Janie Mac’s Jump Rope Journey and Jams (Ep. 2)

Dizzy Skips (00:17)
Ladies and gentlemen, cats and kittens, this is episode two of the Skip Squad Chronicles podcast starring Janie Mac and me, your host, Dizzy Skips. I started skipping in early 2024 and found this remarkably uplifting jump rope community. The folks in this community are so supportive and fun and have changed my life for the better in so many ways. Several weeks ago, I was skipping on the limestone bench and had this idea. I wanted to know more about my jump rope friends and…

When we’re only connected on Instagram, it takes time to get to know one another with a maximum of 90 seconds on a reel or 15 second stories or occasional DMs and comments feeds. So I thought what better way to get to know folks than to rope them into an interview where I can have a fun convo and find out what makes our fellow jumpers and shufflers tick. So in our second skip session today, I’m thrilled to talk to my friend, Janie Mac. She’s so fun, a fantastic skipper. If you don’t know Janie already, you need to find her on Instagram at @janieonthejump I’ll put her link in the show notes.

So let’s jump right in. Janie, thank you so much for joining me on our second episode.

Janie Mac (01:17)
Dizzy, I am so happy to be here. Thank you. Thank you for having me on the podcast.

Dizzy Skips (01:22)
Yes, this is great. I pointed out before we started, I’m wearing one of my Janie ropes. I have this little habit of making ropes and this model is named after you. Can you tell the audience when you started jumping? Like, and why?

Janie Mac (01:39)
Yes. So I started jumping about, I think I’m right at my six month mark, maybe a little bit over. I have kind of a funny, my initial interaction with Jump Rope Woods, like everyone else, like seeing Lauren jumps do it on Instagram. So I started watching some of her videos and like everyone, you know, I was like, wow, I have never seen Jump Rope done like this. And so Instagram, not only I think kept pushing me like Lauren jumps videos,

but also other people who were doing it as well. So I started seeing all this jump rope stuff just on my personal Instagram. And I’m like, I like have to learn how to do this. This is so cool looking. So this is back like around last holiday season, like around, it was in January, like mid January, I would say. And so I ordered my jump ropes on Amazon. I was like, I’m gonna learn how to do this. So I’m doing it in my very small Chicago shoebox apartment.

and I did it for about three days. It was like three hour long sessions of doing it, like literally in my studio apartment. And I was doing it without shoes on on a yoga mat. And after the third day, I like couldn’t walk on my foot at all. And I just thought that maybe I’d overdone it. Like I wasn’t really thinking about it. And then I just for the next couple of days, like I was having trouble walking. So I later found out that I got a stress fracture in my foot.

pretty much immediately so then I couldn’t do anything. Yeah, I couldn’t do anything for, I was like in a boot, like I didn’t do any type of workout for like three months. So I was so excited because I had done like the first three days, I was learning heel taps and just, you know, running in place and stuff like that, just having so much fun, totally just vibing, which I feel like is so much of what jump rope is about. So it took a lot of kind of discipline for me to not rush back into.

Dizzy Skips (03:05)
you

Janie Mac (03:32)
jumping when I was so excited to do it. But I really knew, I think I had a feeling that I was really gonna get invested in this and saw it kind of working out and saw it sticking. So I was willing to kind of wait it out. And then, so I consider my real start date like mid April, which is when I came back from the January stress fracture, of sucked it up for winter and early spring, and then came and hit it hard in April.

Dizzy Skips (04:01)
That’s awesome. Our stories are so similar. I did the same thing. It was during the holiday season, more like Thanksgiving, where I was, I think I was on YouTube watching videos and I got a Lauren Jumps video suggested to me. And then I sat there and watched her for probably three hours, like video after video and replaying them going, my God, this is amazing. I have to do it. Like, how do you do this? And then I went and bought, or I had a couple of jump ropes and I bought a couple more and I went out in the driveway and jumped.

Janie Mac (04:16)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (04:30)
for two hours on Christmas Eve and I think like three hours on Christmas day and or Christmas night, I should say. And I gave myself plantar fasciitis. I hurt myself so bad I couldn’t walk for like six weeks. And during that six weeks, all I wanted to do was jump and shuffle. just wanted to dance and I was watching these videos and going, my God, Lauren, Kadie, all these people are just so crazy good and I wanna do this. But yeah.

Janie Mac (04:46)
Yep. Yep.

Yes. That’s so funny. I didn’t realize that you also had a major injury at the start of it.

Dizzy Skips (05:01)
Yeah, it was crazy. And literally I couldn’t, like my father passed away a year and a half ago and he had Alzheimer’s and at the end he had like a walker and he had a cane and stuff. And so my stepmom brought me his cane and said, you know, I can bring you the walker. And I was like, God, my pride can’t take that. You just keep the walker. I’ll try the cane a little bit. But I would get out of bed in the morning and hit the floor on my hands and knees and crawl to the bathroom.

painful and I finally went to the hospital and they gave me some stuff and just took a while but so you are a fast learner like I am so impressed with watching you jump on Instagram like how often are you practicing and like what’s your practice routine like

Janie Mac (05:37)
you through it.

Yeah, well, thank you for that. I am out there pretty much every day, weather permitting. I live in Chicago. I live not quite in the downtown area, but in kind of the surrounding neighborhoods. So I’m really close to Lake Michigan, which is where I’ve been doing pretty much all of my jumping, all of my learning this summer. And I’m spending a lot of time.

at the lake probably, I mean, at least an hour, I’d say probably closer to two hours. And of course there’s a lot of like break time, a lot of downtime, a lot of time. I’m on my phone either watching like what I’m trying to learn on video of me doing it so that I can learn how to do it the right way or watching what I’m trying to learn, you know, tutorials and stuff. So there’s certainly a lot of break time, but yeah, I’m at the lake so much and so often I’ve dealt with other injuries just from overuse out of like.

seriously just enjoying my time there so much and just finding so much fun in the process. So it doesn’t really feel like discipline or like I’m really honestly working that hard because I’m just, like I said, totally vibing, just having so much fun doing it.

Dizzy Skips (07:01)
Yeah, I think of it a lot like meditation for me. know, like I say this, think even my bio that I jump for meditation and mental health is part of why I do it. And I love that part of jumping where you just lose time and you just flow. You know, when I was in high school, I had a physics teacher who was an ice climber. went I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. And so he and the gym teacher took me ice climbing one.

weekend and all of the ice that they would climb was waterfalls around Anchorage that were named after cheap wines like Ripple and Thunderbird and stuff like that. And so we were climbing Thunderbird and I asked my physics teacher like why do you do this? Like why do you like this so much? And he said because when I’m hanging off of ice with pick and crampons I’m not thinking about grading your paper or that kid that acted up in class yesterday. It’s meditation for me.

get it and that’s what jump rope is for me too.

Janie Mac (08:02)
Yeah, there’s definitely that element of just kind of like really being able to disconnect. it’s really, think what I like love about jump rope too, is it’s such an individual journey. Everyone has their own style. You know, I could be impressed with a hundred different people for a hundred different reasons for like what they’re able to do with a jump rope. So there’s a sense of competition, right? Which elicits kind of the learning process. That’s how you get better by being competitive and having

you know, a sense of discipline and a sense of routine with it. But it’s also just like about you and there’s no one telling you what to learn. There’s no one telling you, you know, what you have to do or how long you have to stay or how much work you have to put in. I’m coming from an angle of or really like a lifetime of competitive sports and also a lot of difficulty with mental health, which I speak about very openly and have done a lot of work to work through.

you know, some things that were really pressing and jump rope and finding a healthy relationship with exercise in the sense that it’s so fun and it doesn’t feel like, doesn’t feel hard or difficult or any of the old things I think that exercise used to mean for me. And I just love that. I totally agree with the concept of it being like meditation and just time for yourself, time to invest in yourself, which can be hard to find if.

you know, you don’t have something that you love. Like it’s really given me an avenue of feeling like I’m doing something good for myself because I’m prioritizing something that brings me so much joy and is so good for me at the same time.

Dizzy Skips (09:40)
Yeah, yeah, that’s fantastic. I think you posted a video, was it yesterday, of you doing consecutive running releases and you got up to 14 and challenged several people to do it and I went out last night and I wasn’t, I was practicing releases but since the sun goes down so early now, I have to get out right after work and I’ve only got this window of like an hour, hour and a half before the sun goes down.

Janie Mac (09:50)
Yes. Yes.

Dizzy Skips (10:10)
So I was practicing releases a little bit and I just clocked myself in the face. Good, with the handle once. And I think several weeks ago you posted something about like the problem with my ropes where they were heavy and you hit yourself in the face too? Yes.

Janie Mac (10:24)
Yes, I took an absolute beating with the J &E jump rope. They don’t show you any mercy. It’s like one, everything is a very difficult, right? When you learn the way that the rope moves, it’s all very precise angles. it’s just, there are so many close calls, so many near misses, but every once in it just comes and I always get it right at my cheekbone, I feel like, when I get hit in the face, which is seriously.

Dizzy Skips (10:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Janie Mac (10:51)
Often it is in my bio for a reason, but I am humbled by many whips to the head. And so I always take it to like the cheekbone and I get these like big goosebumps like right on the side of my face that just like last not long really for just like the rest of the night. Like I don’t even notice it the next day, but it hurts. It hurts like so bad to just get slapped by a jump rope. So humbling.

Dizzy Skips (11:09)
man.

yeah. Yeah. I took one in the face from my Janie jump rope last week and bruised my face for a few days. It was I was trying to go really fast. anyway, how do you warm up?

Janie Mac (11:24)
Yeah, I find, or, I have, my warmup routine has changed drastically in the sense that I actually have one now. I was not doing any warmups before and have dealt with a lot of other just kind of nagging stuff like in my body. I have really bad tendonitis in my shoulder, which has made learning releases.

very hard. I think I would have learned everything. I took it really slow. I did a lot of footwork, a lot of little choreos at first, and finally got around to learning the mic release maybe around two months in or something like that, early summer. And I finally started getting it, which was seriously the biggest thrill of my entire life, being able to start catching it, being able to start putting releases, stringing it with other things.

just felt like it elevated my jump rope game so much and I was like, wait, this is like actually super cool. This is impressive that I’m learning how to do this, right? And I just think that the repeated use of spinning it with my right arm gave me so much shoulder pain to the point where I couldn’t even like lift my arm up all the way. I was having to like reroute things like this. was just not taking care of myself at all. I was going so hard. I wasn’t icing it. I wasn’t prioritizing a warmup.

So I knew that I was gonna wanna learn more than the mic release and I knew that I was gonna have to like actually take care of my shoulder in order to get there. And so I work in a hospital. I’m a speech pathologist so I work with a lot of physical therapists and occupational therapists. A couple of my friends and my dad too, gotta give him a shout out. He’s also physical therapist so he helps me with a lot of stuff. But a couple of my friends at work.

Dizzy Skips (13:10)
nice.

Janie Mac (13:13)
like gave me some exercises to start doing that gave me like a really small place to start with a warmup. And I was like freaking out. I’m like so like high strong sometimes. And I was like, I’m never gonna learn this. My shoulders never gonna feel better. I’m never gonna be able to lift up my arm again. And everyone was like, you just literally need to relax and like start doing like a very basic warmup. Ice it a little bit and it’ll feel better. So I now do like a set of shoulder exercises, like different stuff.

And then same thing with my heel, was having, or like really my Achilles tendon. So I do stuff like that to warm it up. And I actually take care of, you know, I really focus on the mind to muscle connection. Cause I’m like, you just have that kind of understanding. I think like, as you grow up that it’s just important to take care of your body. And I’m like, yeah, I could rush the warmup process or I could just do it the right way and like preserve myself in that way. So I started taking it, you know, a lot more seriously, which is just,

Dizzy Skips (14:05)
You

Right.

Janie Mac (14:08)
really helped and it certainly has helped me learn some new releases and some ways to progress. And then of course I have at least like a 10 to 12 minute roller blade to the lake every day. That’s, guess, would consider part of my warmup. And yeah, that’s it I’d say. Then I get into jumping.

Dizzy Skips (14:23)
cool.

So I was thinking about you earlier and you know, I’m in Minnesota where it gets cold in the winter and Chicago doesn’t, it’s not warm in the winter, right? Like, so what are your plans when it gets really cold? Are you gonna still jump at the lake?

Janie Mac (14:36)
No it is not.

No, so I have no plans to continue jumping out the lake. Once it starts to get, I can kind of handle the cold. I’m not super sensitive, I think, to that. The wind got much worse, much, much worse as it gets colder. So the wind is hard, but it’s also gonna start getting really dark really soon. So I will not be putting myself in any dangerous positions in the city. And luckily I have a friend who lives very close to where I work.

who lives in just a beautiful high-rise apartment with a gym and like a yoga studio room on the top floor that he is just so graciously letting me kind of borrow for these winter months. I kind of wanted to, yeah, I wanted to avoid a gym membership just because I feel like I’m only gonna need it for these winter months. And I just love, like, if you know me, you know I love just being outside. So he’s gonna let me borrow his gym for the winter months, which I think will be.

Dizzy Skips (15:19)
Lovely.

Janie Mac (15:36)
kind of a nice change of pace, I’ll miss the water, but I think I’ll also really look forward to not having like weather interference with my jumping. So that’s kind of my winter plan for the time being. Shut up, Brady.

Dizzy Skips (15:45)
Cool. Yeah, I have, I’ve been to Chicago a lot and I have been in, the wind is no joke, you know.

Janie Mac (15:54)
It’s not. That wind is not playing around and it will humble you. And your jump rope game very quickly, I posted a story a couple days ago that said it’s literally like someone is just playing defense against you when you’re trying to jump rope. It just will mess you up, it’ll come out of nowhere, it’ll be gusty and then it’ll be nothing. So you just gotta kinda let it humble you, part of the process.

Dizzy Skips (16:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I skip on these limestone benches and one of them that is my favorite is it never takes wind head on. It’s always from one of the sides. And so I go out there and I try and do a release and the thing just flies back at me. You know, I can only do them on one side.

Janie Mac (16:30)
Yeah, the wind can really influence just the way that the road flows and the way that it moves. So I kind of sometimes have to set my expectations. check the wind speeds before I leave and I’m like, okay, today just like might not be a release day. And that’s okay. That is okay. We will survive.

Dizzy Skips (16:45)
Yeah.

So when you’re not, you mentioned releases and how important that was for you to learn and how fun that felt, but what’s another thing that you learned where you were like thrilled?

Janie Mac (16:59)
Yeah, I think the Mick release led to a lot of things for me. I right now am just simply captivated by doing the Mamba. And there’s so many ways the Mamba, if you’re not familiar, is basically the Mick release on both sides. So you’re just bringing the rope this way and then you’re twisting your wrist in the opposite direction on the other side and it kind of goes back and forth like an infinity symbol. And I’m just having like a blast with the Mamba.

finding different ways to enter the mamba, to exit the mamba, and just really playing around with it. So I think the nice thing about learning, like jump rope, there’s such a steep learning curve. know, learning simple things at first is so hard. It’s like so painstaking. Even for like kind of the basic stuff like heel taps or toe touch, like simple stuff. But as you get better, you learn.

Dizzy Skips (17:51)
Yeah.

Janie Mac (17:55)
harder things way quicker because you’re just same thing with the mic release. Like it took me, you know, I felt like a while I was just doing it wrong for like two weeks of practice. And I was like, I am not getting any better at this. Once I kind of figured that out, there were a lot of people I reached out to online who just helped me tweak different things. And then once I finally learned the release, then learning everything else like was so much easier because I already knew how to do this hard thing. You just learn kind of how the rope moves. And as you get better, it gets easier to learn.

harder things. It’s just so cool.

Dizzy Skips (18:24)
Right. Yeah, I agree. And don’t you feel like you also get, as you are progressing, you get a better baseline of skills. So like, for example, I noticed my balance is insane now compared to when I started. Like I can stand in the shower on one foot and reach down and grab the soap, you know? And that kind of stuff. And when you have that base of strength in your legs and your ankles and stuff, then it makes some of that other stuff easier as well.

Janie Mac (18:45)
Yes.

Dizzy Skips (18:54)
And I think there’s so much to the timing too. Don’t you think like being able to, like my jump rope coach, he made a big deal out of saying, I want you to do single hand swings on both sides every time you start practicing. Like get good at that, know, get good at just handling that. And part of that is like working both sides of your brain, I think, and getting both, you know, into a little more rhythm or cohesive.

Janie Mac (18:55)
Yeah, totally.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, there’s so much coordination that’s needed for it. will have just people, sometimes people will stop me. You know, I’m jumping in a really public spot. So people will stop, you know, it’s fine. I’m not really, I always say I’m like, not there to make friends, but people will stop and a lot of people are really nice. And of course I’m like a very nice and friendly person and I enjoy encounters and meeting people for sure.

Dizzy Skips (19:38)
Thank you.

Janie Mac (19:46)
There’s just a lot of, think, unwarranted things that come with that, that come with kind of putting yourself out there. But it’s just, it’s so fun, I feel like, to learn new things. And I feel like when people stop and ask to try the rope, or all have friends who will stop by and just kind of try it out, everyone says the same thing, which is like, wait, this is way harder than it looks. That’s everyone’s first thought. And just like it was, it’s our first thought as we learn new things, the people that we learn from

are making it look easy because they’re getting good at it. And so with that baseline, with that foundation, everything just looks less effortful, like less labor, because you get better at it, you get more skilled and more graceful and that comes with like making it look easier. So I just find that that’s a response people give me is like, wait, this is like not as easy as it looks. So don’t realize how much coordination you really need for it.

Dizzy Skips (20:37)
You

Yeah, yeah, you’re totally right. It reminded me of when I started jumping in the winter when it was cold here, I wasn’t jumping out on those limestone benches because the park was cold and there’s place called the Banshell, which is basically like a little outdoor auditorium that I would go jump at. And one night I went down there and I didn’t, it was dark. And so I got up on the stage and then realized there were like seven people up there on the stage. And it was this group of kids, know, kids, they were.

younger than I, they were probably in their late teens or early twenties or something. And they had sleeping bags and they were just like hanging out and I just said, all right, if I jump over here? And they said, no, no problem. And I think they’re just getting high and having fun. And at one point they come up and one of them says like, dude, can I jump? And so I gave him a jump rope and I had a ridiculous number of ropes with me. So I give him a heavy rope and a bleep beaded rope and yeah. And so all of these high kids are out there going.

Janie Mac (21:35)
One for everyone.

Dizzy Skips (21:39)
Flop flop, my God, this is so hard and whacking themselves and I’m trying to like, yeah, keep your hands in a little bit more. It’ll be easier for you. But yeah, it feels like as a kid, like on the playground, I feel like I could jump forever. And then as an adult, it’s like, my God, this is hard. Yeah.

Janie Mac (21:47)
Yeah, that’s a hilarious story.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I totally agree. But it’s part of, I just, the challenge that comes with it, I think, and I love that.

Dizzy Skips (22:10)
Yeah, yeah. Do you have days where you don’t feel like jumping and you just kind of have to make yourself?

Janie Mac (22:17)
I really don’t. think I struggled more honestly with taking days to rest and do and take, you know, coming home from work and being like, you know what, I’m just not going to do that today. so I think that I’m just a very routine oriented person. I do really well on a schedule and I think just part of like what I need to feel well on a daily basis is some form of movement. and I think I have this.

Dizzy Skips (22:29)
Yeah.

Janie Mac (22:44)
I’d have a very renewed perspective on what it means to be healthy and what it means to have discipline in a balanced way rather than a way that is unhealthy. I’ve struggled a lot with my relationship, like I said, with exercise and with food and just kind of having a dominant sense of just being a workhorse. I’ve always been a hard worker. I’ve always poured so much energy into what I’m doing at the time.

but that really started to, right. started being unable to not do that if I didn’t want to do it. so learning to find balance is just something that I don’t think I’ll ever take for granted. and I think that with jump rope, right, because it’s so fun, I feel motivated to do it, but it doesn’t have a sense of like, I have to do this or I’ll feel bad if I don’t do this. you know, I never have that. So.

It’s just, it’s an interesting combination of doing it so often and every day, but just out of like true enjoyment for it.

Dizzy Skips (23:50)
Yeah, it’s magic. I said when I was talking to Andrea the other day that I saw there’s this guy that runs by me oftentimes when I’m out jumping, know, he runs and he’s got his dog with him and I just think running looks so boring now. Like after jumping rope and you know, dancing with a rope, it’s just so fun. Like running just seems miserable to me.

Janie Mac (24:14)
I could not agree more. I used to joke that like, I don’t know why people are still running when rollerblades are available to buy. You could just get rollerblades, it’s way more fun and it’s pretty much as good of a workout. But now I feel that way about rollerblading even now rollerblading seems a little mundane, a little monotone, and just not nearly as fun as jumping rope.

Dizzy Skips (24:21)
Right, right.

Yeah.

Yeah. So what about music? I think you, we’ve talked a little bit about music and DMs and stuff like that. What, what sort of music gets you in the zone? And do you always jump with music?

Janie Mac (24:48)
Yes, I’m always jumping to music. I am always kind of just dancing and mouthing to myself and so just in my zone, I think when I’m jumping. I have a, I would say kind of an eclectic taste in music. I really like the indie scene of music. I always laugh at when Spotify, when your like Spotify rap comes out. My like top genres are always like.

Dream Shimmer, indie pop, pop dance, like all of these sparkly, like all of these like ridiculous like sub-genres of music. I would describe my music as very just like feel good. You know, I’ll listen to a pop song every now and then, but you won’t find a lot of that in my playlists. I have a pretty rigorous music finding.

Dizzy Skips (25:20)
What is dream shimmer?

Janie Mac (25:41)
routine and I always have new music I really prioritize like what I’m listening to because music is really important to me. It’s definitely a big passion of mine. So yeah, like I said, I guess I would just I just always call my music like feel good indie music and I think you could pretty easily get a sense of that from watching like a couple of my videos.

Dizzy Skips (26:02)
Yeah, do you have a special playlist that you add songs to to jump to?

Janie Mac (26:09)
Nope, I don’t really have a specific jump playlist. bounce around. will, I’m like a huge fan of my Discover Weekly. So I listen to my Discover Weekly every week. And I also listen to my younger brother’s Discover Weekly, because I find a lot of good music in his. And I’ll make notes of songs that I like from my Discover Weekly over like two months worth, three months worth of time. And so then I’ll download a bunch of new songs to a Spotify playlist. So I have this like big influx of like new music and it makes like

walking, makes exercising, it makes doing anything like feel kind of euphoric with all this new music. So I just have these massive like 10 hour long playlists that I just restart like at a 10 hour mark and just do that indefinitely. So I go back and forth between old music and new music that I’m finding and stuff like that.

Dizzy Skips (26:55)
That’s cool. By the way, do you mind if I call you Dream Shimmer from now on? I think that it…

Janie Mac (26:59)
You can definitely call me Dream Shimmer. That might have to be a new alter ego. Damage Genie, you’ll have to explain that to our listeners.

Dizzy Skips (27:04)
My favorite is Damaged Jeannie. Yeah. Yes, I guess I can explain that. So, Janey is so nice that she expressed concern of me jumping on these limestone benches that I would fall off and hurt myself. I quickly said, Janey, I’m on these benches all the time. I’ve got so much practice, it’s not really an issue. I said something to that effect. And then the next day I fell off five times.

like one after the other, just over and over again. And every time I did it, I’d say, damn it, Janie. And it became a habit. So now every time I fall, you take the brunt of it. But sometimes when I’m writing comments on Instagram, I’m dictating to Siri on my phone. So I’ll click in the little field and say, damn it, Janie, blah, blah. And it always translates as Damage Genie so that…

tickles me as well, so I’ve called you Damage Genie as well.

Janie Mac (28:02)
Such a good translation from Siri.

Dizzy Skips (28:08)
Right. Yeah. Do you, so you know, one problem that I have when listening to music and jumping is remembering what song that I’m jumping to. Like the problem with me going in with a huge playlist is that if it just goes from one song to the other, sometimes like I’ll go back to the previous song and, and then I have to watch the video and watch for those times where I’m either mouthing the words or singing along to it or warbling along to it or whatever, you know, right?

It’s so stupid, like I have to deliberately go up to the camera and go, you know, bad liar, and then go jump the bad liar. But you don’t seem to have that problem.

Janie Mac (28:49)
No, I’m curious to see, you like, do you pick a song that you’re gonna choreograph to? Like is that, you plan your music kind of ahead? No, okay, so everything’s freestyle.

Dizzy Skips (28:55)
I never choreographed. I have never choreographed. No, everything’s freestyle, but I do pick music. So I have a playlist on Spotify that I call tonight’s jump and I just add songs to that and take songs off of that. So after I’ve jumped to them, I’ll take them off. And then I have my liked list that is super big and I’ll just take things off of that and substitute it in however I feel like, or whatever I’m feeling like for the day.

yeah. Yeah, the problem, so I honestly try to keep my playlist to like no more than seven songs because it can be hard for me to figure out what I was jumping to. Although, like you mentioned mouthing words and stuff, but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve watched video and I sing out loud, you know, or I’ll be singing along to the song.

Janie Mac (29:29)
Cool, I like that.

Dizzy Skips (29:50)
And then I’ll see someone walking in the background, you know, in the video, and I had no idea that they were there, but I’m warbling to whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I don’t, I don’t really choreograph at all. I just, I think of it as like channeling the music, you know, I find music that really hits me and, I just move and sometimes it works out well. Yesterday night I went out and the first song that I was trying to jump to

Janie Mac (29:57)
Just vibing in your own world.

Dizzy Skips (30:18)
I just, it was like I had two left feet, nothing was working or whatever. And the next song that came on, it was like, it’s right there. And I just felt it and I moved and I had so much fun. I’d kind of lost myself. So.

Janie Mac (30:21)
…

I love that, just kind of being like intuitive and doing, I don’t know, just going in the moment. I love that. I don’t really, I’ll choreograph. kind of, think the opposite of you, because I don’t really freestyle. I like need a plan. I need to like basically memorize a routine or have some, sometimes I’ll do like little flows, which is just like a simple footwork a couple of times. But I need to be like, I can’t just freestyle.

Dizzy Skips (30:39)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Janie Mac (31:00)
I need like a focus plan on what I’m doing, like down to the every movement, but then I’ll put it to music later and I’ll just kind of hope that it looks, you know, there’s usually like a line, something with a beat drop and that’s like about it. You know what I mean? So I kind of will just see the music comes much later for me. Like I’ll be dancing or jumping or whatever I’m doing in the moment. And then I think the song that comes with it later is like random.

Dizzy Skips (31:26)
Got it, okay. Yeah, I’m often very much on the beat. I notice even when I’m listening to music and I’m walking through the park, inadvertently I am walking in step to the beat. My body will just flow with the beat. I don’t even think about it. It’s weird.

Janie Mac (31:44)
I envy that because I like have no my teammates in college used to make fun of me for having no sense of rhythm they would literally challenge me to find the beat of a song by clapping and I couldn’t keep I couldn’t find the beat I could never keep a beat like I don’t have a rhythmic sense of yeah so I think the footwork’s been really fun but a challenge too because I’m not and I don’t have any confidence in like dance like that was always

Dizzy Skips (31:54)
Really?

Really?

Mm-hmm.

Janie Mac (32:13)
never something that I felt like I was good at or could do. So it’s kind of challenging this self-limiting belief that I’m not good at dancing or I’m not good at moving in this way. But I do really envy you because I don’t have a natural sense of rhythm and find that to be a big challenge just in doing stuff like this.

Dizzy Skips (32:32)
Yeah. Interesting. I never would have thought that. Because I feel like you move with great rhythm. But yeah, I’ve said online before that sometime in the last year, I lost my shame. And so I take the dog for a walk and I dance through town. I dance everywhere. I just, and I never did before, you know, I didn’t dance before a year ago, really, at all.

Janie Mac (32:40)
Well, thank you.

Dizzy Skips (33:00)
ever because I was just worried about what people would think of me and and it’s just so stupid you know like I I let other people have the power over what you know my happiness and it truly like I love dancing and I love singing and stuff like that and now I just do it and fuck it I’ll have to leave that sorry

Janie Mac (33:17)
I know, I love that. No, I remember reading a caption of yours and was also surprised to read that you, that was something that really, I think prevented you maybe from just being your most authentic self is kind of a fear. I don’t know, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but just a fear of judgment, right? Of looking silly or, you know, I remember your specific examples, like wearing a pink shirt, like, well, people think this.

Dancing in public, well people think that. And part of what I love about your jump rope style, like I said, everyone has their own, but yours brings with it such confidence and such like that shameless sense of like, I’m just doing this for me. And what anyone thinks about me, right, is none of my business. That’s like one of my favorite quotes. Like I don’t have any business thinking about what other people think about me, because it doesn’t matter. So I remember being surprised and really.

Dizzy Skips (34:01)
Yeah.

Janie Mac (34:14)
you know, touched and moved by your caption on how much you’ve broken free from that self-limiting mindset. And like, yeah, just moved by that transition, I think, in the way that you live your life.

Dizzy Skips (34:19)
Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. Yeah. It’s meant a lot to me. And, and I feel like the last year has been one of the most fun years I’ve ever had in my life. It has been the most fun I can remember, you know, the jumping and being able to dance and, and, you know, like I did say in a video a while back that, sometimes when I’m dancing through town, there are kids hanging out of cars with their phones filming me and I get, you know, whistles and jeers and

And that’s great, but I’m doing it for me. And it feels good when people like it. I’d rather that than they call me names. But I feel like we should all be able to kind of get to that place where we realize that you’re in charge, you’re happy. And what I think of you is my business, basically. And it shouldn’t affect you. So being so competitive and…

Janie Mac (35:05)
fair.

Right? I love that. I love that.

Dizzy Skips (35:26)
and such a sports person, you set specific goals for yourself? Like with jump rope, like, hey, this week I’m going to learn the mic release or I’m gonna learn this.

Janie Mac (35:36)
No, nope, I don’t even really have a plan on what I’m doing until I get to the water and I’m like, you know, what do I wanna learn today? Sometimes I’ll have, I’m learning a specific, you know, choreo routine that’ll take me, you know, I’ve learned a couple of loren jumps that take me like literally a week to learn. So sometimes I’ll have like, okay, I’m just getting back to this, but it’s never the same thing in a session. I’m always kind of working on like.

several things at once because I can’t just do the same thing over and over again. I’ll get bored of it or frustrated or like I don’t know if everyone else feels this way. Trying to learn the toed that under the leg basically crossover has been by far the hardest thing I’ve ever learned and my patience for it at this point is so small I will like whip myself in the back three times in a row and be like okay I’m done. I can’t do this anymore today.

Dizzy Skips (36:27)
you

Janie Mac (36:28)
I’m coming back to this later. And I think I love that about jump rope that when you start to hit this frustration peak and you’re like, just like want to give up. Like you can just move on to something new that brings or sometimes I’ll just go back to old stuff that helps me feel confident. It helps me feel fast things that I don’t really have to think about because sometimes that’s what the enjoyment of it is. So sometimes it’s putting on this focus into learning something new, but sometimes it’s relaxing and just finding a really simple flow. And you can kind of go off your mood, which I love. I don’t have goals.

Dizzy Skips (36:54)
Yeah.

Janie Mac (36:58)
just go based on what I wanna do and how I feel about doing it.

Dizzy Skips (37:02)
Yeah, that’s fantastic. You’ve mentioned that you kind of looked at your phone and watched videos of yourself and other people in order to learn. Do you have other methods that you’ve used to learn? Like do you have a coach or an app or books or things like that?

Janie Mac (37:17)
No, I probably could have made the process a little easier by following some type of app or certainly having a coach, but I’ve just kind of taught myself everything, which is provided like an easy, not easy, actually there are parts of it that make it really hard because I don’t really, what I’ve come to do now is there are, I’ll say something that I wanna learn.

And if I can’t figure it out on my own, it usually starts as like, I save it in some folder on Instagram or to my camera roll. And so I’ll try to learn it myself, which I can do with a lot of things, certainly a lot of footwork by screen recording and kind of dragging it frame by frame, but certain things that you just like, I like always like call to the jump rope gods of Instagram and I’ll send it to people or you know, people who are willing to help you who have already learned it themselves and can help critique you.

So I’ve kind of gotten this from super generous people with their time and energy who have helped me learn things. But other than that, I’ve kind of just followed, I’m sure I followed a very natural progression of getting into footwork, eventually getting into releases and stuff, but I don’t have any of the apps, I don’t have a coach. just kind of, I’ve been able to teach myself a lot of what I’ve learned or have gone to people who already know how to do it, have been immense helps and you know.

provided assistance and kind of getting me to where I am now and certainly what else there is to come.

Dizzy Skips (38:47)
That’s terrific. Yeah, one of the things I wanted to ask you was about the Jump Rope community and what it’s done for you, because like, I was very impressed when I first connected with you and would read the captions in your reels and you were so positive and you would say things like, I love you, I mean it, and stuff like that. And I thought that is just so sweet because, you know, I love these people too, you know, and it’s okay to say that. And so…

I’d like to ask you, what has the jump rope community done for you or being part of it done for you? Because I think you are a really shining example of what it can be.

Janie Mac (39:25)
Well, thank you. I just geek out on the jump rope community. I think the buy-in happened so quickly. I decided I had just been posting when I first got into jump rope, really simple stuff, and I’d put it to music, and I posted on my personal Instagram story. My friends or people that just followed me that I know from personal life would be like, wow, this is really cool. After the third or fourth day of doing that, one of…

Way back, one of my old teammates from high school basketball was like, girl, like quit playing. Like you got to make your own account. You got to put all this stuff somewhere. Like you are already progressing so quickly. You’re only going to get better. You might as well like document the journey. And I was like, say less. Like I was at work the next day. My coworkers were helping me brainstorm a username. And so I made the jump rope Instagram and I ended up just slowly, but really not that slowly, like really.

Dizzy Skips (40:09)
Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

Janie Mac (40:24)
actually quickly connecting with people, finding people. And you just learn so quickly how nice everyone is and how everyone started the same way, which was basically not knowing how to jump rope, right? Other than the basic bounce, maybe running in place or, you know, some people, never did crossfit, but I feel like some people know how to do double unders or other crossovers, stuff like that.

Dizzy Skips (40:46)
Mm-hmm.

Janie Mac (40:49)
But you realize that everyone really starts in this place of not really knowing what they’re doing and having to put in a lot of time to learn. And you just connect with people that way. And I’ve certainly just embraced being part of the community because it’s brought me so much joy. And, know, Dizzy, I have the same thoughts about, I wonder what like my friends are thinking about this. Or I wonder if people think all my posts are annoying or that it’s kind of stupid or whatever. And I just remind myself how much joy it’s brought me and how many connections I’ve made, you know.

people who’ve come here, we’ve jumped together. I’ll be in Indianapolis this weekend, I’m meeting up with some people there. Being able to make these relationships and certainly connecting with people online has brought me a lot of joy. And I’m like, not gonna say sorry for that. So to buy in and to kinda commit to the process brings you all these people along the way and you just, it’s really special. It’s something that’s actually really cool to be a part of.

Dizzy Skips (41:22)
Nice.

Yeah, that’s good.

Right. Yeah. It’s this cool little corner of the internet where everything is positive and people are patting each other on the back and saying, you can do it, you know? And even when I started out and I posted my first videos, you know, I’m a world away from where I was then. And it was minutes before Jenny just jumped, gave me a comment and said, you’re doing great. You know, I was like, my God, this is amazing. You know? Yeah. So, I,

Janie Mac (41:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Love her.

Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (42:08)
What advice or experience would you give people who are just starting out? And in that place, yeah.

Janie Mac (42:14)
That’s a good question. That’s a good question. I mean, I think the most obvious advice is to keep going, right? To not stop. The more, kind of like what I was saying before, right? The more you learn, the more capable you are of learning, continuing to learn. You learn, it’s such a steep learning curve, but I think so many people build so much confidence through that learning curve that by the time they get to the point like,

I mean, I’ve been stumped certainly by a couple of things, but kind of this place where I’m fairly confident I can learn whatever I want to learn, right? I’ve learned so many things by this point. I know just putting in the time will get me there. So I think telling jumpers, know, baby jumpers, new jumpers to trust in the process long enough to get to a point where they feel that confidence, you know, seeing people post about their goals and the things that they’re accomplishing is so inspiring. And I think,

just reminding everyone that it just takes time, right? There’s people will, you know, tell me I’m a fast learner, but I’m out there for two hours a day, right? It’s a lot of time. So maybe it’s an expedited learning process, but it takes me a long time too right? There’s so many hours and minutes and everything that’s gone into the process. So I’d love to just, I’d want to encourage people to just be patient and the confidence will come, right? Your ability to get better will.

will be there and I think that, you know, that would probably be the first thing I’d start with for new jumpers.

Dizzy Skips (43:46)
I think that’s great. And don’t you feel like it kind of snowballs too? Like once you start building confidence and you get, I can do a basic shuffle or something like that, then you’re like, my gosh, then, and now I have that feeling you have like, yeah I’m no good at the release right now. I can hit it sometimes, but I will get good at it because I’m gonna put in the time. And yeah. So I have to know because I have these cravings after I work out hard, you know.

Janie Mac (44:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (44:14)
Do you have any cravings or there any guilty pleasures that you indulge in after a hard workout?

Janie Mac (44:20)
I would say not specifically after a workout. I usually come home and like it’s like time for dinner because I’m like jumping rope after work, but I will shamelessly endorse the fact that I have a ice cream sundae every single night before bed. I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve tried stopping multiple times and I always come back to the conclusion that life is just way too short. And if I want to have ice cream every night, I’m gonna do that. I think jumping has been

you know, in addition to the Covenant, kind of we were just talking about, you learn that it’s a really good workout. And I think that that’s liberalized, right? Having a great workout has liberalized other areas of my life for me. And so, yeah, I don’t know that they get any specific cravings like after I’m done, but I’m making sure that my hunger cues and my cravings are being honored pretty much all the time. And I think I would credit activities like jumping rope and

Finding new ways to build confidence and a stronger sense of self is what allows me to feel like true freedom in my everyday life and a peace of mind when it comes to the things that I’m doing.

Dizzy Skips (45:33)
That’s awesome. Well, I’ve taken up way too much of your time, I’m sure, but this has been so fun. I just adore you and I love talking to you. And I want to thank you for coming on the show and for being you and for just contributing so much to the community because you mean a lot to me and I know you mean a lot to a lot of other people as well, Janie. So thank you for being you.

Janie Mac (45:55)
Well, thank you so much for your kind words. Likewise, I’m sure we could sit here and chit chat for hours. I feel, you know, I echo all those same sentiments. I always say, I’m just so happy to be here. And I really mean that, that I’m happy to be here. I’m really happy to have, you know, come across people like you who just bring a positive energy to my life and to the lives of others in such a cool virtual way, right? We’ve never met in person before, but.

Dizzy Skips (46:03)
Yes.

Janie Mac (46:23)
And we’re all developing these relationships and finding people that are important to us. So I echo all those same sentiments and I’m just so happy to be here. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I didn’t realize this was episode two. I can’t wait to listen. Can’t wait to learn about all of our jump rope friends.

Dizzy Skips (46:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, I announced, I woke up strangely at midnight on the dot and could not get back to sleep. So I just worked for like three hours. And one of the things I did was just announced that I’m gonna release the first three episodes next Wednesday, which is all Hallows Eve. So on the 30th. So I’m gonna do them all at the same time so people can get hooked, you know, a little bit and then do them one a week after that. So.

Janie Mac (46:57)
Okay, love that.

Yes.

That’s nice, I think that’s a great idea. I’ll be just so excited to listen to the stories of other people, other jumpers.

Dizzy Skips (47:09)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you again, Janie. I really appreciate your being on the show.

Janie Mac (47:15)
Absolutely, Dizzy. Thank you for having me. Appreciate you.

Dizzy Skips (47:19)
Likewise.