The ponytailed photographer pulled up to the park. He wheeled a sound system to a shady spot, whipped out three giant blue-and-purple rings, turned up the techno dance music and started jamming and gyrating.

Two friends joined him -- hips moving, wrists moving, legs moving. A summer evening "hoop jam."

Fifty years after the hula hoop became a summertime sensation, the hippest toy for kids is enjoying a renaissance among adults. Fuelled by YouTube and social networking sites, an underground community of adult hoopers has blossomed.

On Aug. 8, cities around the globe will celebrate World Hoop Day, on which hoopers spread their love of hooping by giving away hula hoops.

The modern hoops are oversized, heavy and customized with neon-bright electrical tape in crazy-coloured patterns.

"There certainly are people who are literally living the hoop life," said Max Reid, 39, of Washington. Since Reid first picked up a hula hoop two months ago, he has attended hooping classes every Monday night at a studio in Mount Rainier, Md.

The students learn how to dance and do figure eights with a hoop. They learn how to spin a hoop on their arms, thighs and neck, to move a hoop between their right and left hands. They become performers.

At the end, instructor Noelle Powers puts on Mozart and teaches them to stretch with their hoops. She tells students hooping is a meditative exercise, a workout for the body and mind. The hoop creates a sacred circle around them, she said, and can be a metaphor for life.

The hula hoop wasn't supposed to be spiritual -- it was supposed to sell. And it did. California toymaker Wham-O sold 100 million in 1958, the first year, at $1.98 a piece. It became an instant icon.

"It's got to be right up there with Monopoly and Barbie as one of the most ubiquitous toys there is," said toy historian Tim Walsh.

But almost as quickly as the hula hoop became a sensation, demand fizzled and a new idiom entered the vernacular: It went the way of the hula hoop.

Wham-O eventually brought it back. Then adults caught on to the craze and started hoops. Powers, 31, was hooked a few years ago.

"I started making them, bringing them to parties and performing impromptu, Powers said. "I just totally fell in love with it."

Powers makes them from irrigation tubing and a connector piece, then decorates them. She teaches herself new tricks by watching hoopers on YouTube.

"The online community has really tied a lot of hoopers together," she said.

On the Internet, hoopers have virtual hooping identities: Hoopadelic, Hoopin' Annie, Hoopnotiq and Hoola Monster.

It's not just 20-somethings. Rhonda Lindenbaum is a 62-year-old hooping nurse in Martinsburg, W. Va. It has helped her lose inches and improve balance.

"Sometimes I hoop to very fast music, reggae music, soul, sometimes even Andrea Bocelli or Indian chants," Lindenbaum said.