Becoming a ‘Slave to the Rhythm’... of the hula hoop

Christine Manby puts on her Grace Jones record, stands on her bed, and returns to her childhood days of spinning the hoop. All for health reasons, of course

Illustration by Tom Ford

As a kid, I loved hula hooping. It was about the one physically active thing I could actually do. My little sister could do handstands, cartwheels and backflips. She was often seen hanging by one ankle from the top of the swing set. I couldn’t do any of that – but I could spin a hoop around my waist for hours at a time.

The hula hoop has been around for time immemorial. It’s believed that hoops were a popular toy in Ancient Egypt. Hooping was a huge “craze” in 14th century England, when hoops were made from wood and metal. Several people died as a result of overdoing it. The hoop was certainly big in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when it was bowled along with a stick. But the hoop as we know it, like most things made of plastic, found its modern incarnation in the 1950s when it was put into mass production by the Wham-O toy company. They gave their plastic hoop, modelled on a bamboo exercise hoop, its popular name – hula hoop – and two years after its release in 1958, more than a million were in circulation. Geddit?

Since then the hula hoop has been a staple of modern childhood and of light entertainment. Dedicated hoopers have broken astonishing records. In November 2019, champion hula-hooper Jenny Doan (not to be confused with Jenny Doan the champion quilter) kept a hoop spinning for almost 100 hours (I’m assuming she was allowed to stop for loo breaks). Meanwhile, Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist Marawa the Amazing can spin an incredible 200 hoops in one go.