Childhood pastime, modern beat

BACK in the day, I was a kickball, tetherball, four-square girl, definitely not the star hooper on my school playground. But when I heard about Los Angeles’ hula hoop scene, I had to check it out.

It’s not quite “underground,” except to a square like me, but few people outside music festivals and offbeat exercise classes are familiar with hoop dancing, a 21st century incarnation of the old-time elementary school hobby. So you have to search in odd places to find the really cool classes.

With a little digging, I quickly discovered that Anah Reichenbach was the teacher for me.

With her hair in ponytails, a dusting of glitter around her eyes and a giant hula hoop swirling hypnotically around her tiny, washboard-waist, Reichenbach (aka “Hoopaliscious”) is your childhood friend all grown up and ready to go clubbing.

The 30-year-old has held “hoop-downs” at Burning Man arts festival, hooped-out on a Coke commercial and had her giant hoop-dancing self projected on humongous screens in stadiums during Sting’s Sacred Love Tour (2004). She is, in the lingo of the hooping world, a hooperstar.

She also teaches classes at the MKM Cultural Center in North Hollywood.

I signed up for a class called Hoop Hatchlings, which, as its name suggests, was meant for those new to the hula hooping world.

On a recent Sunday, seven students filed into a dance studio for the hour-and-a-half class, carrying huge hoops laced with stripes of neon and silver tape. These were not the light plastic Wham-O hoops of my childhood. These were made of heavy-duty irrigation tubing.

As many independent hoop teachers do, Reichenbach makes hoops herself and sells them to students in a personal cottage industry that will soon include a line of Anah’s specially designed hoopwear (Vortex, Hoopwear for Hotties). The hoops are bigger than the traditional version, about 42 inches across, and heavier too. They weigh about 2 pounds and cost $25 (for the basic model) to $50 (for the collapsible travel model).

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Coming back in a big way

In the 10 years since Reichenbach first picked up a hoop at a music festival and hooped for five hours straight, the ‘50s fad has gone from marginal to practically mainstream. There are cardio hoop classes offered at select Bally’s Total Fitness clubs across the country (none in Los Angeles), and the Westin St. John Resort in the U.S. Virgin Islands just launched poolside hula hoop workshops in January to appeal to baby boomers who came of age when the first hooping craze swept the nation. Indie filmmaker Amy Goldstein is working on a documentary called “Hoop: A Revolution of Sorts.” (see www.hoopthemovie.com). It is scheduled to premiere at film festivals later this year.

Before the class started, Reichenbach explained the two basic schools of hula hooping. There is circus-style, which involves multiple hoops and tricks. Then there is “hoop-dance,” which has tricks too, but the focus is on the dancing. Within hoop-dance, she explained, are the followers of the Colorado jam band String Cheese Incident, who use bigger hoops and have a hippie bluegrass style, and her own style of hooping, which incorporates electronic music and break dance-type moves.

“It’s like they are hooping on opium,” she said of the String Cheese followers, whereas “My style is like hooping on speed.” (Neither involves drugs, she said. “Hooping is its own intoxicant.”)

We stretched for 10 minutes then began to roll our rib cages like belly dancers. Then it was our hips that we circled slowly, pushing them out as far as they would go. At last, we sent our hoops spinning. From the outset, things did not look good for me -- as the mirror on the wall constantly reminded. My hoop spun unevenly; my body lurched into jerky circular movements.

“Try to go for economy of movement,” Reichenbach said, as she moved her body ever so slightly -- the hoop seeming to float in perfect circles around her.

From there we did squats, with our hoops still spinning, then added arm movements, moving our hands up and over our heads in undulating waves like Hawaiian hula dancers. It felt like rubbing your stomach and patting your head, only much, much harder. If you dropped your hoop, it clattered down like a waiter’s dropped tray of glasses. That happened to me a lot.

With that as a deterrent, the other dancers and I furrowed our brows in concentration and spun harder.

“Remember, this is fun!” Reichenbach said.

From there, the funky electronic music picked up and we did speed intervals -- first hooping at high speed, then low. The sweat started to flow. “Faster, faster, faster,” she said. Then the beat backed up, and we slowed it waaaaaaay down, doing big, lazy loops.

I was trying so hard to hoop I was leaning forward like a racer, with my teeth clenched and my hoop careening out of balance.

“What we are doing here is hoop-dance,” Reichenbach reminded us. “With an emphasis on dance. Don’t just stand there. Don’t just mimic me. Put those dance elements in when you are grooving out. It’s a little bit of a brain exercise.”

That is an understatement. For me, hoop-dancing was harder than learning Japanese and more challenging than climbing a rock.

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Roundabout route to the ‘hoop zone’

The hooping doesn’t involve strength so much as supreme concentration, but tension is inversely proportional to success. Hoop-aholics call the perfect, relaxed rhythm “the hoop zone.”

I never made it to the zone. My brain hurt and I became dizzy, even as Reichenbach danced effortlessly inside her hoop. She moved like a crazy, sexy club dancer as the ring of tubing circled up and down her body. It was mesmerizing to watch.

We followed her, walking in a big circle around the room with our hoops spinning.

“Pretend it’s an all-night dance party,” she shouted. We jerked and gyrated to our own uncertain rhythms: “Make sure you are dancing to the music that is actually playing,” she said. Ouch.

Everything up until then was a review. Now it was time to add a new move to our hooping repertoire: the black hole. Reichenbach raised her hand and whirled the hoop around her wrist, swung it down to her knees and leaped through it, then spun it back up again. Now we were out of control. Hoops flew and bodies crashed. “Hooper down! Hooper down!” Reichenbach called as one woman jumped into the black hole and fell over laughing.

I watched my classmates, then took the leap. I twirled the hoop on my wrist at high speed. The hoop flew. The hoop crashed. I tripped. I stumbled. And on the 51st try or so I brought it down, hopped into my spinning black hole and spun out the other side. Oh my God! It worked! I felt 5 again. I was so proud, I wanted to yell, “Look at me!”

“Now,” announced Reichenbach, “it’s time for blindfolds. It sounds kinky, but it’s spiritual. Feel the energy created inside the hoop,” she said. “Some people forget they are hooping. So step into that space ... “

With that in mind, she put on some music with a deep backbeat and we got into our personal relationship with the hoop. Truly, there is not much like it. We were spinning and spinning and, with the blindfolds on, I felt as if my head was slowing down even as my body was moving. It was like meditating, dancing, floating and dreaming all at once. It did feel like a drug-induced state. I wondered: Did the Sufis use hula hoops?

As Reichenbach writes on her website, hooprevolution.com: “What I experience when I hoop is an alternative dimension, a place of no thought, high vibration frequencies and limitless potential.” Like Reichenbach, true believers say hooping can be a form of meditation, art, dance or sensual experience. It’s different for everybody.

“We always laugh in this class,” Prudence Baird said. “We laugh so hard. That’s something you don’t do in an aerobics or yoga class.”

Viva Sullivan, 50, of Beachwood Canyon says she hoops up her cul-de-sac at home. “I know people who saw me would think, ‘This really is California,’ ” she said. “But it’s a very meditative thing.”

Added Yumi Saafir, 31, of Canoga Park: “I saw people doing it at clubs and parties and I just wanted to do it. But it’s hard.”

Greg Workman, 29, the only male in the class, is a professional fire dancer. He said friends recommended he take up hooping to expand his repertoire. “I fell in love with the hoop,” he said. “It allows for freedom of expression, and it is an awesome workout. And I am totally inspired by the way Anah hoops.”

As for me, after a single class I was hooked. The class was less tiring than spinning but more strenuous than 90 minutes of yoga -- and way more fun. It was also a good workout. (The next day, my upper abs were sore and I found bruises on my hips.)

I fell asleep that night with an electronic beat in my ears and visions of Anah in her hoop, swirling and whirling around and around and around ...