Jozette M. Borrmann found her calling in a roundabout way. "I didn't think hoop dancing would be the most valuable thing I learned in college, but it really is," she said.
She is soft-spoken and svelte, and as she sipped from a bottle of water at the Fairgrounds YMCA, a toddler walked up to her stash of homemade hoops and exclaimed, "Hula Hoooops!"
"You see?" Miss Borrmann said.
What she sees is the potential of the hoop.
"This area needs hoop dancing," she said.
But it's about more than exercise, she said. The hoop, Miss Borrmann said, can connect the mind and body. The exercise can also "quiet the mind," reduce stress and build self-confidence.
"It's like a performing art," she said. "You can take it that way or take it for fitness and personal well-being."
Such "hoopla" caught on in the mid-1990s on the West Coast and spread. Miss Borrmann took an elective hoop dancing course at the University of Vermont at Burlington, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in art last summer. She then moved to Lorraine to be with her boyfriend.
Miss Borrmann hopes to run a "hoop retreat camp" next summer in Lorraine.
"I really got good when I started doing it on my own," she said. She can spin hoops around her torso, neck and various limbs indefinitely. She once did it for five hours.
Miss Borrmann was surprised when she saw no hoop dance fitness classes around the Watertown area. She created a business, Whirled Peace Hoops. Besides classes, she builds hoops and is available for private events such as parties.
Wham-O invented the Hula Hoop in 1958 and it became an icon. The hoops Miss Borrmann uses aren't the trade-marked Hula Hoops. An exercise hoop is weighted and generally larger.
"You can't get these in stores," Miss Borrmann said in the mirrored exercise room at the Y.
The hoops for adults range from 38 inches to 42 inches in diameter.
"The larger the hoop, the slower it revolves around the body," she sad.
She also showed intermediate-sized hoops of 34 inches to 36 inches and 32-inch hoops for children.
She builds the hoops from PVC pipe and wraps them with vinyl or gaffer's tape to provide grip. A few are lighted, powered by a rechargeable battery.
"It really is a life-changing thing," she said. "Once you pick it up, you can't put it down."
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Miss Borrmann hosts classes for children and adults in Watertown at the Fairgrounds and downtown YMCAs and at Women's Health Works and Fitness Center in Pulaski. She also hosts classes Sundays at Thompson Park.
Stephanie A. Osburn of Deferiet is another hoop dancing instructor who picked up the activity last year from her mother, who learned about it from one of Mrs. Osburn's friends in her native Rhode Island.
Mrs. Osburn, who moved to the north country in 2009 from New York City, teaches a weekly class at the Carthage YMCA. It attracts about 10 participants.
"I was surprised with New York City being so close, there were no classes up here," she said.
She said her classes are different from the ones hosted by Miss Borrmann.
"Mine are more like a structured aerobic class," she said.
The aerobics, she said, trims down the waist and tones arms, legs and hips. She is working on being certified by the American Council of Exercise so she can teach hoop dancing on Fort Drum.
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Only a few people showed up for Miss Borrmann's second Thompson park weekly class on May 2 but she isn't discouraged. She's confident the word about hooping will get around and people will see its benefits.
That confidence is based on her hooping background.
"It builds confidence and overcomes shyness," she said. "You are a lot less afraid of getting in front of people. It develops an 'I-can' attitude."
Danielle A.R. Jacobs of Watertown has been a student of Miss Borrmann's for three months.
Following the May 2 class at the park, she and a couple of others put on some music and free-style hooped for three hours in the warm spring air.
"I didn't really notice how much time had gone by," Miss Jacobs said. "We were basically there until the batteries in the speakers died."
Miss Borrmann said losing track of time while hooping means one has entered "the flow."
Miss Jacobs, 20, ran track when she was a student at South Jefferson Central High School in Adams and also takes Zumba classes. She enjoys hoop dancing's change of pace.
"With hoop dancing, it's not like you're punishing yourself," she said. "It's also a really pretty form of art."
She said hoop dancing has helped put her in great shape, perhaps even better than when she was a high school athlete.
Miss Jacobs also enjoys the casual atmosphere of Miss Borrmann's sessions. "Everyone learns at their own level," she said. "You learn something new every time."
"With each new challenge you meet, it's an incredible sense of accomplishment that spills over to other aspects of your life," Miss Borrmann said.
Her lessons, she said, are mainly freestyle. She plans to add more structure once her hoopers become more advanced.
"Then I can develop more aerobic routines," she said.
She said she could even combine hoop dancing with Zumba, the Latin dance exercise that's taken the area by storm.
"I definitely can," she said. "That could be a high-aerobic, hoop fusion."
