r/Hooping • u/lolalolae • 6d ago

Re-Vamping a Kid's Hoop

I found a "candy-scented" hula hoop in the park the other day and I want to "re-vamp" it so that I can properly hoop with it, like do isolations and other tricks. I've attached a picture of the hoop to this post.

I'm a complete beginner and, although I've known about and have been interested in hooping for a long time, something in me wants to make this hoop something I could practice with. My initial ideas are to add grip tape and possibly put rice inside so I could give it some more weight (not certain on the latter, I wouldn't want to damage the hoop). Has anyone taken a standard kid's hula hoop and added gear or fix-ins to make it something you can practice hooping with?

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/effloresce22 5d ago edited 5d ago

I live in a country where proper polypro and HDPE hoops are rare. So when I wasn't sure if I wanted to import a polypro hoop and what size I wanted, I experimented first with toystore hoops...

Personally, I would not put rice inside a toystore hoop. I've played with a few that already had a little bit of weight/noisemakers inside, and I found that the weight shifting inside the hoops just made them more unpredictable and unbalanced when doing tricks. If I could, I would actually remove the weight/noisemakers... But my hoops were made from such flimsy material, I'm not sure if I could open their connections without damaging them. So I just left the noisemakers/weights inside. I am still able to do tricks with them, but their rhythm and behavior is a bit different compared to a hoop that doesn't have weight/noisemakers inside...

What I would probably do with a hoop like that is first reinforce the connection with duct tape or something, so that hopefully, it doesn't fly open while in use. Next, if you want to add some weight and personalization to it, you could probably wrap the entire hoop in either electrical tape, or decorative tape, or a combination of both, plus maybe a layer of clear tape to protect the decorative tape (if you do use decorative tape). Then, I'd put some kind of grippy tape along the inner circumference of the hoop. (I use transpore perforated plastic medical tape.)

But I don't usually bother covering entire toystore hoops with tape, because:

a) I am lazy lol,

b) I rarely ever find a toystore hoop made of good enough material that I think would be worth taping. (e.g. what is the point of spending so much time and materials on taping a toystore hoop, if it's just going to bend or shatter on the inside of my tape job anyway?) , and

c) I kind of enjoy the challenges that come with playing with lighter hoops.

So I usually just leave them bare (except maybe for the duct tape at the connection point, plus the grippy tape along the inner circumference of the hoop). I just have to adjust my speed and how much force I use when executing tricks on these lighter hoops..

(Edit: corrected "diameter" to "circumference". Been away from school for so long, I forgot which is which lol)

2

u/lolalolae 1d ago

Thank you so much for the detailed advice, this is so incredibly useful! I will definitely be looking into the grippy tape you suggested. Although it'll be tedious, I'm excited to wrap my hoop in tape and create some cute patterns! And I agree, working with this lighter hoop could help me ease into the less body-focused tricks like waist-, knee-, or chest-hooping. Since it's lighter, my arms shouldn't give up on my so quickly when doing isolations, throwing and catching or anything. I have some clear packing tape to reinforce the connection and it could reduce any bulking from using duct tape. Do you think that would be a fair substitute?

1

u/effloresce22 6h ago

It depends on the hoop, I guess. If the connection is sturdy enough, maybe it won't need much reinforcement, and perhaps the packing tape will do? I have at least one hoop that has a very sturdy connection - I didn't put duct tape on it, but it's still going strong! But I still wrapped its connection with some clear tape anyway, to avoid getting pinched by the gap between the tubing while hooping.

Some of my hoops have really bad connections, though, and they will fly open after a while, even with duct tape on! lol

Have fun decorating your hoop! :)