Extreme hula hooping is something I am working on bringing to the Baltimore area.  Over the past 6 months the first phase of this effort has begun and is progressing steadily.  The process is a long one, since it involves a change in the culture of our city, though I believe that some of the most unbelievable extreme hooping has lain dormant in our city for years, and so it is not so much a question of creating the culture as unleashing a beast within it.

The first phase is to make hula hoops that get into the hands of as many citizens as possible.  To that end I have unloaded perhaps 200 handmade hoops of an unbelievable variety of sizes and weights.  Hoopers ranging in age from 3 to 70, male and female, all different backgrounds, have begun the first phase of hula hoop consciousness.  From me this phase gets a decidedly underground effort.  I believe that there will be a moment when this person to person recruiting will get a blast of official propaganda, some magazine article or television spot that will begin to peg the whole phenomenon as a fad and then it will seem to be one, attracting more hoopers and giving the artform more validity and exposure. But my job is to secure the organic street credibility of hula hoop.  I go into black and white communities of Baltimore, poor and rich people buy my hoops, the buzz is created by the buzz.  People recognize me in the streets, “you are the hula hoop man, right.”

Extreme hooping involves more than just the waist, and it involves innovation and hard work, so it is not just the “fun” first phase of hula hooping that sees the hula hoop as a super great toy that any age kid can have fun with and get some exercise.

For my own part, I have been working hard to get tricks smoother, trying new things, honing and stretching and building a repertoire of hard to do arrangements with the hula hoop.  Never have I seen or heard of tricks being done with the huge hoops I make, and this becomes another point at which the art goes to another level.  But since the precedent for this kind of hoop work is primarily found in cultures that do not exist in the mainstream of Baltimore life (the hoop trickery stuff is more like a circus skill than say, championship step teams or a king of the microphone, or for that matter, women’s hair in Hampden) some effort must be made to open up space for the battles to begin. 

Thus, in the future, Baltimore will see hula hoop competitions that will challenge the human limitations of what can be done with a circular tube and the body.  I can see this day, and that is my work for the future, to make this happen.  In the meantime it is Monday and my body is sore and the daily grind continues.  There is much to look forward to.