Yin and the Yang of Hooping
By Nancy B. Loughlin
Published in Elephant Journal on July 5, 2012
YIN: Hooping the Body
A hard hip-swivel with a hoop burns 100 calories in ten minutes. That fact alone is guaranteed to get anyone’s attention.
Gina DeFrancesco is a hooper and artist in Port Charlotte, FL, who began hooping in 2008, and she was amazed with the immediate physical results. In the first three months, she lost 15 pounds. Her body transformed, becoming more graceful and lithe.
She marveled that she, a person who would hurt herself in a yoga class, was successfully performing something physical, she recalls with amusement. She doesn’t want to be hyperbolic, but hooping changed her life, she said.
The hooping movement has evolved into a popular modality of fitness and dance, for gym members as well as for solo hoopers. But the hoop is hardly new with evidence of hooping dating back to ancient Greece and Egypt. The modern hoop became popular in the United States and around the world when the Wham-O Company (of Frisbee fame), marketed a $1.98 plastic Hula Hoop in the late 1950s, igniting the Hula Hoop craze.
