Here I am on the sunny lawns of Victoria Park, Hackney, North London, hoping to be inspired by a fitness regime that encourages core strength, looks funky and gives you a washboard stomach. What’s not to like about hula hooping? Unlike other cultural habits honed in the Fifties, such as smoking, this one is good for you.

I’m being tutored by Kalki Henenberg, aka Kalki Hula Girl — an Australian 30-something who discovered her hula mojo ten years ago via the Coen Brothers’ cult movie The Hudsucker Proxy — and now hoops around the world at festivals and shows. “How many hoops can you hula at once, Kalki?” I ask as she spins a large blue hoop around her honed waist. “Ooh, for my finales, I have five around my body. And two on each hand. It’s not really about numbers, though. It’s about controlling the rhythm within each hoop.”

As it’s half term I have had to bring three of my children along for the interview. So the idea is that I demonstrate how to hula while my kids try some spare hoops that Kalki has brought over. I suspect that they won’t be up to much, but never mind.

Kalki gives me the hoop. It’s quite heavy. “The heavier the hoop, the easier it is,” she says, showing me how to place it closely against the small of my back. “Spin it flat, and fast, anti-clockwise. And push your belly out against the spinning hoop.” The idea is that you do not move your torso in a hoop shape, but back and forth, touching the hoop lightly as it circuits your waist.

When not performing Kalki does hooping workshops, so presumably knows how to get these hoops spinning on even the most resistant bodies. I try but to my dismay, the hoop clatters to the ground. And again, and again. “You have to focus on the hoop,” Kalki says nicely. I spin my hoop once more and try not to curse when it falls down past my knees.

“Try lunging forward,” Kalki says. “That should do it.” All right, I say, sweatily stepping forward into a lunge. I can manage about one revolution before my hoop bounces bruisingly past my calves again. “You nearly had it then,” Kalki says. We both try to ignore the fact that Honey, 6, has been spinning her hoop perfectly around her small frame since my lesson began. Meanwhile Phoebe, 11, is doing diagonal hulas. It’s really irritating.

“It’s about you and the hoop. And being in your body. Don’t think too hard. Just try to be in your body,” advises Kalki, who I suspect has probably never before had a pupil as hopeless as I.

How much practice did you put in before becoming an official Hula Girl, I ask, while trying to be in my body with my hoop. “About three hours a day,” she says. “You need determination, and focus. And if you love music, it’s such a fun way of getting fit.” I think I would very much like to be able to hula. Only 20 minutes of hula hooping, carefree and cool, and you have the equivalent of about 500 sit-ups, or probably about two weeks’ worth of Pilates lessons.

“Imagine yourself as the axis, around which the hoop is spinning. Add momentum. That’s all you need, “ says Kalki somewhat despairingly as I drop the hoop yet again. She and I both glance over to Honey. She has graduated to two hoops revolving around her body. Phoebe is hooping one around her wrist. “You’re rubbish, Mummy,” opines Lucien, 4. Kalki coughs politely. “I think people in touch with their physicality hula well, and children are, er, in touch with their bodies more than adults.” She is tactful, but there is no denying I’m a useless hula hoopist. The only thing that makes me feel a little less mortified is when the photographer has a go. He’s even worse than I am.

Kalki Hula Girl, at The Crack, South Bank Centre , London, June 16 -21, 0871 663 2538,

www.southbankcentre.co.uk/udderbelly

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