Hula Hoops
I'm pretty sure that every child in the U.S has either seen or played with a hula hoop as a child or even in their life time for that matter. The circular hoop is made out of plastic today but in the 500 bce willow, rattan, grapevines or stiff grasses. You place it round your body and move your hips in a circular motion to have the hula hoop move in a circle counter clock wise without holding the hula hoop. in Egypt the children would play with them, made of grape vines, by rolling them around, swinging them around with sticks.
In the 17th century Great Britain hula hoops were used for religious ceremonies and in some cases there are medical documents that state that people have dislocated their backs or even had a heart attack because of it.... note to self: take it easy on the hula hooping.... the name of it came from sailors who had seen hula dancers moving with the same motion that the Egyptian children would do when they played with them. But instead of moving it with sticks they would move it with their hips.
around the 14oo's the native Americans found dancing as a way for telling stories and they wuld dance with hoops resembling eagles, snakes, ect. Their dances used very fast movements and the off-body use of hoops to construct symbolic forms around their bodies...... so interpretive dancing?....maybe.... After many years of this traditional dancing they adopted an annual Native American Hoop Dancing competition at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona
The hula hoop Phenomena of the 50’s can be traced to Australia, where children twirled hoops made out of bamboo. When the production of bamboo hoops could not meet the demand, Toltoys , a popular toy company such as Fisher Price, began to make hoops out of plastic and sold 400,000 hoops in 1957....... The Evolution Of Hula Hoops..... Where can you find this in a history text book?... The small colorful plastic tube made primarily for children to play adapted to be a way of exercise..
Hula hoops were a great part in m childhood but they remind me of a beautiful thing Known as Karma. Karma is associated with "what goes around come around" or " you get out what you put into it" do these sound familiar? When getting a hula hoop to move you must move your hips in a circular motion. In kindergarten we learned that a circle has no corners or edges, it is never ending like the circle of life. I'm not making this into a " you are born, you pay taxes and then you die" kind of ordeal I'm looking at it as " with every action comes a equal or opposite reaction". In life you make mistakes its a learning experience, so for an example if you are rude to someone else they will most likely be rude back and if nothing changes there is a never ending circle of rudeness.
One of my favorite memories of my summer when I was a child was playing the
games sharkes and Minnows. It was a game we played in the pool, my group of
friends and I would designate one person to be the Sharks and the
rest were minnows. The job of the Sharks would be to swim to the middle of the
deep end of the pool, where we could dive in at, and wait in the water for the
minnows to jump in and swim to the other side. The goal for the minnows was
simply to swim to the other side, above or below the water, to safety without
being eaten (tagged) by the sharks. If the minnow was tagged they became apart
of the sharks and this would go on until their was one minnow left.
I love this memory because I was always a
fish when it came to water, no I'm
not literally a mermaid although that would be awesome, my
parents couldn't get me out of the pool. From the time the pool opened until
the time it closed my friends and I would be there.
When
the pool closed we all went back to my house and swam in my own pool. But
I'm getting off topic slightly. I loved this game because I was fast in the
water, I could dive to the bottom and I could hold my breath for such a long
time. I would dive in the water all the way down to the floor and sit there,
looking up at the other swimming minnows and hungry sharks as they devised
their plan of attack, I would wait to move from the bottom until the perfect
second to where I could swim across underwater and not get tagged.
I was always one of the lasts of the
minnows I made sure I was always one of the lasts. I remember when I swam above
water I seen my shark coming for me so I dived down, my shark followed until it
ran out of breath, I remember waiting to long that my chest was burning for
air. It was a satisfying burning because I was so determined!!
Life is like a game of Sharks and Minnows
we always start off being a minnow its inevitable, but one day we will grow to
be big Fish. Along our way to becoming big fish we will encounter some hungry
sharks. The way I look at it is either you can get eaten by them hungry sharks
or work harder dive deeper and arrive on the other side. No matter how much it
may burn ( by burn I mean the struggles life gives you that seem
impossible) the work will make it feel like it was nothing but a little
pinch because the end result will be so sweet.
