Jump Through Hoops

This one comes directly from circus performance. Travelling circuses in the 18th and 19th centuries built entire acts around trained animals, lions, dogs, and especially horses, leaping through circular hoops held up for the crowd, a display of obedience and discipline as much as agility. The figurative use, applying the image to bureaucratic hurdles or tedious requirements rather than literal circus animals, developed in the early 20th century, once the circus hoop-jump was a familiar enough sight that audiences immediately understood the comparison to being made to perform on command.