Dictionary:

Hula-Hoop

  (hū'lə-hūp')

A trademark used for a light plastic hoop that is whirled around the body for play or exercise by the movement of the hips.

The late 1950s saw one of biggest fads documented by sociologists, the Hula Hoop. Like many fads, the hoop is deceptively simple. It is made of hollow plastic, usually very bright in color, and sometimes with the hollow carrying a couple of ball bearings, bells, or other noise makers. With a variety of sizes the diameter of a hoop toy ranges from 20 in (51 cm) to about 3 ft (91 cm).

Background

Fads interest sociologists because they are adopted by a broad range of persons. To be called a fad, the idea must be a "key invention" that has the possibility of generating many offshoots. The Hula Hoop certainly fits this description because enough variations in size, color, and ornamentation of the hoop enabled each child to own a special version, and children can create their own styles of spinning the hoops. Hula Hoopspinning contests were held at local fairs, and records were established for the most hoops kept in motion for the longest time periods. These contests are reminders of yet another use of the hoop; jugglers have spun small-diameter hoops on their arms, legs, necks, and on sticks to the delight of circus crowds for generations.

History

Varieties of hoops have always been toys. Along with the ball, the hoop may be among the most popular toys. The ancient Greeks were the first to popularize the hoop, and many of their documents—including illustrations on pottery—show the hoop in action. The hoop was a toy for Greek children, but it was also an exercise device. Hooprolling was thought to be a light and beneficial exercise for people not strong enough for more intense exercise or sport. Roman children also played with hoops, and both Greek and Roman versions were made of metal fashioned from scrap strips.

Native Americans used hoops for more than just toys. Eskimos played a game in which a hoop is rolled and poles are thrown through it as it rolls. This game, for children and adults, taught practical skills needed in harpooning and other hunting. North American Indians used the hoop in many ways. Like the Eskimos, the Indians used it as a target for teaching accuracy in shooting arrows and in throwing. Among the Lakota Indians, hoop dancing became a sophisticated art form that is still practiced today. To the Lakota, the hoop represents the circle of life, the vast circle of the horizon as the viewer turns to look all around, and the many repeating patterns in nature like the cycle of the moon. In the hoop dance, the dancer may use 12-28 hoops to forms symbols and figures.

Like the Hula Hoop, the hoops made by the hoop dancer must be large enough to move over the shoulders and around the body; hoops that are about 28 in (71 cm) in diameter are made of natural materials like willow, rattan (a flexible but strong vine), or plastic tubing. Rattan or willow is soaked in water until it softens and can be shaped into a circle. The ends are wrapped with binding. The tubing easily takes the round shape, and a short length of wooden dowel is inserted into the matching ends to even the alignment and form a strong joint. This is also wrapped with binding. Colored binding is wrapped around the entire tube so patterns can be used in the dance. White, yellow, red, and black are the colors of the four directions (north, south, etc.) and the four races of human-kind, according to the Lakota.

Children's hoop toys in Western Europe were made of wood. Hoop-rolling also achieved fad status in England in the 1800s, and those hoops were wood fitted with metal strips or tires on the outer edge. Hoop rolling was called bowling a hoop. The hoop was propelled along the sidewalk, street, or ground with the hand or with a stick called a skimmer. This same fad traveled to the United States, and antique hoops are now favorite toys of collectors. Push hoops were used to help teach babies to walk. Usually, hoops for the very young contained bells or made other sounds to hold the child's interest. Another popular design had pieces of wood shaped much like the spools that hold sewing thread on the spokes of the push hoop. As the hoop turned, the spools slid back and forth on the spokes to make a jingling sound. The rolling hoop was patented in 1871 by Albert Hill. Hill's rolling hoops were about 12-20 in (20-51 cm) in diameter and were pushed with handles that were 20-27 in (51-69 cm) long. The handles and hoops were made of wood with a natural finish, but the noise-making spools were brightly painted.

Other hoops uses and games have long histories but are still known today. Hoops can be thrown, as in the game called quoits, or spun. They are used as targets in games like basketball, and, in football, suspended hoops or tires are targets for improving the aim of quarterbacks. Also in football, hoops or tires laid on the ground are used to improve foot mobility, coordination, and speed among players.

The toy known as the Hula Hoop was born out of the brainstorm of two American toy inventors who learned about an Australian practice. Arthur "Spud" Melin and Richard Knerr heard that Australian children used rings made of bamboo for exercise. They produced a plastic hoop in 1958 and promoted it around the Los Angeles, California, area by going to playgrounds, demonstrating the hoop to the kids, and giving away Hula Hoops. Their playground-to-playground salesmanship produced the biggest toy fad the United States has ever witnessed. In four months, over 25 million Hula Hoops were sold in the United States for $1.98 each; worldwide, over 100 million were sold in 1958 alone. In Japan, the hoop was banned, and the Soviet Union described it as evidence of the decadence of American culture. At the peak of its popularity, Wham-O, Inc. produced 20,000 hoops per day; it is estimated that the plastic tubing for all the Hula Hoops sold would stretch around the world more than five times.

Numerous records in the Guinness Book of World Records have involved hoop spinning; in 1999, Lori Lynn Lomeli spun 82 Hula Hoops at the same time for three complete revolutions, a feat that garnered her a place in the book. The Hula Hoop phenomenon never completely disappeared off toy shelves, but it has ebbed and flowed in popularity like most fads. In the late 1990s, the Hula Hoop again experienced a renaissance and appears to be going strong long after its 40th birthday.

Raw Materials

The only materials in most hula hoops is plastic, pigments for coloring the plastic, any inserts like ball bearings, staples to close the circles, and paper labels with adhesive backing. Plastic is used to make both the hoop and the dowel-like insert forming the joint. Some hoops have ball bearings, beads, stars, glitter, bells, or other noise-makers inside the hollow tube. These add extra visual interest and motion or sound as the twirler spins the hoop. Metal staples and the paper labels are provided by outside, specialty suppliers.

Design

Like all toys, the Hula Hoop, even in its simplicity, adapts to changing trends. Color trends change the color combinations in the hoops every few years (Wham-O changes the colors of its hoops every year), and toy designers look for other ways of varying and remarketing the toy to keep it among the top sellers. One recent design features fruit-scented hoops that give off a slight, pleasantly fruity smell as the plastic warns in play or in the sun. The scent matches the color of the hoop (grape scent for purple hoops, orange for tangerine-colored plastic, and so forth). Others are wrapped with glittery paper.

Children are not the only target market for design and sales of spinning hoops. Their benefits as an exercise toy are celebrated, and one manufacturer has added a calorie counter to the hoop. Fitted in the joint where the two ends of the plastic tube meet, the calorie counter uses a microprocessor to count the number of revolution, duration of spinning, and calories expended. The micro-processor also offers spoken encouragement as the spinner reaches "personal bests" in number of revolutions and time spent twirling, and it plays five choices of music for added incentive. An AA battery powers the counter. The health-conscious hoop is 36 in (91 cm) in diameter, and the tube has a larger diameter than the child's toy at 1-1.5 in (3.8 cm). It also weighs 2.25 lb (0.84 kg).

The Manufacturing Process

1. The process for making Hula Hoops is as straightforward as the toy itself. The factory receives high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic in pellets that are already colored or that can be tinted with pigments in the factory. The plastic beads or pellets are fed into a hopper. From the hopper, they flow into the barrel of an extrusion machine. The pellets are heated by mechanical means using heat of friction in the barrel, and pigments are added as needed. Dies inside the extruder shape the thickness of the tube that is extruded as a continuous piece of plastic. In a proprietary process, Wham-O uses a twist machine so that a stripe in the plastic twists around the plastic hoop.
2. The tube cools quickly and is cut into lengths equal to the circumference of the particular hoop by a high-speed cutoff, which is much like a circular saw. Wham-O makes three different lengths of tube resulting in hoops of three different diameters for a range of sizes and ages of hoopsters.
3. The lengths of hoop are loaded on to large carts much like those used to carry lengths of steel. They are fed manually through a benching machine that curves the tube lengths into hoop shapes.
4. Ball bearings or other noise and motion pieces are inserted in the hoops. The hoops are then fitted with a plastic dowel or insert that is another extruded piece that is also hollow but slightly smaller in outer diameter than the hoop. The insert is stapled in place to attach the ends. The staples are held in place by friction, and a label is fastened over the insert and staples for added safety.
5. The finished hoops are conveyed to the and packing department; the three sizes of hoops are all nested together in the same packing box to reduce the amount of packing materials that are needed and to save retailers storage space.

Byproducts/Waste

Plastics manufacture is a toy-making speciality. Makers of Hula Hoops usually make a number of colors, sizes, and other varieties. They also produce other plastic toys that use similar extrusion and molding techniques. Waste is minimal. When colors are changed in the extruder, the old color is wasted, but this amounts to only 0.1% of the volume of plastic used in hoop manufacture. Hoops that are defective are pulled from the manufacturing line and collected in bins for recycling.

Employee safety is carefully controlled by government regulation, employee training, and distance. Regulations by the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) limit employee exposure to the high heat and pressure of the extrusion machine. Safety guards keep employees a safe distance from the cutoff, twist machine, and other heavy machinery. The employees are also well educated in their own protection. In the 50-year history of the Wham-O Hula Hoop, there have been no factory injuries or injuries caused by the toy itself.

Quality Control

Quality enters the process during design when extrusion dies and other tools are made to low tolerances for error. This helps reduce irregularities during manufacture and waste of plastic. Inspectors are stationed at each machine to observe the product at every step. All employees have the responsibility of taking faulty hoops out of any stage of manufacture. A final quality audit is performed before the hoops are packed.

The Future

The Hula Hoop seems to have established a firm place in the American way of life and childhood. It now has a steady sales pattern and seems destined to remain a part of our play. The hoop's popularity is helped by modern emphasis on health and exercise. In the future, manufacturers expect to emphasize play patterns so the hoops can be used more like a game and to introduce new products to help make the hoop a purely individual toy. Just as older civilizations celebrated the symbolism of the circle, American children have found their own hoop dance to add to play and exercise.

Where to Learn More

Books

Barenholtz, Bernard, and Inez McClintock. American Antique Toys. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1980.

Left Hand Bull, Jacqueline, and Suzanne Haldane. Lakota Hoop Dancer. New York: Dutton Children's Books, 1999.

Other

Hula Hoops. http://www.hula-hoops.com (January 2001).

Wham-O, Inc. http://www.wham-o.com (January 2001).

[Article by: Gillian S. Holmes]

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: plaything consisting of a tubular plastic hoop for swinging around the hips

Children playing with hula hoops.

This article is about the hula hoop toy. For the snack food, see Hula Hoops.

The hula hoop is a toy hoop, usually made of plastic, that is twirled around the waist, limbs, or neck.

History

Although the exact origins of hula hoops are unknown, children around the world have played with hoops, twirling, rolling and throwing them throughout history. Traditional materials for hoops include grapevines and stiff grasses. Today, they are often made of plastic.

In Egypt around 3,000 years ago, hoops made out of grape vines were propelled around the ground with sticks. In the 14th century, "hooping" was popular in England and medics blamed it for heart attacks and back dislocations. The word "hula" was added in the early 18th century as sailors who visited Hawaii noticed the similarity between hula dancing and hooping.

In 1957 the hula (also frequently spelled "hoola") hoop was reinvented by Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Medlin, founders of the Wham-O toy company. (The two had founded the company in a Los Angeles garage in 1948 to market the "Wham-O" slingshot, which was originally invented to shoot pieces of meat into the air, as a training device for falcons). The idea came from an Australian who had visited California who told Knerr and Melin about children twirling bamboo hoops around the waist in gym class. The new Hula Hoops were made possible by Marlex, a recently invented durable plastic.

Knerr and Medlin were unable to patent their vastly profitable "re-invention", as it had been in use for thousands of years; making the device out of a new material did not meet patent requirements of originality. They were largely able, however, to protect their invention by trademarking "Hula hoop".

After the hoop was released in 1958, Wham-O sold over 100 million in two years. As the fad ran its course, Wham-O again struck lucky with the release of their Frisbee.

To relaunch the Hula Hoop in the late 1960s, Wham-O staged a national competition in the US in conjunction with the National Parks & Recreation Network. The National Hula Hoop Contest (subsequently re-named the World Hula Hoop Championships) grew in scope from 500 U. S. cities in 1968 to over 2,000 cities in 1980, with 2 million participants. Competitors were judged on their performance of compulsory maneuvers (Knee Knocker, Stork, Hula Hop, Wrap the Mummy, Alley Oop) as well as freestyle routines set to music, establishing the roots of the contemporary freestyle Hula Hoop movement.

Winners of the national competitions during 1968 - 1980 were as follows:

• 1968 - Marilou Jones;
• 1969 - Melody Howe;
• 1970 - Richard Low;
• 1971 - Sandra Gaylord;
• 1972 - David Williams;
• 1973 - Lori Ray;
• 1974 - DeAnn DeLuna;
• 1975 - Mat Plendl;
• 1976 - Joanne Barnes;
• 1977 - Carl Cooke;
• 1978 - Robert Lynn White;
• 1979 - Mark Sforzini;
• 1980 - Lori Hayes

In 1983 Wham-O re-launched the Hula Hoop in western Europe, 25 years after the original worldwide craze, with national competitions staged in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Circus

From Circus Smirkus performance 2006

The hula hoop emerged in the world of circus in the 1960s. Russian and Chinese artists took the hula hoop to extremes. These influenced contemporary circus artists like Australian circus comedienne and hula hoop historian Judith Lanigan, who performs the Dying Swan — "a tragedy with hula hoops" — using 30 hula hoops. The Cirque du Soleil's "Alegria" features a hula hoop contortionist.

World Records

Duration

An early duration record for the hula hoop was set by 8-year-old Mary Jane Freeze, who won a hooping endurance contest on 19 August, 1976, by lasting 10 hours and 47 minutes. The current record is held by Roxann Rose of the USA, who went 90 hours between 2 April and 6 April, 1987.^[1]

Hoop running

Records for running while twirling a hula hoop around the waist are:^[1]

• 100 m: 13.84 seconds, by Roman Schedler (Austria), 16 July, 1994
• 1 mile: 7:47, by Paul "Dizzy Hips" Blair (USA), date unknown
• 10 km, men: 1:06:35, by Paul "Dizzy Hips" Blair (USA), date unknown
• 10 km, women: 1 hour 43 minutes, by Betty (Shurin) Hoops (USA), 23 February 1972

Other records

The record for the most hoops twirled simultaneously is 100, by Kareena Oates of Australia (4 June, 2005). The largest hoop successfully twirled was 13.88 meters (45.55 feet) in circumference, by Ashrita Furman of the USA (September, 2005). The record for simultaneous hula-hooping (minimum time: 2 minutes) is for 2,290 participants at Chung Cheng Stadium in Kaohsiung (Taiwan) on 28 October, 2000.^[1]

In 2000, Roman Schedler spun a 53-pound tractor tire for 71 seconds at the 5th Saxonia Record Festival in Bregenz, Austria.^[1]

In 2005, in Brazil, twelve year old Thatiana Rocha Oleinik danced to popular music with 22 hula hoops on television.^[2]

Today

Fire hooping

The past few years have seen the re-emergence of hula hooping. Modern hula-hoopers can be found among fans of jambands like The String Cheese Incident and attendees of Burning Man. Many modern hoopers make their own hoops out of polyethylene tubing. They are much larger and heavier than hoops of the 1950s. These hoops may be covered in a fabric or plastic tape to ease the amount of work in keeping a hoop twirling around the dancer, and can be very colorful. Some use glow-in-the dark, patterned, or sparkling tape, and others are produced with clear tubing and filled with plastic balls, glitter, or even water to produce visual or audio effects when used. LED technology has also been introduced in the past few years allowing hoops to light up at the flick of a switch.

Within the past few years, some hoopers have taken up fire hooping, in which spokes are set into the outside of the hoop and tipped with kevlar wicks which are soaked in fuel and lit on fire.

The biomechanical aspects of hula hooping were the subject of a recent research paper.^[3]

Cultural references

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The sale of the 100-millionth hula hoop by Wham-O is referenced in Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" as one of the most significant events of 1959.

• A fictionalized version of the invention of the Hula Hoop is the core of the story of the Coen Brothers' 1994 film The Hudsucker Proxy, where it is referred to as (among other things) an "Extruded Plastic Dingus".

• In Brazil, Thatiana Rocha Oleinik has promoted hula hooping on the main television channel (Jo Soares, Eliana) since 1997.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Hooping.org Magazine is a hooping-oriented magazine website.
• The Hooper's Compendious is a wiki to resource of hooping tricks
• Hooping Tribe on Tribe.net is a sister site of hooping.org
• Hoopaholics Australia Australia's comprehensive hooping resource.
• NPR: Hula Hooping Gets Groovy Again (audio podcast)

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} http://www.recordholders.org/en/list/hulahoop.html
2. ^ http://www.rankbrasil.com.br/2002/thaty/
3. ^ R. Balusubramaniam and M. T. Turvey, Coordination Modes in the Multi-Segmental Dynamics of Hula-Hooping, Biological Cybernetics 90, 176-190 (2004) article in pdf-format

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