COTSWOLD Feature
Queen of the hoopers
Growing numbers are turning to hula hooping to raise their fitness levels. Sue Bradley meets Gloucestershire’s queen of the hoopers Luna Dewey to discover why it’s so popular.
Pictures by Carl Hewlett
GRACE Jones did it at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert and Kelly Osbourne reckons it helped her to lose two inches from her waistline in five days. Hula hooping is back and it’s
a great way to improve fitness and encourage weight loss, says Cotswolds-based expert Luna Dewey, who runs the popular UleyHoopers classes as well as sessions for children attending the All Sorts Youth Club in Stroud. It’s also been found to have a
positive effect on our general sense of wellbeing, so much so that Luna is setting up a charity to provide a volunteer-run hula hoop support group to help people living with, or who have survived, serious mental health conditions. The 22-year-old has not
looked back since taking up hula hooping when she was 17, going on to spend many hours perfecting her technique in the fields behind her home in Uley and at various training weekends and conventions. “My boyfriend at the time was
a professional fire performer,” she explains. “He performed with the award-winning Arcadia group at venues such as Glastonbury and I went travelling with him, providing a support act in shows all over South East Asia “I really enjoyed the lifestyle
and gained the confidence to pursue a circus performance
career professionally. I was given my first hoop by my friend Livi Little about five years ago. I quickly grew to love hula hooping, spending all my spare time trying to master the prop.” While most people associate
the waist with hula hooping, Luna uses several parts of her body when she’s performing. “I hoop using my neck,
elbows, hands, waist, thighs, chest, shoulders and knees and do lots of different moves, including elevators, escalators, chest rolls and isolations, which involve moving the hoop up and down the body, as well as off body moves, which isolate the hoop in space to create the effect of an optical illusion,” she explains. “It’s a really fun way to
improve fitness, helping to tone lots of different muscles. I’ve seen statistics that say it burns 420 calories in an hour, although I think you really would have to be hooping pretty hard and moving a lot to achieve this amount of burn. “Some use the hula hoop as a
tool for meditation; it is great for focusing the mind and splitting awareness of the body. “Group hooping is incredibly
sociable, while solo hooping brings its own rewards such as increased fitness, confidence, movement and creativity.” Luna regularly travels all over
Europe to perform at festivals and processions, such as the recent Paris Carnival, and has
48 COTSWOLDESSENCE | September - November 2013
www.cotswoldessence.co.uk
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