MAXINE GORDON tries the latest exercise craze that runs rings round the competition – hula hooping

GIANT rings in candy-cane colours lean against a wall decorated in colourful graffiti. It looks more New York than York, but this is Lowther Street in the Groves.

We’re in the dance studio at Door 84 – the local community centre – ready to learn how to hoop.

Our tutor is the energetic Sarah Greenslade. By day she works in Lush on Coney Street, but come the evening she teaches the people of York that hula hooping can be child’s play.

But the playground references end there. The modern hoop is quite different from the ones we played with as children. In fact, says Sarah, most adults would be unable to work the children’s model.

Sarah makes the hoops for use in the class – they are larger, thicker and heavier than those used by children. As a rule, she explains, the bigger the hoop, the easier it is use.

“Pick one that comes up to your navel,” she tells the newbies on her latest course, which runs for six weeks.

Pop music blasts out from her iPod as the class begins. Copying Sarah, we stand with our feet hip-width apart, and spin the large ring around our hips. Mine starts to spiral southwards, crashing loudly to the floor. Others are having more success. I am surprised to see that the people (all bar one female in this instance) having most success are those who seem to be moving the least.

To help further, Sarah suggests we close our eyes and concentrate on the sensation of the hoop rotating around our hips.

Almost instantly, I get the rhythm. I sway my hips side to side rather than in a circular motion and the hoop just keeps going.

“If it starts to drop just wriggle really fast until it starts to come up again,” says Sarah.

At 24, she is a late starter to hooping. The craze started in America and is now spreading across continents. World Hooping Day took place on the first Saturday in October with events stages as far afield as Mexico, Australia and Iceland.

“I couldn’t hoop as a kid,” says Sarah. “And I only took this up two years ago.”

Besides being a great work-out for the muscles around the tummy and waist, hooping lends itself to tricks and dance.

“There is a massive underground network in hooping,” says Sarah, who has attended hula hooping festivals.

She teaches some of these tricks to the people on her course, which involve spinning hoops on their arms and hands as well as dancing with them.

But the main purpose is to get people – particularly women – fit.

“A lot of people would never go to a gym or a regular fitness class. Hooping has so much scope to get people moving in a more fun way,” says Sarah, a qualified fitness instructor.

Class members certainly agree with her.

Hydi Burnham has been coming to Sarah’s classes for two months and is a devotee. “I’ve lost two inches off my belly in the past two months,” she says. “Hooping is great exercise and I am learning skills. And it’s great fun.”

Her friend Claire Robinson has come along to try it for herself – and has been won over. “It’s really good exercise,” begins Claire. “I’ve got quite hot and sweaty – and I haven’t stopped smiling.”

• Sarah runs her hooping course on Wednesdays from 7pm to 8pm at Door 84, Lowther Street, York. The current six-week block costs £30 and runs until Christmas and she is taking bookings for the next course, which will start in March. She also teaches hooping in York on Thursdays: two 30-minute sessions at Emperors’ Gym, Skeldergate, from 6.30pm and 7pm (£3 per session) and at Tang Hall Community Centre from 8pm to 9pm (£3 an hour).

• For more information, email: sarah@hoopingclassesinyork.co.uk