Hula Hooping Your Way to Good Health

With 199 people hula hooping their hearts out last month, Christchurch reclaimed New Zealand's hula hoop record at a fundraising event for the NZ Heart Foundation.

The organiser of this record breaking event was Bernadette Smith from In2Hula, who is a REPs registered group exercise instructor, and recipient of the 2018 REPs award, which was awarded at the Exercise Industry Awards on Saturday 24th November.

The REPs award acknowledged the great work she does to get a wide cross section of the community physically active with an activity that has been enjoyed by generations.

Bernadette is no stranger to challenges. It was an accident that lead to time off to reflect, and a need for exercise to recover that led to Bernadette to being the NZ famous hoop lady. A woman known for her fun, and a no barriers approach to getting people from preschoolers through to retirees moving and active.

From her national hoop across NZ tour in which she took the joys of moving across towns in NZ, her work with preschool curriculum, and her record-breaking hula hooping, Bernadette has flown the flag for fun and movement.

Bernadette’s underlying philosophy? “the power of giving and what you get back”.

It was fresh into her business in 2008 when Bernadette decided to set out to break the world record for hooping. While she missed the world record, she set a new NZ record, one she lost the following year but broke again this year. Her ongoing work with early childhood educators has taken her principle of hoop fitness for kids and matched them to the curriculum, creating a programme focused on different areas. Combining the fun of hooping along with the basics of fitness has created an opportunity for her to grow her business, while keeping her passion.

The theme for the recent hula hoop record attempt day was a super hero family fun event- encouraging kids to come in a costume, with prizes, entertainers dressed as superheroes and other famous characters. With a new NZ record under her belt, and a REPs award acknowledging her great work, Bernadette will no doubt be looking forward to 2019 with a range of events and programmes, including the development of her early childhood programme, and a continuation of her well-known community work all designed to get New Zealanders active and have fun.

We congratulate Bernadette on her recent achievements and look forward to seeing what she gets ‘around to’ next.

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