fi tbody
H P it up for health
A FUN WAY TO GET A GROOVE ON by Ellen Mahoney
TV Producer Garry Marshall W
hen Betty Shurin, aka “Betty Hoops,”
picked up a hula hoop 10 years ago, she didn’t know that one day she’d take home a Guinness
First Lady Michelle Obama
World Record. But in 2005, Shurin set the pace for the world of hula racing, running Colorado’s 10-kilometer Bolder Boulder event with her bright red hoop continually spinning around her waist. “My goal was no stopping and no drop- ping,” she says.
Today, like many fitness trainers
across the country, this hooping pioneer teaches people of all ages and body types who are inter- ested in getting fit,
losing weight, shaping up or just having fun.
“Hooping changes people’s lives,” Shurin observes. “I love that when I hoop with
others, I get to experience the sheer
playfulness of a child.” The hoop has been around for
thousands of years, beginning in the form of encircled grapevines and grasses used as a toy by children. The evolution of the hula hoop, influenced by the Ha-
HOOPING TIPS
■ Use a hoop weighing 1 to 2 pounds; anything heavier creates too much torque for the organs and spine.
■ Stand up tall with good posture and feet a hip-distance apart; don’t look down.
■ Breathe deeply from the body’s core and push belly muscles toward the hoop.
■ Rock hips back and forth or from side-to-side; don’t rotate the hips in a circle.
■ Maintain the rhythm via belly and hip movement; don’t use the knees or lower back.
■ If the hoop starts to fall, move faster. Source: Betty Shurin and
BettyHoops.com
40 Collier/Lee Counties swfl
.naturalawakeningsmag.com
waiian island dance, emerged in 1958 when wooden hoops from Australia morphed into America’s plastic edition, courtesy of the Wham-O toy company. Hooping became an instant hit and a cultural icon, which lost appeal over time until revitalized in the late ’90s at music festivals. That’s when fitness folks became inspired to use the hoop for getting in shape.
These days, Shurin, a certified
anusara yoga teacher, focuses her pio- neering spirit on hoop training as artful exercise that blends aspects of yoga, sports and dance in workshops that crisscross the United States. She says hoop exercise realigns and strengthens core elements of the musculoskeletal system and claims individuals can lose inches around the waist and burn up to 600 calories an hour with her program. Karla
Kress-Boyle, a dancer
from Con- necticut, says she is much stronger from the
hooping that
helped her take off weight after
having a baby. She adds, “It definitely strengthened my abdominal muscles.” Hula hooping is not exclusive to women. Philo Hagen, editor of Los Angeles-based
Hooping.org, discovered the updated phenomenon at a party and says it immediately helped him quiet the chatter in his head. “I just felt like I was connecting with the music and my body, and wound up hooping for hours.” Hagen soon realized how hooping was also helping him “acciden- tally get in shape.”At heart, he felt he was becoming more centered in both body and mind.
Shurin explains that, “Hooping is similar to the [Sufi] whirling dervish dance that emphasizes the laws of physics, metaphysics and quantum physics.” In addition to strengthening the body, she sees the hoop as a wheel- like vortex that enables the hula hooper to receive energy, as well as release it. She recommends using a weighted adult-sized hoop that weighs no more
Amazing
online videos at: •
TheHoopingLife.com
•
HoopRevolution.com/ performance
•
Hooping.org
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