I watched the Netflix documentary “Virunga” a few days ago, and they showed this several times. I’ve seen it in other programs about life in the Third World, and old children’s books depict kids, usually boys, doing it too.
I can’t recall ever seeing someone do it myself, although my dad says he did it when he was a kid in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Has anyone else done or seen it? It sounds to me like the kind of thing that kids come up with on their own, and give it up when they have more sophisticated toys.
ETA: It was mostly filmed in the park of that name in Congo.
FYI, I reported the thread so it can be moved to IMHO, as you’re asking for personal experiences. But while we’re waiting for that to occur, read the Wikipedia article on the subject. (Of course there is one. There’s a Wikipedia article on everything.)
I have not only rolled a hoop with a stick as a young boy, but know how to make the apparatus.
My hoops came from barrels. This was back in the day when some of the supplies we bought came in small barrels. Nails came in wooden barrels as an example.
The stick was made from a small narrow board like the ones used to make the sides of our chicken pens. On the end of the stick I would nail a curved piece of metal cut from the rim of a large coffee can. This end was used to apply force to the hoop.
I would start by rolling the hoop along the ground. As soon as it left my hand, I would chase after it and keep it rolling with the stick/curved metal. Because of the curved shape of the metal at the end of the stick, I could turn the hoop and make it go in whatever direction I chose.
Now Mumbly Peg - There was a game I could get into…
I did this growing up, and it’s not like we didn’t have TV or computer games (Intellivision, in my house) - it was just fun. We’d have races. We used car tyres but bicycle wheels without spokes or tyre were also an option. Tyres were driven with two sticks, like this. Then when I was around 12 I read about chunkey, so we played a version of that for a whole month.
On the 4th of July, after frantically cleaning house in anticipation of guests to the family food-and-fireworks bash, and before beginning the food and barbeque prep rituals, I took a few moments to change the extremely worn out tires on my daughter’s bike.
She (10) and her little sister (5) found the disposed worn tires after I finished (before I could throw them away) and re-invented hoop rolling, although they didn’t reach the level of sophistication of finding or fabricating a stick. :rolleyes:
Then they re-invented ring-toss, keep-away, and wrestling, in quick succession. :smack:
I saw it in Ghana all the time. It was usually, but not always, boys who did it.
Girls had less free time, since they were expected to help more with domestic chores. When they had time to paly, girls would often do a synchronized dance and clapping game.
We all did it up until about 1965 up at the lake on the flat cement roof of the cabin. Lost more than one in the lake when we let it get away on that side.
Our hoops came from old wagon wheel hubs from Grandpa’s farm in TX. Some maybe from little barrels. Never did a big wheel with a stick.
Used to walk 55 gal. barrels around the yard. Two sisters broke bones with that one.
Another thing is bouncing the stick. An old broom handle worked best for me but I can do it with a 2X2 about 6 foot long also.
Flat cement surface or some such.
Use the OK sign in the hand at the top so you can have angle control but not really holding it with friction, just a ring for it to jump up & down in.
Using the other had at about ½ way down, start pushing the stick along with it at about 20-30 ° from vertical and varying the speed and angle until the stick starts bouncing.
Surface, type of stick, angle & fwd speed will control rate, height of the bounce. ( known as your touch ) A little practice with a good stick & good surface, a sort of music is possible. In town, contest on how far you can go down the street without it stopping. About 3/4 mile was my best. Don’t need to run & chase like a hoop so better game for older people. July 4th & fire crackers = much dangerous play, Cherry bomb wars. We did not use M-80 because this was back when they could do real damage.
My mother has a reproduction of Renoir’s Girl with a Hoop that’s now in her bedroom, and I’ve seen it in various places at various houses ever since I was growing up. It never occurred to me before that there was some sort of activity associated with the hoop and stick.
Back in the 80s I taught myself how to do this. I could land the top in the palm of my hand, but I could not land it in a circle of approximately the same size, probably because I could move my hand, but not a circle drawn on the ground.
A few years ago, I happened upon my old top and string. I wound it clockwise, I wound it counter-clockwise, but no matter how I wound it or threw it, it always landed on its side.
Sweet.
