This woman quit her job to become a professional hula hooper and creates captivating routines for TikTok.

Deven Zimmer, 23, began hula hooping when she was 16 after seeing a viral video of a girl using an LED hula hoop around her knees.

Deven, from Castroville, Texas, said: “I thought it was so pretty and graceful.

“I grabbed a Walmart hoop, brought it home and practiced all day until I could get my first trick down.

“When I started it was really hard for me to learn from YouTube tutorials and there weren’t really many out there, so I was messing around with hula hoops until they did something cool that I liked.”

In May Deven quit her job as a bartender and cocktail waitress and become a professional hula hooper, starting a performance group called ‘Cerceau Sisters’ with her best friend.

“All we do is hula hoop and perform and hire other performers,” she added.

“With Covid we had a lot of time on our hands to plan things and now we have it all set up and running.”

Because coronavirus has had a huge impact on their ability to perform in person, the pair have moved to online classes and socially distanced shows.

Deven also posts videos of her hula hoop tricks onto TikTok under the name call_me_alaska.

As well as feeling joy from her live performances Deven says she also experiences health benefits from her practice.

“Personally for me it’s a mental health thing,” she said.

“If I’m having a bad day I’ll go and hula hoop, if I just want to have fun or dance around, I’ll hula hoop. It’s really good for my mental health and it’s really good cardio.

“It’s an all around thing for me.”