Stuff You Should Know - Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape

Episode Date: August 13, 2015

We've covered our fair share of pop-culture icons and here is another - Hula-Hoops. They've been around since ancient time in some form or another, but made their name in during the Hoop Boom of the 1950s. Learn all about this popular fad and more. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb dot ca slash host I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe You can find in major league baseball international banks k-pop groups even the White House But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too

Listen to skyline drive on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Welcome to stuff you should know from house to forks.com Hey welcome to the podcast I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant There's Jerry over there, and this is stuff you should know the podcast. How's it going? It's fine great How's it going with you good Jerry's distracting me a little bit because all I see in my peripheral vision is her practicing her new Hula fire dance routine. It's pretty dangerous. It's dangerous, but it's um It's interesting to see out of the corner of one's eye. It really is yes

Performance art performance hula art. Can you hula hoop? I cannot sir. I'm too self-conscious to take even try it Yeah, it's it's grown man 44-year-old man hula hooping plus when I do it like as I Rotate my hips it makes the sage I rate rotate My hips yeah, it makes the sound of like almost congealed Jello just flopping around in the bowl You know what I mean? I don't want to make that sound. Yeah, but um, I did see at a

The East Atlanta strut festivals one of Atlanta's many great neighborhood festivals I believe the strut to me is known for having the better music of most of the festivals Okay, and our buddy Craig Johnson's band played space knife not space knife. Okay, this one was Can't remember the name of this band, but that band is no longer now He's got a new band even that guy is always coming up with new stuff. You can never pan him down I'm too good. You should check out space knife though people on the web. Yeah, you can find it. It's good It was in our TV show too. Yeah, that's his alter ego It's but anyway, Craig's band was playing and this I was pretty hula naive hoop naive

Okay at this point and a few years ago and there was this lady doing a Hula routine to his band playing and I videoed it. It was so awesome. So she was hoop dancing Hoop dancing. Yeah, like yeah, the neck the arms the legs moving around with it like supremely talented Hooper. Yeah, if you go on to the web and type in hoop dancing, it's gonna bring up some pretty impressive videos Yeah, and it's quite a workout I could tell and we'll get to that but just watching her I got tired right and so I drank another beer and just listen to music

Yeah, and pretended you were hula hooping in your head. Yeah, you're like I'm so good at this in my head But I was like man, that's a thing again. I had no idea but it's a big thing. Yeah, hula hooping Yeah, but it's been around for a while. Yes, it has For example Chuck, did you know as Robert points out Robert Lam wrote this article from stuff to blow your mind Oh, yeah, and he says that the hula hoop has been around in some form or fashion Since before most of the world's religions. Wow, that's really saying something that it's saying something So let's get in the way back machine. Oh, we're gonna play back Yeah, let's go back to 1,000 BC my friend we're in Egypt and they're little children

Egyptian children with dried up grape vines. They've made into hoops Playing with them and there's some Egyptian news like get off of my patch of sand kids. Yeah You know instead of a lawn sure I get it. That was good. Yeah, it was all right Um, so they they're they no doubt use them in similar ways that we did today But they what one thing they did which was a big sporting thing to do Mm-hmm for a long time, which I don't get personally The fun value that is is using a stick to push a hula hoop down the road I think the fun in it is that the hula hoop as it's traveling down the road

Which does seem to be the oldest use of the hoop as a playtime activity, right? Yeah, it wants to fall it wants to fall over sure, right? So if you can keep it going then there's probably a tremendous amount of personal Satisfaction that you can carry all the way to bedtime with and maybe have good dreams because of yeah I don't even see if you had a plastic polyethylene hula hoop a modern hoop. Uh-huh. I don't see how a stick like How you'd even push it? You would want a stick with maybe Like a fork no probably something like a stick with a big wad of

chewed bubblegum on it to like just have some sort of point of contact because as we'll see when we talk about hula hoop physics Friction plays a big part in making hula hoops hula Hoop yes around the waist that is well in any in this case as well Oh, it makes contact with the hoop you're using friction to push it along Yeah, good point. So I see your point like if you're gonna use a stick on a like a Plastic hula hoop it's gonna slide off. It's gonna want to maybe it scares me. That's why I think it's dumb Maybe I would be made a fool of by the hoop So I'm intimidated maybe at first, but Chuck you would have to hang in there and stick with it

Yeah, and pretty soon you'd be rolling hoops like an Egyptian kid. Yeah, like an ancient Egyptian child Yeah Hoop rolling was a big deal throughout ancient Greece as well in Rome and they decorated them with bells and things and toys Fifth century BC. There's you ever heard of Ganymede, of course get a meaty Ganymede. Ganymede. He was a handsome hero Oh, he was he had some as supposedly there's an old fifth century BC urn of him Where he's holding a rooster that was apparently a gift from Zeus Yeah, and a hoop a hula hoop clearly a hula hoop and apparently this discovery I'm not sure why it's called the Berlin

Painter urn, but it is okay Again, no idea, but Apparently they they said well, I wonder if hoops played a role in the earliest Olympics And I guess they've discredited that idea now, but for a while because of this urn this picture of Ganymede with a hoop They wondered was it a sport? Yeah, an Olympic sport But the Greeks supposedly did use hoops for physical fitness as like a physical activity in very much the same way It's become popular today. I would imagine a hula hoop an Olympic hula hooper would be sort of like the you know, the What was the sport the curler of today?

You kind of like an ancient Greece like hey, what are you? I throw the hammer. What do you do? I'm a hula hooper. Oh, although I would guess you'd probably be more akin to the hula hoopers of today Yeah, the hoop roller is what the sport would have been that'd be more like curling Right hula hooping. That's tough man. It is tough What else the ancient Britons they had a game called a battle game called kill the hoop Yeah, I like this one when they would roll the hoop and throw try throw a spear through it. Yep pretty neat. Yeah and dangerous and apparently they also used it and the hula method and

It would people get injured. Yeah, it's there was a 15th 14th or 15th century 14th. Is it the 1400s or the 14th century 14th century hula hoop craze Yeah in Britain in that bizarre it is weird and and yeah people were getting injured They there was a proclamation by the early physicians They would pull up there like crows masks their plague masks just long enough to be like stay away from hula hoops You're clear of those things. Yeah, the warning was hoops kill was I guess what was that posted on the church door? And this is like in addition to being in the way of a spear that was being thrown at a rolling hoop Yeah, like this is just from hula hooping. I would stay away from the hoops

All together if I was an ancient Briton. Yeah, because really if you're like an ancient Briton Uh-huh, you're going from like zero to sixty as far as like physical fitness goes sure once you're hula hooping Oh, yeah, you know just because you're not just sitting around eating like a lamb's brains, right? Yeah drinking mead What else the Native Americans have a long culture of using the hoop. Yeah in New Mexico the Taos Pueblo people They use them in ritual dances Private healing ceremonies. Yeah, and did you look up this chunky thing? No, did you find the chunky reference? I did the

Cahokian Native Americans That was an unusual way to pronounce that Well, how would you say it? Cahokian, I think in Native American would be Cahokian. Okay That's fine Near St. Louis apparently is where they played this game chunky which I just had to look it up because the game called chunky Yeah with an EY and

From what I saw it was more of a small stone disc than like a hula hoop. Okay looking thing and You would it was like kill the hoop though in Britain, right? Yeah, they would throw a stick apparently it looked like a combination of like Bachi and and kill the hoop weird because I think they would try and throw the spear where the the disc would eventually land and The closest to the disc one. Oh Oh, that's how like they're predicting where this where the hoop would fall. I guess this makes sense Although that's not really like Bachi at all I mean I get there's a proximity element that's Bachi s. Yes. Yeah, well put But I don't know. I don't know like once I saw that and saw pictures

I was like, I don't even know if this should be in this article. Yeah, because it's like a small doughnut It's a hoop of sorts. I guess so it's a stretch if you ask me But it was a big spectator sport like 50-acre stadiums of people would watch this Wow would go to the chunky games and so chunky matches. So there was chunky matches in Cahokia. Yeah And the Pueblo used their I think as you said they used hoops and they weren't the only ones there are other Tribes from all over North America and Mesoamerica, I believe that used hoops For dancing. Yeah, and apparently it was in 1930 a guy named Tony white cloud who was a Yamez

Pueblo down in New Mexico Did like a hoop dance in public and basically brought it back. Oh, yeah I think it had been virtually lost to the ages at least as far as The average American was concerned. Yeah, most people didn't know this was the thing Luckily, Tony white cloud is like check this out did an awesome hoop dance and then by 1991 There were national hoop dancing competitions in New Mexico And they're a big deal still to this day Yeah, of course. I think did he kick off the American craze? Yes. No

He didn't he was strictly Native American hoop dancing. Gotcha. Not hula hooping Okay, so let's go to well, let's take a break actually because this is this is the big revelation here. That's right Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb You might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over Childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca slash host

I'm mongesh at together and to be honest I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born. It's been a part of my life in India It's like smoking you might not smoke, but you're gonna get secondhand astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you It got weird fast Tantric curses major league baseball teams canceled marriages k-pop

But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world can crashing down situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer I think your ideas are going to change too Listen to skyline drive and the I heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts All right, josh, we're at that point

Where mainstream america goes hoop crazy But to get to that point we actually have to go backward again in time for a second back in the way back machine So let's go. Let's go to I don't know fiji or tahiti or Polynesia. Yeah And it's the 18th century. Yeah, see all these british sailors. Can we drink some rum? Oh man, okay. Yeah in addition to the rum. We've already drank today. All right, good Uh, so the british sailors that you see here Are noticing a hula dance, right? And they're filing it away in their mental catalog and uh now when they reach britain again

Yeah Why have we been saying it like that? I don't know They notice that it bears a striking resemblance to what people do With the hula hoop you gyrate every time you'd say that by the way in your seat You can't not do it. Okay. So the the term hula Became applied to the hoop, especially when you used your hips to gyrate sure to rotate them. Yes when you rotate your hips With the hoop These british sailors ended up applying the word hula to it and it's stuck

That's where it came from was Polynesia, right? Even though there was no hoop involved in Polynesia Correct. Yes, they just uh kind of Uh ganked that word for their own purposes is 1997 all over again That was a big nineties term, wouldn't it ganked? Yeah Let's go watch some x-files. Um Let's actually yeah, the movie's coming out soon, right? Oh, yeah, they're doing another one, aren't they? Yeah, that thing will never die I don't think it should keep doing movies. That's what I say. Um Um, so we mentioned that the uh Greeks I believe used it for physical fitness, right?

Uh I don't think we said that I think I said it. Okay. Um, the uh The swiss actually came to adopt it for the same reasons too in the 19th century and early 20th century. Yeah, someone named, uh, Emil Jacques Dalcrosse And that was great. That's tough. Um had a uh program called Eurythmics Of course, I started seeing sweet dreams this morning. Of course Because of that and I've been seeing it all day as a result

So that was a special training program. It was apparently a big deal. It was a big deal. So Eurythmics used hoops for Um, basically physical fitness, but also interpretive dance that kind of stuff It was a combination of it was like dance training is is what I can gather and it used hoops The reason that we're mentioning this when we're talking about the american craze is that it directly led to the american craze potentially Because Eurythmics spread from switzerland to Um, great britain. Yeah, and it was brought in as part of like pe class. Yeah in australia And it was in australia that the founders of wamo were inspired to create the modern hula hoop that we think of today

Boom, so it's possible they watched the Eurythmics class or heard about a Eurythmics class and with australian kids And then said well, this is a clearly something of australian design And let's bring it to the u.s. And started craze. They said sweet dreams were made of these. Yeah Uh, and this was richard, uh, ner and arthur spud melon mel meline Melon sounds like ml on like a thorton melon Uh-huh. Don't tease me with that movie The great back to school. I saw a bit of that recently Yeah, and and the only thought through my head was like man. Why couldn't I've caught this from the beginning?

Yeah, because I wanted to see it all that and man. His son is pasty Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought you're saying that was a line from the movie It should have been yeah his son keith gordon who became a great movie director Oh, really? Yeah the guy from christine and back to school. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah He gave up acting and started directing movies and directed a bunch of good movies one called waking the dead you should see I thought Keith gordon co-starred and they live I don't know maybe

I'll have to check that Uh, so where were we? Oh, yes the two founders, um of wamo They said, you know what? Let's take these wooden hoops Let's make them out of polyethylene. Let's make them 40 inches And let's charge a dollar ninety eight for them and make them all kinds of fun colors Yeah, and boom the hula hoop craze in 1958 was born Like it was the definition of a flash in the pan craze Yeah a lot of money in a very short span of time like a summer basically pretty much in 1958 wamo released it and by the end of

1958 these things were rotting in the warehouse But in the meantime, they sold globally globally from the summer to the end of 1958 100 million Hula hoops, yeah more than that. I think Damn my brain. Yeah, you forgot what we were talking about. I almost said frisbees Did we do one on the frisbee? No I thought we had but we haven't have we no we did one on the boomerang. Oh, right

I'm just like a frisbee, but not it's like a dangerous frisbee Uh, so they sell all these hula hoops. They make a ton of money um, like you know Over 50 million dollars in a short span of time Which i'm sure they weren't happy with the that it didn't last But they're also probably like an injection of cash like that is great for any business Yeah, then they moved on to the frisbee and made even more money Yeah, and uh, they did not secure a patent for it. I guess it didn't matter in the long run

Well, they couldn't because it was so demonstrably an ancient invention that nobody could patent it. Nope But they trademarked it. They did they trademarked the name hula hoop in the united states Uh, which is why uh, we still call it hula hoop today. I guess. Yeah, it just became the name We should probably put the title with a r and a circle for this Oh, yeah, we should do that like barbie. Yeah Uh, it was named the number 35 a toy of all time. Um by time magazine and they know toys other toys And then from 1968 to 1981 there were national hula hoop contests uh held

And the guests in the early 80s people were finished with it. There were also like a tremendous amount of music like musical singles released called the hula hoop song Oh, really different people recorded different songs about hula hooping Didn't surprise me. Yeah, it was a craze big time. Yeah, and you say that they were done with it by the 80s Not true. Oh, the national competitions. There was so if you look at hula hooping records Yeah, the most recent hula hoop records from 2009 Well, but was that part of a national competition? Probably for just a guy named Aaron hybs. He uh hula hoop just hula hooped

For 74 hours and 54 minutes. Wow. He broke the record of I couldn't even stand up for that long He broke the record of a girl named kim coberley Um, she held the the record twice in 1978 with 54 hours and in 1984 for 72 hours Wow, which is pretty impressive. Yeah, you ever seen people do like hundreds of them at once Yeah, there's a guy named paul dizzy hips blair Who set the record in 2009 with 132 hoops at the same time? Wow, that's impressive He's basically probably just like like the michelin man made of hula hoops. Yeah Did I ever tell you about the uh surface area man costume in athens? No, it was out on halloween

Um in athens in college and that was a dude. I know the guy's name is blake He has uh, you may have seen him. He had big red dreadlocks Kind of a short guy just a ubiquitous athens dude. No, he lives kind of in my neighborhood now I still see him every once in a while. We call them sideshow blake Because of sideshow bob sure and he came in the bar in the georgia bar and he had these Foam discs Around his arms around his legs around his waist and neck that were huge like Probably four feet across

And he was surface area man And that was just his costume because when he moved around he took up like, you know Probably 75 square feet in space And he would just move through the bar and say i'm surface area man And I'll always remember every time I see blake. I saw him at the grocery store the other day Was he dressed like that? No, he wouldn't fit down the grocery aisle. Does he uh, have dreads still? Yeah, does he really still rocking the red dreads? Oh, he's dedicated. He looks exactly the same actually, but we weren't friends I could

Actually, I hate him actually. I'm gonna just walk by him and go surface area man. You should I'm gonna do it All right, let's talk about the hutsucker proxy for a quick moment and then we'll take another break. Okay. Did you ever see that one? Uh, I don't think I made it through that one the kohenbrothers. Yeah, uh, not all of their movies are great I disagree. I love the kohenbrothers, but some of their movies stink Oh boy That they're part of my hundred percent club Where every movie they've made has been great. That is wrong What which other ones don't you like the man who wasn't there loved it?

Uh, bob robertson They didn't that wasn't theirs. Well, it was terrible. Okay Uh All the hutsucker proxy too. All right. I liked it. I would put it at lesser koans for sure You'd have to but um, I I enjoyed it quite a bit Tim robbins and jennifer jason lee and paul newman Uh, in a fictitious tale of the invention of the hula hoop Um, it is not the true biopic of the invention of the hula hoop

But they co-opted it for one of their movies and it was nothing pretty great. Okay, but that's just me. Okay. All right So go ahead. Well, no, that was it. I just wanted to shout it out. Fine Uh, well then let's take a break because we're about to get into physics. Yeah in hoop games Yep after this Hey friends when you're staying at an airbnb, you might be like me wondering could my place be an airbnb? And if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about lisa and manitoba Who got the idea to airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now the extra income helps pay her mortgage

So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an airbnb too find out what your place could be earning at airbnb dot ca slash host I'm mangesha ticular and to be honest I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born. It's been a part of my life in india It's like smoking you might not smoke But you're gonna get secondhand astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and Pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it

So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you it got weird fast Tantric curses major league baseball teams cancelled marriages k-pop But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world can crash down situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too Listen to skyline drive and the eye heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts

No country for old men terrible I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Oh you like that one. I love that one. That's maybe the best Raising Arizona is probably the best Uh It'd be tough for me to pick on any given day, but fargo is the one I can watch over and over and over Yeah Yeah, I would say this three or tie for first did we just come back from the break just set going right back into the I don't know. All right. Let's do it. We'll see how Jerry edits this

Um, so let's it wouldn't be a stuff you should know podcast if we didn't talk about the science behind something seemingly Uh unscientific or hula hoops are super complex as far as physics goes, you know Super super complex. There's just a few things. We are not in agreement on stuff today. Are we I don't know what's going on So let's say you have a hula hoop, right and it's around your waist And you take it and you throw you have it up against maybe one hip Sure It's making contact with your body that you're starting in the traditional way then sure and you whip it around Yeah to one side and as you do you start rotating your hips. You're gyrating, right? I'm rotating my hips

And as you do that when you rotate your hips What you're doing is first of all you're conserving the angular momentum You gave the hula hoop when you pushed it in a certain direction twisted it around yourself, right? That's right You are the axis you. Yes, you are the axis. Yes, and when you move your hips around when you when you rotate your hips You're applying what's called torque. Yeah, because all this hoop wants to do is fall down around on the ground and make you Look foolish. It wants to stop Well, no, it doesn't want to stop because of inertia and wants to keep going but it can't because of friction But it wants to fall down to the ground like you said and make you look foolish

Yeah But ironically that same friction is keeping it from doing that who was the fool now hoop the hula hoop. Yep Fool all right. Did you talk about the torque? I did talk about torque and torque is a twisting force Where you're twisting your hips You're thrusting the hula hoop around in the circle And what you're doing there is contributing to the centripetal force. That's right And it's a centrifugal. No centripetal two different things Me as the force that moves at a right angle to the motion of your body

So it keeps that thing whatever it is say hula hoop or tractor tire Which by the way, someone said a record hula hooping with a tractor tire shot up really? Yeah for like 70 seconds a 54 pound tire How big was a person? I'm sure he's ginormous. All right Um, I think he was from like baleroos or something. You know, oh, yeah, they do that on a daily basis so uh With the centripetal force is going at a right angle to the direction that you're thrusting your hips Yeah, it's constantly going to move around a circle on the axis. That is centripetal force boom A centripetal motion I should say yes, and when the soup wants to fall, of course, we're talking about gravity

Uh gravity wants to win that fight, but um, if you keep that pulsing gyration going Then you're going to keep that hoop just a little ahead of the curve Yeah, that's apparently the key and robert puts this in here as a kind of like a throwaway thing Yeah, that is the total that's the key of hula hooping is you want your hip To move just before that that I guess wave that comes in contact with your body again Comes in contact. Yeah, it's almost like a catch and release in a way Okay, yeah catching it on your hip and then slinging it back around now. I'm gyrating. Yeah, you are wow There's a lot of gyrating going on in this room right now. There is it's crazy

Um, so there's a few different uh parts of the body at work. Um, I don't know why in 2004 They needed a 15 page study in the journal of biological cybernetics To figure this out because if you just look at somebody you can tell that the hips knees and ankles Are really what's at play keeping that thing going and that's if you're just doing The the hip hula hoop Not hands and neck and legs and all that of course. Yeah, just the standard hooping, right? Yeah And so another study I think four years later in the journal of human movement science I don't know why they needed that one either. Well, they they built upon this 2004 study and said, okay

You use your hips knees and ankles Everybody uses it. But depending on the individual there'll be different contributions from the hips knees or ankle Depends on the motion of your ocean. Exactly. So it's like the individual everybody uses the same The same parts but they use them in different percentages to come up with the hula hooping motion Yeah, I bet certain body types are better at this than others too. Yeah, it's slim. Yeah Yeah, probably so I'm at the one in front of a crags band. She was pretty slim. I guess sure she's working that thing, man It was like it was pretty amazing hula hoop. So that's hoop dancing

When we'll finish up here with some other games. Well, we didn't talk about hoop dancing We were just talking about hula hooping. No, we talked about hoop dancing at the beginning with that lady. Oh, yeah, okay So that's hoop dancing. Okay. That's when you you know It's around the neck and then you work it down around your hips and then up one arm and then up the other arm Right, right. It's pretty impressive Um, your standard hula hooping, of course, which we've covered Uh speed endurance depends on what you're after Sure, like I want to do this for 20 minutes or I want to do it 74 hours really fast for five minutes. Okay

Hoop rolling. That's one of my favorites hoop trundling. Yeah, like your little ancient Egyptian kid. Yeah I'd like to see you do that hoop rolling. Sure. Let's do it. Let's do a video for that. Okay. We could do a periscope of it Oh, yeah, let's do that. Are we gonna start doing that? We could do at least one of me hoop rolling. I think people We're gonna get emails. Yeah, they'll turn out in droves to see that sure hundreds of people will show up for that There's one not on this list that I want to give a shout out to you. All right. What it was invented apparently in Belgium They call it Belgium skipping. It's called ankle skipping It's where you put the hula hoop on one foot around one ankle

And you use it to hula hoop you make the hula hoop motion with that one And as it comes around you jump through the hoop with the other one. Yeah, I can't believe it wasn't on this list Yeah, that's a solid hoop endeavor, but apparently it's a pretty recent invention from like the 60s. Oh really? No No, all right, that makes sense. Um, that's sort of like hoop Jumping but not quite. No hoop jumping is more like jump roping with a hula hoop. Yeah, but that kind of reminds me of that too Hoop jumping is when you hold the hula hoop, uh, the top of it and then you swing it around your body and jump up and down Okay, um, like you have nothing better to do in life Right like you can't find a jump rope. You haven't heard of those before

Uh, return the hoop. This is the only one I was ever good at. That's when you you hold it vertically and you Fling it out as hard as you can backwards and it sort of spins in place and comes back to you Right, and if you're not expecting it, you're gonna turn and run because it is startling We've already talked about kill the hoop We don't recommend you use spears to do that or just make sure nobody's in the vicinity of where the hoop is Yeah, you don't want to combine hoop chundling and kill the hoop Because you'll kill the hoop chundler. No, and I'm not even covered this last one. I dare you to though I like this one hoop your environment. Yeah, go ahead. So it's like you put hula hoops around

And you jump from them like they're they're islands and there's lava in between. Okay What's wrong with that? I don't know too childish No, I'm very childish, but I don't know. I just didn't there's a your childlike not childish. Oh, gotcha big difference, man uh While we talked about exercise it is um legitimate exercise our hula hoop class is now um, apparently marisa tome the actor um Took hoop fitness classes to lose weight for uh, or to get in shape for her movie the wrestler in 2008

Uh, first lady michelle obama is very famously hoop worked out Yeah, hoop hooped the lawn of the white house to say hey kids get active and at the u.s. Open Yeah, you can still have fun by doing this. Yeah Um, and they even did another study to see what kind of calories you could burn lots of hoop studies um, too many um, they took women between 16 and 59 and said Go crazy and hoop and they average an hour. Yeah, and they were weighted hoops, too, by the way Um, which is not to say they were super heavy. They're generally still pretty lightweight

Yeah, but strangely a weighted hoop is easier to keep going Yes Which makes sense. I think uh, and they average 151, uh beats per minute Uh, bpms Yeah, heartbeats Oh, they're heart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tribe call quest would be proud. All right Uh, and that is burning seven calories a minute or 210 calories during a half hour of hooping So that's good exercise people. That's like um weightlifting type calorie burn. Yeah plus also, um

Like if you just break it down to calorie first of all Chuck I want to do An episode and i'm not quite sure how to frame it yet. It doesn't have a thesis, but there are so many Like medical myths out there that are just taken as fact sure even by the medical establishment Even though like if you asked a doctor like is this fact they would be like no no actually it's not Like drinking eight glasses of water a day. Yeah, totally made up I think you're gonna say that like I I think we should do one on medical myths sometime. What do you think? We should have we not

No, like part of me wants to say we have but I think things to have just come up like here or there over over the years Anyway, um If even if you take the calories out of the equation just hula hooping the standard hip gyration Hula hoop. Yeah, well really really work out your core. Yeah, like you need a hula hoop No, you can just sit in your chair and do what i'm doing now. Yeah, like i'm getting i'm sweating Yeah, right now. He totally are my lip. My upper lip is broken out in perspiration Um, modern hooping um burlesque uses hoops if you go to any Music festival these days you're gonna see the ladies like I was talking about

Or they might have them decked out with leds or even fire Well, what's neat is um led hula hoops in particular are really displaying like the physics of hula hoops pretty neat through like, um What's that type of photography lsd? No No, uh, what's the uh, what's that photography where you like you just keep the shutter open? So it like high exposure or long exposure. Yeah, you just set it keeping that shutter open It's like when you see the pictures of the cars on the freeway right and it's just like a long trail of headlights Yeah, but there are photos out there of led. Um hula hoops there. It's just like you can see

They don't just keep like a flat path. They go all over the place and somewhere. It's really neat. It's pretty cool Um, what about this lady the israeli sculptor did you watch that? Uh, I saw a couple pictures of it. Yes. Her name is uh, sigillet lendow. Mm-hmm in 2003. She did a performance art Um slash political statement piece Where she did it was called barbed hula. Mm-hmm. She was naked And uh hula hooped with a barbed wire hula hoop that just tore her abdomen up. Yeah, it's really rough Yeah, it was pretty disturbing, but she said um she uh

Was on an israeli beach that she defined as the only common natural border israel has So she was making a statement to my friend. Well, she's an artist. That's what they do Um, I got a couple of last things. Let's hear it in the that hula hoop craze Of the 50s in america. Yes. Yeah, not the not the 14th century britain one. Okay. Um, there it was uh In japan it was banned the hula hoop was banned because they were worried it was going to lead to Actual stuff things happening. Yeah, dry raiding hips. Yeah um, and apparently the soviets Said that it was a it was evidence of the emptiness of american culture

The hula hoop craze. Really? Yeah, leave it to the soviets to be like americans. Yeah They hated america Do you remember when the iron curtain fell and you were like, oh, wait a minute like everything we were taught about the soviet union was basically made up Yeah And they were like, you know the average russian was like a good person Yeah, and the average russian was a lot like the average american. Yeah drunk on vodka We're gonna live forever All right, that's it if you want to know more about hula hoops

You can type that word into the search bar at house. The forts dot com And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mate I'm gonna call this uh anorexia Did you read this one? No I don't see how I miss that one. Hey guys, I'm a huge fan. I want to let you know how you uh How stuff you should know has helped me over the years. I began listening. I love these I began listening at the age of 12 and I'm now turning 18. Yeah, that's pretty cool. August 9th Stuff you should know has played a part in the young adult I've become

At 12 I was diagnosed with restrictive anorexia. It was hospitalized for about a month and did day treatment for almost a year After leaving treatment for the day. I'd religiously put on my headphones and turn on stuff. You should know The podcast was really helpful on bad days, especially if I had Just had an argument with my parents or a difficult meal or your humor was Especially helpful. I remember laughing out loud many times in the car, which was quite a rare occurrence I'm pretty solid in recovery now, but your podcast also helped me gain a better relationship with my sibling My eating disorder caused a lot of tension between my sibling and I for quite a few years, but one day I invited Her to listen to your podcast. So if you should know quickly became a part of

Her commute to university class we occasionally would discuss the podcast topics. Nice We now have a tradition and I love this part too. We now have a tradition of listening to the Christmas Extravaganza together while on winter break, which is what we want people to do Yeah, man to gather the family and make this a thing It's in plum pudding. You know, I don't know what we're we're gonna get pretty slim on Christmas. I've got at least one great Topic already. Yeah, we need to start looking now though. You're right. Yeah Um, we've even gifted each other matching stuff. You should know shirts when you're more recently I received a very urgent text letting me know in all caps that you guys were coming to many apps

This fall that's right and another text to let me know that Chuck's daughter Ruby shares the same birthday Is our father and I want to point out again and Josh. Yeah, the triumvirate. That's right Your podcast gives us endless topics and inside jokes and I can't thank you enough for bringing us closer together Thanks again for being such a big part of my formative years My sister and I can't wait to see you guys in Minneapolis this fall that is from Emily and She said please shut up your sister Megan. Awesome. Emily. Thank you for telling us all that like that really means the world to us Yes, and best of luck in your continued recovery. That is tough stuff. Yeah, and congratulations to yeah Well, we should do it eating disorder podcast at some point that one's been hanging out there. Yeah

Yeah, because you know, there's like the whole it was like this new idea that Like almost everybody has an eating disorder in America these days of some kind. Yeah, like typically binge eating is like a huge thing Sure. Um, yeah, we should definitely do that. Yeah Um, thank you very much Emily and hello sister Megan. Yep. We appreciate you guys listening And hopefully we'll see you guys in Minneapolis when we come in October. Yeah, and you know what actually write me back We'll put you on the guest list. Oh, man. How about that? So nice free tickets for you too. Wow That is something just for you to Okay

All right, just kidding. Well, you need to lay it down. We should probably have a legal disclaimer added after this too Yeah, we might hear from a lot of Emily and Megan's in Minnesota If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at sysk podcast You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff. You should know you can send us an email at stuffpodcastathousethefirst.com And as always join us at our home on the web stuffyoushouldknow.com For more on this and thousands of other topics visit howstuffworks.com I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe You can find in major league baseball international banks k-pop groups even the white house

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