hula hoops in Vancouver, British Columbia, with toy stores and wholesalers reporting that the plastic rings are flying off the shelves - five at a time - to create Olympic displays. Five-ring Olympic logos have started appearing in windows, yards and on balconies as Vancouver residents embrace the Olympic spirit. Standing in a warehouse full of toys, the owner of Great West Wholesale, Michael Shew, points to a row of cardboard containers usually reserved for the plastic rings. "This is normally where they are, in these empty boxes here," he said. "They're totally empty. As of two days ago they were over-brimming. In the last two days everyone has picked up the Olympic fever and decided the hula hoops are a good way to represent it," he said. Full story: CBC
Hula Hype: Hooping For Health
NBC Bay Area reports, "Down a dark, industrial alley in San Francisco’s South of Market, just beyond a plain black door, things are spinning. Everywhere you look, plastic hoops are gyrating at a frenetic pace – filling the cavernous studio space with the perpetual motion of whirring gears. In the center of this mayhem, Christabel Zamor shouts out commands to the collection of aspiring hula hoopers who have turned-out for her class. “Imagine your spine is a string of pearls descending from the clouds,” she tells them without breaking the rhythm of her own hoop. ... Now, Zamor’s company, HoopGirl, sells hoops, books, instructional DVDs and has trained and accredited hundreds of hoop instructors around the world." NBC Bay Area
Hula Hooping an Olympic Sport?
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said organizers are considering the possibility of new Olympic sports, but before you start getting excited about hooping in the Olympics, here's what else Rogge had to say. Apparently he doesn't know hooping is alive and well and here to stay. When asked "One of the other things you talked about a lot during your time as president has been modernizing the Games and bringing in sports that appeal to youth. How can the IOC improve in bringing in sports or disciplines with growing appeal and removing sports and disciplines declining in appeal?" His response: "We're always very careful before including a sport in the Olympic program to be sure it's not a one-day trend -- that it's really something popular and something universal. There are many examples of sports that took up and disappeared. ... I'm someone who was raised in the hula-hoop generation. I was good [at] hula hoop. I could hoop very well, and it was a rage, but it never got to the Olympic Games, thank God. We only put it in the Games once it's withstood the test of time.” Sporting News
The Hudsucker Posse Hoops It Up
TIU News in Bloomington, Indiana, reports, "Some may consider the hula-hoop a child’s toy, but The Hudsucker Posse will tell you otherwise. The rhythmic beat of a dozen drums echoes through Bloomington’s Stone Belt gym. The hula-hooping members of the Hudsucker Posse swing their hips and groove to the music. “Hooping burns 600 calories an hour and it combines a cardio workout with resistance training. If you use a weighted hoop, it combines a weight workout and resistance and cardio, so it’s a total fitness core workout,” said Paula Chambers, co-founder of the Hudsucker Posse." Full story at Indiana Public Media. Watch the video below:
University of Maine Gets Hooping
The University of Maine's newspaper reports that there's hula hoopla happening on campus and Christina Pappas found that learning to hoop is easiest when wearing the least amount of clothing possible. “Hooping with just your skin helps you get a better grip on the hoop. When you’re starting out, if there’s a place you can practice in just your underwear, that really will help,” she said. Pappas will be meeting with University officials next week to begin the process of organizing a campus hoop-dance club. She explained, “To make a club, you need 10 members. I have a few more than that, around 15 interested right now, and we’d have to see if more people get interested if we get the club.” Full article: Maine Campus
Julianne McGregor To Hula Hoop Mount Kilimanjaro
Julianne McGregor, 27, is planning to hula hoop her way to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for her best friend with cancer. The London, England, resident, will be hooping along the route up Africa's highest mountain and hopes to spin a few circles at the top. McGregor is raising money for the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) to support her American friend Megan Houchins, who has thyroid cancer. McGregor said: "I'm doing this for my close friend Megan, who is currently fighting cancer, and all other cancer sufferers out there. I enjoy hula hooping anyway, but I thought that I would do it on Mount Kilimanjaro because it would put a smile on Megs' face. If not, the pictures of me dirty, sweaty but resolutely hula hooping surely will." Full story: Metro UK, Belfast Telegraph
Lu Ann Cahn is Trying Something New Every Day
Lu Ann Cahn is a TV news investigative reporter, wife, mom and long time breast cancer survivor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She set out to complete a "first" every day for an entire year, a first being something she's never done before and she's sharing her personal and public journey. And yes, it was only a matter of time until she found herself inside a hula hoop - Day 31 actually - and she also found herself in a class taught by Jennifer Rice of Tailspin Hoops. What did Cahn think? "I loved this. I bought one of her hula hoops. I might take it to the office. If I'm stressed, I might just take it out and do a hula hoop break. I would think it would put any issues in perspective." We think so too Lu Ann. Check out her post with video: One Year of Firsts
Hula Hooping In Music Videos? Of Course!
Global Xchange Gets Young People Volunteering
Whirled Peace Comes To Watertown
Hooping It Up in Danville, Virginia
Wild About Houston is Wild About Hooping
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