Jumping into Joy: Peta Mawby’s Journey (Ep. 6)

Dizzy Skips (00:17)
Ladies and gentlemen, cats and kittens, this is episode six of the Skip Squad Chronicles with me, your host, Dizzy Skips. I love the jump rope community and the people I’ve met. This corner of the internet is a happy place where we improve ourselves and help others through skipping rope. Because it takes so long to get to know folks through social media, I decided to start this podcast where I can rope jumpers into an interview and have a fun conversation to find out what makes them tick.

Peta Mawby (00:18)
Night.

Dizzy Skips (00:41)
Jumping rope and shuffling have improved my life in so many ways and a lot of the credit goes to the support of lovely jumpers like my guest today. So in our sixth skip session today, I’m thrilled to talk to my friend, Peta. She is at Peta Pocket Rocket on Instagram. I will put that in the show notes. She’s a fun member of the community and comes from the land down under. So if you don’t know Peta already, you can find her on Instagram and let’s jump right in.

Peter, thank you for joining me. For those of you who aren’t in the room, we just talked for like five or 10 minutes and I didn’t have it recording. So we’re actually recording now. Lovely to have you here. So I mentioned you’re from the land down under. Can you tell me a little more about where you’re at and what’s the weather like now?

Peta Mawby (01:29)
Sure. So I live in a little mineral springs tourist town about an hour 15 drive north of Melbourne. So if you know the shape of Australia and you have a little island down the bottom, which is called Tasmania, I’m sort of in the state on the mainland just above there. So a lot of people think that the whole of Australia is beaches and

Palm trees or the outback, I live in neither of those. I live in a central highland. So we have four distinct seasons with a smattering of snow in the winter and warm summers. So a bit different to maybe what a lot of people think Australia is.

Dizzy Skips (02:14)
Yeah, I mean, it’s our winter now, so it’s your spring or getting close to summer. Yeah. So good jumping weather.

Peta Mawby (02:19)
Yeah, spring. Yeah.

excellent jumping weather. We always had a German friend come and stay with us for Christmas one year and she could not believe that that in most you know families on Christmas day in the afternoon the kids have a water fight so she’s used to the snow and cozying in with eggnog and all that sort of stuff.

Dizzy Skips (02:41)
You

Yeah, I’ve worked with folks who’ve just never seen snow in person and it’s so weird to be I grew up in Alaska and so I have seen snow and here in Minnesota it’s actually colder than Anchorage where I where I was from.

Peta Mawby (03:01)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (03:01)
So I’ve seen you use this hashtag on Instagram. I think it’s JumpForJoy100 or something like that. And you are, so this is a commitment to jump for 100 days, is that correct? Can you talk a little about that?

Peta Mawby (03:17)
That’s it. Sure. So I suppose my motivation apart from obviously, you know, being fit and healthy is to not take things too seriously, including myself. So that’s why it’s called Jump for Joy. The 100 is for the 100 days. I did a 100 day challenge myself earlier in the year and I had a lot of women my age. I turned 50 this year.

I could not believe that I was doing it and how I progressed. And so I wanted to give other people an opportunity to go through the same process I did with support and encouragement. So yeah, then I set up another 100 days, which is the jump for Joy 100 and we’re at day 78.

Dizzy Skips (04:05)
That’s so cool. Congratulations. That’s quite a commitment. And I know from having to reschedule this interview that you got COVID. So you’re just kind of getting over COVID, correct?

Peta Mawby (04:17)
Yeah, I’m kind of on week four. had a lot of pneumonia and bronchitis as a kid. So this is the third time I’ve had COVID and I get it like everyone else. And then two weeks after, you you go through the normal COVID, I end up having this kind of asthma-y type thing. So the last four weeks of my jumping, you know, I would have liked to have been progressing even more than what I have been. It’s been a bit frustrating, but…

That’s, think, one of the beauties of doing a hundred day challenge as opposed to say a thirty day is, particularly if you’re doing it with a group of people, is no one has a hundred good days in a row. And so you have to kind of get over yourself. You have to be okay to show up when you’re not all bright and shiny. But also you’re doing it long enough that then people see you be bright and shiny again. So you kind of get to see someone go through all their different colors.

Dizzy Skips (05:16)
So how many, you mentioned before that you have like a group of people that all started around the same time and you encourage each other and like I think you said that a bunch of those people are relatively new to skipping.

Peta Mawby (05:23)
Yeah, so.

Yeah, we started off with I think about 50 people. They’re all women. Beautiful Aaron, who you interviewed on a previous podcast says, can I join? I said, of course you can, but you really don’t want to be in the private chat because there’s a lot of talk about menopause and things that I’m sure he doesn’t want to be privy to. And he said, that is totally cool by me. So we have a private, yeah, we have a private.

Dizzy Skips (05:52)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, right. Keep it.

Peta Mawby (06:00)
group chat. You know, some people have fallen off, which happens, know, life happens. But there’s still, you know, I think there’s women from six different countries in there. And some people post a reel every day like I do on my profile. Others are a bit shy and they just want to post a little video each day in our private group chat. And some people, you know, post every few days, but say, you know, I’ve done this or I’ve done that.

Dizzy Skips (06:03)
Sure.

How?

sure.

Mm-hmm.

Peta Mawby (06:28)
And I don’t jump every day. usually do rope flow two times a week as well, just to give my body a rest. So some of them are just starting to be introduced to that as well. But I have also a couple of more experienced jumpers than me in the group, which I’ll shout out, which is Skipping the Midlife Crisis, which is Laura. Yeah, Tamika’s in there as well. She’s been a bit busy with the play at the moment. Brandy, Blea Wonders and

Dizzy Skips (06:35)
Mm-hmm.

of the world.

She’s awesome.

Peta Mawby (06:58)
Pam from Pam Jumps. So that’s just to name a couple but most of the others are relatively beginner.

Dizzy Skips (07:00)
Nice.

Yeah. So I’m curious when you started, you said you’re a couple days out from your one year anniversary, I think. So when you started, how did you learn?

Peta Mawby (07:15)
Yeah.

I started because I saw a woman who was kind of having a bit of a midlife reset. Her handle is 50 Sister. I think she’s sponsored it by Dope Ropes. She did a lot of a shift in her midlife and I was inspired by her. And then just through her, you know, that whole rabbit warren you go down.

So I just started watching what other people were doing and just started jumping. And then a few people like Laura reached out and you know, I just love the jump rope community, how they have this real combination of really supporting, knowing when to help, knowing when not to, you know, like no one kind of just jumps in and goes, don’t hold your rope like that. You know, there’s always, there’s always a delicate dance.

Dizzy Skips (08:08)
Right, right.

Peta Mawby (08:11)
and I’ve found that really, really helpful. Yeah, so mainly just through different people I’ve connected with on Instagram.

Dizzy Skips (08:20)
Cool. Yeah, I’m always, well, first of all, I’m impressed that people said nice things about my jumping when I first started posting videos because I was struggling to learn just like the basic alternating feet kind of stuff. And it was great that people patted me on the back. But looking back at some of those videos, I think…

If I saw that guy, I would just send him a DM and say, hey, dude, I think your rope is a little bit too long because your arms are way out here and you’re doing this. And so I have I have mentioned that to a few people where I noticed that they were kind of struggling and, you know, getting 10 skips in and then getting tripped up and whatever. And I just know once I realized how to size my rope correctly, it just made a world of difference.

Peta Mawby (09:13)
Yeah, and look, we had a bit of that when we started this 100 day challenge. And I kind of like you, I would just kind of say it and then if it wasn’t taken notice of, I just wouldn’t say it again. So, but most people really, they really want that help. And I try and also try and find something that they’re doing really well as well.

Dizzy Skips (09:37)
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think I’m just so impressed by the people showing up, know, just showing up to jump, regardless of your skills or the tricks that you know or whatever. I just, I have a lot of respect for you all showing up for 78 days and skipping. That’s great. So can you talk a little bit about like what skipping has done for you? Like physically and mentally, how has it changed things? You mentioned you were in sort of a dark place before.

Peta Mawby (09:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, we were talking before in our unrecorded conversation that the state that I live in in Australia, which is called Victoria, was the most locked down state in the world during COVID. you know, I hear people say, yeah, you know, it so bad. We were locked down for four weeks. And it was like, we were still having a party at week four. We had

Dizzy Skips (10:09)
Yeah, in our unrecorded conversation. Sorry.

for weeks.

Peta Mawby (10:36)
We run a, my husband and I run a strength gym for older people. He’s the main man. I do all the behind the scenes stuff. And our business was closed due to mandates for 39 out of 52 weeks. So not only was that hard for us, know, psychologically and financially, but also, you know, my husband works mainly with women in their sixties and seventies.

Dizzy Skips (10:52)
That is a long time.

Peta Mawby (11:04)
just to watch them deteriorate. Every time we were kind of open for two days and then closed and whatever, it was really hard. We’d been working with them for many years. So we got into this dark place, we sold our business, we moved towns and we were kind of like, let’s just wait this out and see what happens. And during that time, obviously, we drank what we want, we ate what we want, we weren’t as active and we got in a dark place, you know, mentally.

And then, you know, as you kind of like get to that point where you’re like, I’m kind of over this, need to change things. I started looking at stuff online and ended up finding all these midlife women who were jumping rope because my husband is a powerlifter and he was a chiropractor for many years. I wanted to do something he couldn’t do. That was just mine. And no matter how good or bad I was, I wasn’t going to compare myself to him. So.

Dizzy Skips (12:02)
Right, right.

Peta Mawby (12:02)
I picked up the jump, I picked up the rope and I never stopped but from a long answer from your question, it definitely has had a massive, improvement of my mental health. I do a lot of like, you know, if I’m really struggling with something, I just jump it out. Physically,

Dizzy Skips (12:18)
Mmm.

Peta Mawby (12:28)
I’ve lost a little bit of weight, not as much as I would like because I’m still eating and drinking what I want. And I’m hoping I can change that and use the tactics I’ve used for jumping, which is the consistency and sort of just throwing everything out, just gradually improving and putting another thing in. So that’s sort of the goal for next year. But I will say I also started jumping because I’ve always had issues with fluid retention and lymphedema in my legs.

Dizzy Skips (12:33)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Peta Mawby (12:58)
and I’d read and seen online that the jumping rope helped that and it definitely has. It’s really, yeah, so it really, the lymphatic system draining properly. So my husband, because of the work he does with older women in particular, he knew it was really good for bone density, so he was like all on board. But the,

Dizzy Skips (13:05)
Interesting. Is that like fluid buildup?

Peta Mawby (13:27)
The really lovely thing that I wasn’t expecting, and I was just talking to some of my fellow jumpers recently, because of the sluggish lymphatic system and carrying extra weight, I always had a lot of cellulite on the back of my legs. And it used to go all the way down from my bum to my back of my knees. And it’s literally not there anymore.

Dizzy Skips (13:52)
Nice. Did you just notice it one day?

Peta Mawby (13:54)
So.

My husband noticed it first and he was just like, you looked, because you don’t look at the back of yourself do you really? And he’s like, have you seen your legs? He said, have you seen your legs? And I’m like, wow, amazing. that was, you know, been a really great thing.

Dizzy Skips (14:04)
I I don’t look at the front of myself that much, honestly.

Yeah, that’s kind of motivating too, right? Like when you see those kind of changes, like, hey, I’m going to stick with this. I had that same sort of experience as well where just watching videos of myself, like I don’t look at myself in a mirror that much, you know, just to make sure I don’t have stuff in my teeth or whatever. But where I’d watch videos and go, I’ve got some leg muscles now. Like those are my legs are skinnier than they were or whatever. Sort of neat to see those changes.

Peta Mawby (14:19)
Absolutely.

Yeah, I was just whinging because…

where I’ve noticed it the most is in my legs. My legs have definitely changed shape. yeah.

Dizzy Skips (14:50)
Yeah. So how often are you skipping and how long do you or how long do you skip? How often do you skip?

Peta Mawby (15:00)
When I’m doing the 100 day challenge, every day, well, I jump five times and I usually do rope flow two times, but sometimes it can be less or more depending on how I’m feeling. And I really only jump, well, since I’ve had COVID, it’s only been sort of, you know, five to seven minutes, but normally it’s only 10 to 20 minutes. When I’ve been listening to some of your previous podcasts, I’m like, holy moly, like an hour. When you were saying you were doing two or three hours, I’m like.

I’d be dead if I did that.

Dizzy Skips (15:32)
Yeah. I mean, in fairness, if I do two hours, know, a half hour of it is just standing around switching, you know, my playlist and goofing around getting drinks of Gatorade or whatever Red Bull, because it gives me wings. So where are your normal and favorite places to jump?

Peta Mawby (15:55)
So my most common place to jump, which you see in most of my videos, is it’s actually a balcony in my house. And I really like it because it’s just decking. So it’s really, you know, it’s not like concrete, you know. So it really, I never feel any real impact through my joints and stuff. So that’s between my bed, my husband in my bedroom and my 15 year old’s bedroom. So on the weekends when I want to jump, I have to wait for him to wake up.

but apart from that, exactly.

Dizzy Skips (16:29)
Or when you want him to wake up, you start jumping. Right? He slept long enough.

Peta Mawby (16:35)
Yeah, but my favorite place I’ve ever jumped is after I finished that first hundred days and you know became really good friends with you know a lot of people. It was in Laura and Kathy Jumps and from Doc Jumps all announced that they were going to be at the New York meetup in Central Park in June like this year.

And it just happened to be this uncanny series of events where I had that week available and instead of going on a family holiday that year, we were doing separate holidays and I was like, I’m going to go. So I jumped with them in Central Park and we also jumped in Times Square. It was just, we just had the best fun.

Dizzy Skips (17:22)
Amazing.

That is so amazing. So, and how many people did you jump with when you did this?

Peta Mawby (17:36)
I think there was about 50 at the meetup. But there was a core group of us, I think it six or seven of us, we all stayed in the same hotel. So we just had a blast for three days. we were just like 16 year old girls at a slumber party.

Dizzy Skips (17:39)
Wow.

Okay.

That sounds so amazing.

So I’m curious, like I’ve never been to a jump rope meetup and it just sounds fun, but I also am kind of confused on how it would be organized. actually I’m confused on like if I were just to jump with somebody else, you know, how you coordinate stuff.

Peta Mawby (18:11)
Yeah. I’ve done both. really love jumping. Like say a couple of the kind of more beginner people in this hundred day challenge we’re doing. We’ve met up and jumped and it’s been really fun. At the meetups, so it depends, I think who’s organizing it. So the one in New York was organized by Cathy Jumps. And most of the time we were just there for the whole afternoon. We were just kind of all just winging it, doing what we want.

Usually they organize a combo that is, you know, most people can do that’s pretty basic. So at some point everyone gets together and does that. And usually go out for a drink or something to eat afterwards. people seem to, you know, whether it’s by age or by skill or whatever, seem to kind of go into little groups and do stuff.

Dizzy Skips (19:03)
Sure. That sounds so amazing. I can’t wait to go to one of those meetups. I’m off in the hinterlands, you I feel like I’m a ways away. But actually I’m not that far away from like Chicago and New York’s not that far away.

Peta Mawby (19:16)
Well, New York’s pretty far from me. 30 hours doing it all.

Dizzy Skips (19:20)
Yeah, yeah, what is that like? I was gonna say, yeah, I was gonna guess 20 something, but yeah, that’s a lot.

Peta Mawby (19:29)
Yeah, you get off at LA and you think you’re done and then you’ve got to go another five hours.

Dizzy Skips (19:34)
Yeah. What kind of gear do you use? Well, you mentioned jumping on your decking. Do you use a mat, first of all?

Peta Mawby (19:42)
I do, I use a mat, I think they’re an Australian or maybe New Zealand brand, they’re called Mirror Mat. I wanted a big mat. So mine’s, know, quite a lot, excuse me, quite a large mat. Cause I like to move around a fair bit on it. yeah, that’s it. And then I’ve got another smaller mat that I have from Elevate Ropes, which is the first one that I brought. And I leave that downstairs cause sometimes I like to jump.

kind of I have a big long decking down the bottom. So I like to jump on that as well.

Dizzy Skips (20:07)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Well, that’s cool. So what about your ropes? What kind of ropes do you use? You mentioned before like a speed rope or that you bought a speed rope. Yeah. you actually chucked it.

Peta Mawby (20:21)
That’s in the bin. Yeah.

This is, I’m a beaded rope girl mainly. This is my favorite rope that I pretty much jump every day with. This is from Coach Chris, Jump Rope Company. He’s in the UK. It’s got a little bit of a thicker cord. So pretty much I jump with this every day. actually, one of the things that people don’t realize is that

Dizzy Skips (20:41)
It’s pretty.

Mm-hmm.

Peta Mawby (20:54)
how much it costs to send things to Australia. So it costs us more than the rope to get the rope to Australia. yeah, so I decided before I announced this 100 day challenge we’re doing at the moment, I was just gonna buy 20 ropes in bulk because I thought that’ll be the thing that stops people starting is having to buy the rope and having to wait for it to come and costing a fortune in freight.

Dizzy Skips (20:57)
my gosh.

Probably like by three times, right?

Peta Mawby (21:23)
And I remember my husband came home, this was like $500 worth of ropes, and he’s like, what the hell did you do that for?

Anyway, I’ve got three left. So he’s very, he’s like, he’s like, okay. Okay, you were right. You were right.

Dizzy Skips (21:40)
That’s a really cool way to like, handle that objection. Like, yeah, I gotta get a rope, whatever. Well, here you go. So.

Peta Mawby (21:46)
feel like like a traveling salesman because a few of my girlfriends, know, like I might have met them down, you know, they might be in the post office or I’ve gone to Melbourne for the day and we’d be talking about the fact I’m jumping around. like, well I’ve got some in my car, would you want one?

Dizzy Skips (22:00)
Let me spread the word, spread the good news. That’s so funny. So how would you describe your jumping? Like, do you have tricks you do, moves you do? What’s your favorite kind of jumping?

Peta Mawby (22:02)
Yeah, that’s it.

I’m definitely more of a footwork girl. I have attempted a couple of times for like, you know, five minutes to start learning the mic release and I’m like, I’m not spending this much time doing this. I could be jumping. So I always just go back to footwork. Definitely music is a big influence. And I like jumping, you know, it might not be fast in

pro standards but it’s probably faster than a lot of people my age like to jump so I’m sort of around 140 bpm I like to jump. I find jumping slower actually really really hard and much harder on my joints.

Dizzy Skips (22:55)
Hmm. Is that because when you jump slower, you actually end up jumping higher? Like, I know for me, like sometimes when I’m jumping really fast, I can’t, or I don’t pick, you know, it’s more like box or step, kind of keeping my feet really low.

Peta Mawby (23:03)
and

Cough

Yeah, maybe I haven’t kind of looked at it that way. I just think that it’s just a natural momentum and natural rhythm speed for me. And I kind of, you know, like my handle suggests, Peta Pocket Rocket, I’ve been called that since I’m only four foot 11. So yeah. So.

Dizzy Skips (23:21)
Mm-hmm.

my gosh, really? I was gonna ask the origins of your name so you can kind of fit in somebody’s pocket. my goodness.

Peta Mawby (23:38)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, but I kind of have that small dog syndrome. So I make up for it in my intensity. So, yeah, everything I do is not, I’m not, I’m not tippered. Let’s just say that.

Dizzy Skips (23:57)
Yeah, that’s amazing. So what was the hardest thing for you to learn, like once you started jumping,

Peta Mawby (24:05)
Honestly, I still struggle with Boxer Step. Still struggle with it. I’d rather shuffle than do Boxer Step. And I find that when I’m learning something new, I’ve learnt now not to get into that really serious thing where I start to then not want to pick the rope up the next day. So I only really learn something.

Dizzy Skips (24:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Like once you start swearing at it, you gotta put it down.

Peta Mawby (24:35)
Well, one of my stories actually today saying it was the cleanest one, I think it was an outtake of a reel I did yesterday or the day before and it says, what’s your problem? But normally it’s much worse than that. But yeah, I find that I have to like kind of cycle around things that.

have been annoying me, so like I’ll try Boxer Step again for a little while and then, I mean I can do it, but I just can’t do it for very long and it still takes a lot of effort. And then I’ll come back to it on a day where say maybe everything else is working really well.

Dizzy Skips (25:12)
Do you, you mentioned you’re a beaded girl. Do you have PVC ropes as well? Like.

Peta Mawby (25:17)
I do, I’ve only really used the PVC rope to do double unders and then once I realized that I could do double unders, I haven’t used it since. So I kind of wanted to tick that off, but I know if I did double unders regularly, like my knees don’t like it. So I don’t do them very, very often. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (25:25)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

yeah, sure.

Yeah, one of the reasons I ask is like, I’ve got, mentioned that the cord in your rope is heavier and some of my ropes are the same. I have heavier cords and they’re beefier all the way around.

What I found is I can jump with one of those for half hour or an hour and then switch to a PVC rope. And like the boxer step thing, I could be struggling with the beaded rope And then with the PVC rope, it’s five millimeters or, you know, it’s just really thin and I can go fast and I don’t have to pick my feet up that much. And that helps, or at least it makes me feel like I’m doing better.

Peta Mawby (26:13)
Yeah, I used to do that actually when I first started. I’ve got another beaded rope from Elevate Ropes that I actually made a little bit too short and so I hardly ever use it but now, because I haven’t used it for months, it’s probably the right length now. I’m gonna do that when something’s not working, try my other beaded rope and my PVC. Thank you for that.

Dizzy Skips (26:23)
Mm.

Mmm.

Sure. How do you size your ropes? Like, do you know exactly what your size is?

Peta Mawby (26:43)
Just by feel, well this one here is the kind of one I measure all the others off. So this one I know is the right length. Took a while to kind of get it to where I want, but I also find too, like my, I’ve got some cross ropes, so sometimes when I don’t want to think, I’ll just, you know, go through the different weights and do ladders with cross ropes. And in Australia,

Dizzy Skips (27:07)
Mm-hmm.

Peta Mawby (27:11)
just until very recently there was Crossrope Australia and they only went down to an extra small and it still too long for me so I had to do a special order to the states to get the extra extra small but I find with those because you can’t adjust them it’s probably just that little bit too short so I can’t do a lot of tricks so the more tricks I want to do a little bit longer I need to have the rope.

Dizzy Skips (27:33)
Mm.

Mm-hmm. So when, like, do you size by stepping on the center of the rope and then holding it up? Yeah. And what, where do you aim for? When you’re sizing.

Peta Mawby (27:46)
Yeah, pretty much. Yep.

This one here, I don’t know, it probably goes up to about, you know, just under, you know, maybe an inch under my armpit. Yeah, so it’s probably still, you know, relatively long. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (28:00)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. actually, once I found my size, I counted the beads. Like lot of my ropes have two inch beads. So I know exactly how many beads, 42 I need. It’s 84 inches and that’s how I size my ropes.

Peta Mawby (28:20)
Well, I keep telling people that, you know, I’m going to only need three ropes and all the beads I take off, I can make an extra.

Dizzy Skips (28:27)
Yeah, I’ve totally done that, yeah. So do you cycle through beaded ropes or you mentioned that that’s your baby?

Peta Mawby (28:36)
This is my baby and because 90 % of the time I jump on a mat they don’t really get that messed up. But I’ve got a couple of spares and this one here I don’t know how many times people comment where did you get that rope from. It’s Prismatic is the colour. So I’ve got, because I remember

Coach Chris sold out of them, so I got a couple of extras so that when this one wears out, I’ve got a new one.

Dizzy Skips (29:10)
Nice, that sounds like something I would do. I have, in fact, this is an extra of one of my favorites, Kermit. And so I had to build two of them because Kermit’s just too good.

Peta Mawby (29:13)
Yes.

Ha ha!

Dizzy Skips (29:24)
Have you faced any injuries or challenges as you’ve been learning? Like aside from the COVID challenge, which is crazy,

Peta Mawby (29:32)
Yeah, I think one of the great things is that I’ve consistently done strength training for a number of years. So my body had that integrity around my joints and things. So I think that’s always stood me in good stead. And also because I’d rather jump 10, 15 minutes a day than do big long sessions.

Dizzy Skips (29:49)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Peta Mawby (30:01)
I’m someone that if I skip a couple of days, you know, I go down that slippery slope of, I can’t really be bothered today. So I know for me that skipping or flowing every day is the way to keep going. So I think because I haven’t done, you know, these, well, I just hadn’t had the fitness to do really long workouts has probably helped me not get injured. had, you know, the classic sort of.

Dizzy Skips (30:22)
Mm-hmm.

Peta Mawby (30:27)
niggly knees and things when I started, mainly the backs of my knees actually, and my calves and that sort of thing, but nothing that kind of was anything serious. The COVID thing has been the biggest thing and it’s like, when I started the first hundred days in January, it’s like the universe just goes, right, what are we gonna put in here? So had some, we moved house during that time. I had to care for someone who was really seriously mentally ill.

Dizzy Skips (30:32)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Peta Mawby (30:55)
There’s just so many things going on. And then I announced the second hundred days and I think it was about 30 days in I got COVID. yeah.

Dizzy Skips (30:55)
Mmm.

I’m sorry, that’s no fun. I’ve had it once and it just wiped me out. That was my big symptom was I just felt like tired. I think I slept for about a week. felt like.

Peta Mawby (31:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s kind of the same thing that’s happening.

Dizzy Skips (31:21)
Yeah. So you jump to music.

Peta Mawby (31:25)
Absolutely. I was saying to you off air, not really. I did at the start and I was mainly just kind of making playlists of, you know, like 80s pop music and stuff I grew up with. But now I tend to jump because I’m making a reel every day. I tend to jump to the same song over and over. So I pick a song and I just have it on repeat because I’m only jumping for you.

Dizzy Skips (31:27)
Do you make playlists?

Mm-hmm.

okay.

Peta Mawby (31:54)
10 minutes or so. It’s not like I’m listening to it all day. Yeah, and if I feel it’s not working, I change.

Dizzy Skips (31:59)
So when you say over and over, like over and over the same day, but like the next day you might listen to a different song. Okay.

Peta Mawby (32:03)
Cough

Yes, correct. So whatever music I’m going to do the reel to, I listen to that song, you know, three, four, five times, however long the song is.

Dizzy Skips (32:16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I do the same thing and sometimes, like I did it today, I realized that one of the videos that I took was like a half hour of me just jumping to the song over and over and over again. Sometimes it’s just that it’s fun, you know? Or sometimes I’m working on something, but yeah, I just have a lot of fun with that.

Peta Mawby (32:35)
See, I hate wearing earphones while I’m jumping. So the family gets to hear the same song over and over again. And then straight after is when I make the reel. So they get to hear it over and over again, again.

Dizzy Skips (32:41)
Mm.

You had a really fantastic reel that I saw and you’re jumping in what looks like a street area or an alley or something where there’s like graffiti or murals behind and it’s just really colorful and pretty. And it’s got men at work on it, like down under, which is awesome.

Peta Mawby (33:12)
Yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, that’s in Melbourne, which is kind of the New York of Australia. So that’s yeah, that’s my closest capital city. And that that whole laneway is quite famous. And actually, my 15 year old was telling me the other day that it’s now legal to do graffiti there and encouraged as long as you’re over 18. So yeah.

Dizzy Skips (33:20)
Okay.

Peta Mawby (33:41)
And I think there’s a Banksy there. There’s lots of famous graffiti artists that have worked there. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (33:41)
Interesting.

Wow, amazing. Cool. Yeah, that was so pretty. do you always like travel with a jump rope so that you’ve got one at the ready to just jump out the car and do your thing? Yeah.

Peta Mawby (33:57)
Yeah, we have traveled being fortunate to travel a lot around the world and as I’ve got older and I’ve trying to streamline the process to the point of we went traveled through Turkey and Greece and Spain for nine weeks with just carry on luggage and I’m really pissed off because I now have to go back to having

checked in luggage because I have all these jump ropes that people think I’m going to strangle them with on the plane. it’s often I’ve had them taken off me. So you got to check them into the luggage. So there goes that plan.

Dizzy Skips (34:33)
no kidding. That never even occurred to me.

What’s your favorite aspect of jumping rope? Like, obviously there’s the health sort of stuff and the mental health stuff, but.

Do you like tricks? Obviously you listen to music.

Peta Mawby (34:51)
Yeah, so I’m definitely a footwork girl. I can’t remember if we talked about this off air or earlier in the interview, but I tried to start learning the mic release and I was just like, this is freaking boring. I’m going back to jumping. So I know at one point I’ll get to releases, but I still got a whole lot of footwork to learn and I’m happy with that.

And I love to dance, so you’ll always see that on my reels as well. And just laugh at myself all the time, how ridiculous some of the things I do. So jump rope has definitely helped me not be too serious about myself. And the more I can get my teenage sons to cringe at my reels, the better.

Dizzy Skips (35:22)
Mm-hmm.

That’s wonderful.

That’s so great. You mentioned you don’t like jumping with earphones on. The problem I have is I do and they’re noise canceling. And so I’m just really into the music. And so things will go on around me that I have no idea are happening. Like I’ve watched video later and realized that there’s people running by me and I had no, or biking by me.

Interestingly, today I was jumping on a limestone bench doing my thing and this couple came by and they had this huge mastiff that was just gorgeous and he had this big red toy in his mouth. He was so happy. And I commented on, I said, he’s got to be like 75 pounds or whatever. And the lady said, he’s like 102 or 105. Like that is a big dude. And I said, what’s his name? And she said, COVID.

Peta Mawby (36:27)
Wow.

Dizzy Skips (36:32)
I said no shit. No shit. His name was Covid. I think a lot of people adopted animals during, you know…

Peta Mawby (36:38)
How many dogs? How many people got dogs in COVID? It’s funny, my dog, he’s in some of my reels as well. So a lot of people know my dog, Remy. He’s nearly nine. But even he was shocked when COVID finished because it’s like, what do mean you’re leaving the house? What do mean I’ve got to be here by myself for half an hour?

Dizzy Skips (37:01)
Right, right. For half an hour. So how do you stay motivated on days when you don’t feel like jumping? I mean, you made this commitment for a hundred days, but I got to imagine some days, especially when you’re sick, you just don’t feel like getting out there, right?

Peta Mawby (37:20)
Yeah. it, there’s actually a reel recently, well, I’ve had COVID for four weeks, kind of early on in when I had COVID of me in my dressing gown, actually. I don’t know if you call them dressing gowns over there, like pajama robe thing. Yeah. I think there’s two actually. And it was a really interesting time for me because I was like, I’m

Dizzy Skips (37:38)
pajamas kind of, yeah, right.

Peta Mawby (37:48)
telling all these people in this 100 day challenge, you know, just show up. doesn’t matter. Like, well, I’ve got to still like walk the talk. So I just did. And I was just, but I was really, really open and honest about where I was at and that, you know, I couldn’t do much. So it was like, hold my breath and press post.

Dizzy Skips (38:05)
sure.

Mm-hmm. Good for you. That’s so great about showing up. Do you have goals that you’re trying to, with your jump rope progress, you mentioned you’re a footwork girl. Do you have certain types of footwork that you’re looking to learn more of?

Peta Mawby (38:27)
Yeah, so we all in the 100 day group that I’m in at the moment, we all decided on five goals that we wanted to do. One of mine was to do the EB jump. So I can do an EB swing and I can jump doing an EB swing, but I haven’t been able to jump through it. And then the other was an open crop. So an EB jump is when you do an EB swing, which is one hand behind your back and the other one goes over.

Dizzy Skips (38:46)
Can you describe that for those of us who don’t?

Okay.

Peta Mawby (38:58)
Well, actually that’s an underhand, overhand, it’s that way. And you jump through it. And the other is the open swings. So I can do southpaw swings or, you know, don’t, some people call them different things. And it took me a long time to learn those. And now trying to do an open swing where you put your hand on the bottom rather than the top.

Dizzy Skips (39:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Peta Mawby (39:23)
has actually been really difficult. So I can do it really slow, but I want to be able to do it really well. And there’s a couple of others. I had mic release on there and I very, very quickly will wipe that off the list. But just actually want to get fitter, really. And that’s what COVID’s been stopping me. I can, you know, I still really, really can’t get to a thousand jumps. You know, like in, I don’t mean continuously, but like in one, you know,

Dizzy Skips (39:38)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Peta Mawby (39:52)
work out where you’re not stopping for long you’re just kind of like getting your heart rate back you know I can get to seven eight you know pretty easily but a thousand is still really hard for me in one go like I have a Garmin watch and it has a you don’t get it with the watch but there’s an app you can put on for jump rope so I don’t know how accurate it is but it tells me how many jumps I’ve done

Dizzy Skips (39:55)
Mm-hmm.

How are you counting your jumps?

Okay.

That’s cool.

Peta Mawby (40:23)
So I could do a couple of thousand over a day, but I want to be able to do it in one sort of go with just a few breaks.

Dizzy Skips (40:29)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What frustrates you most about jumping rope? Like you mentioned having trouble with the mic release and just kind of giving up on it, but when do you get frustrated? Yeah, you just checked out, right?

Peta Mawby (40:39)
Yeah, that doesn’t frustrate me. just go, this is bullshit. I don’t want to do this. My fitness level, that’s what frustrates me because I actually have the coordination and it doesn’t really take me long to learn something. Like when I hear how long this takes some people to learn things, I’m like, it won’t take me that long. But then to actually have the stamina to keep perfecting it and refining it, that’s what I get frustrated with.

Dizzy Skips (41:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, that can be tough. You mentioned laughing at yourself and I’m so glad you did because I laugh at myself constantly. What do you laugh at yourself about?

Peta Mawby (41:21)
my mom dancing, you know, like this middle-aged woman who’s pretending she’s, you know, back in the nightclub. mainly that or just like sometimes I would just come up with, like, I never plan anything I’m going to do. And then I’ll just think, all right, I’m going to go jump. What am I going to do? And I might come up with something like really ridiculous. And I think now have I gone too far this time? Like, is this like too is this too out there and is everyone going to go, she’s like.

Dizzy Skips (41:35)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

You

Peta Mawby (41:50)
She’s lost it now. So that’s kind of how I crack myself up.

Dizzy Skips (41:51)
Right, right.

Yeah, that’s hilarious. One of the things we talked about, the headphones, because I’ve got noise canceling headphones on and I don’t always know what’s going on around me, there are times where I’ve been frustrated and I’ve used colorful metaphor, you know, a little swearing here and there. And it happened once where I was jumping on the lime stone bench, there’s this big like,

bank of trees behind which there are these bike paths. And so these mountain bikers will go zip around back there. And I was I thought I was out there alone and I was jumping and I got mad and I said some bad words with my earphones in. And I looked up to see this family just rounding the corner. And they all looked like they’d come from Sunday dinner or something. My heart sank like I’m sorry.

Peta Mawby (42:45)
Yeah, that happens to me. Up until we just moved into a new house right in town in the village about six months ago. For the past 15 years we’ve lived on acreage and I forget. And so I forget that all the neighbors can, cause I’m out on a balcony. They can hear what I’m saying. And actually I think it was Becky or I can’t remember someone else you had on the podcast was talking about swearing.

Dizzy Skips (43:06)
you

Peta Mawby (43:15)
And she had an FFS that she put on and I sent her a message and said, is this what you’re talking about? She says, exactly what I’m talking about.

Dizzy Skips (43:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s hilarious. my gosh.

Peta Mawby (43:28)
So normally when I come down from the balcony, because all the family can hear what I’m doing up there, like, are you okay? What couldn’t you get?

Dizzy Skips (43:33)
Mm-hmm.

It sounded like you had a little bit of deck rage there, Peta Yeah. that’s hilarious. I’ve also done the thing where I think that I’m being quiet, but I’m listening to music and I’m humming along with it or I’m singing. And oftentimes, not oftentimes, but sometimes when I’ve got stuff jammed in my ears, my singing isn’t great. You know, like I go back and I watch the video and I’m like, what are you warbling about, buddy?

I want to know more about how the jump rope community affected you or has affected you. You mentioned you’ve got this group of women that you’ve been doing this challenge with. How else has the jump rope community worked on you?

Peta Mawby (44:18)
I wouldn’t be jumping still if it wasn’t for the community. Because I’ve worked from home for the last 15 years in our own businesses, know, and obviously painting in my own studio. You know, I spend a lot of time by myself and I’ve always lived in small towns as well. So, you know, there isn’t sort of like a class to go to or that type of thing, you know, on a regular basis.

Dizzy Skips (44:42)
Mm-hmm.

Peta Mawby (44:45)
So it’s kind of been my social outlet as well. And I don’t if you find it with your mates, but when you get to a certain age, I feel like people kind of go one way or the other. They kind of go down the cynical, bitter, gossiping, let’s just drink more wine and eat more pizza kind of route. Or they go, do you know what? I’m sick of feeling like shit.

I want to feel good. want to make people around me feel good. And I just felt like that’s what the Jump Rope community did for me. Like, I’m like, there are all these people out here who are actually, you know, when you say positive things, I don’t think you’re taking the piss out of them. Like, you’re being genuine. You’re being sincere. And I’ve just found that really, really refreshing. And yeah. Yeah. And I…

Dizzy Skips (45:38)
Isn’t it amazing? I just love it to pieces.

Peta Mawby (45:44)
And I know it’s real because, you know, people say, you know, online is not the same as real life, but it’s the first time, because all my painting business and everything was online through Instagram. And I never had the connections that I have with the Jump Rope community. And I was doing that for years. And then particularly going to New York in June and like really meeting these people in person and going, no, it is real. And these people are real.

and I’ve just found it. It’s the best part of my day.

Dizzy Skips (46:18)
Yeah, it is really amazing. Yeah. And it’s amazing how it’s just relentlessly positive, you know, like there’s no policing needed, or at least in the places that I hang out in Instagram, like there’s never anybody who’s like, you know, I’ve got to oust them or something like that. Everybody’s just, hey, let’s make each other better, you know,

Peta Mawby (46:43)
I’ve made a, I’ve got a YouTube channel called GenX Diaries. And one of the first videos I did on there was how seven foot of rope changed my life. And I think by saying that, I don’t know what it is, but when you jump up and down, you just feel like a nicer person. And I honestly believe that, that the reason, you know, there’s lots of reasons, but one of the reasons why people are so positive in the JRC is because

they’re moving their body and so they don’t have this stagnant, you know, we all have bad days and bad moods but you know, on the whole you can kind of keep perspective on life because you’re moving your body.

Dizzy Skips (47:18)
Sure.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally. we talked a little bit about mental health benefits before Can you talk more specifically about the mental health benefits that you’ve got?

Peta Mawby (47:34)
Yeah, I haven’t suffered a lot of like really serious stuff, you know, for a long time. I did suffer with a condition I know called PMDD, which is like a really severe version of premenstrual syndrome. So, know, like when we get grumpy before they’re period, well, I just want to kind of die. And actually, there’s another jump roper in the community. She’s actually more of a flow roper.

is her handle. She’s very open about the condition as well. But that’s all under control now. But I think just that inertia, like because I don’t have a boss that I have to turn up for, or, you know, I’ve kind of, you know, looking after kids and doing stuff for the business and I was painting and moving house and

I didn’t have a lot of structure, it gave me that structure and then allowed me to kind of, you know, feel in control of something. So I think mentally it was really good for me and also mentally really good for me for my identity because a lot of what I’ve done has been wrapped up in my husband’s work and his kind of, you know, I’ve been Dean’s wife for a very long time and it’s very nice to be Peta.

Dizzy Skips (48:29)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Peta Mawby (48:53)
So now when I see people down the street, they talk about my jump rope reels. They don’t talk about what Dean’s doing in the gym. So it’s been really nice for me to kind of have my own identity as well.

Dizzy Skips (49:01)
That’s awesome.

Yeah, that’s lovely. I’d love to hear that. So you are working with a bunch of people who are relatively new to jump rope in your 100 days of skipping. I’m curious, what would you tell new people who are thinking about jumping rope? Especially like, sounds like you’ve got a niche in working with people who are maybe over 50 or around that age. So.

What would you tell a lady who’s thinking, yeah, should I do what Peta is doing?

Peta Mawby (49:35)
I would just say go for it, but you have to be okay with not being really good to start with and I think another reason why I started was because which a lot of people on on your podcast so far said have been really all or nothing people and I’ve been that in most areas of my life and I’ve also been a really really good starter and a really crap finisher so

Dizzy Skips (50:02)
Mmm.

Peta Mawby (50:05)
I think by, you know, for people who are starting out to actually not look at this as a 30 day thing or not feel silly to say it’s gonna be a big part of their life. Like it’s okay to commit to something and say I’m just gonna keep on going and to make sure that they get involved in the JRC community, the Jump Rope community online so that

someone’s noticing what they’re doing and someone knows when they haven’t been around for a while. I think that people need to feel that, you know, someone’s looking out for them. So to join the community and to just start off really small and really basic and realize that you’re running your own race.

Dizzy Skips (50:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm. So when when you encounter new jumpers, how do you tell them to learn or like, do they ever say, hey, should I join a club or should I download an app or how do you how do you tell people to learn?

Peta Mawby (51:06)
Yeah, if they’re local to me, then I say, hey, come down and we’ll have a little go together. I just had five other girlfriends that we all turned 50 in the same year. We went all the way through school together. Some of them I’ve known since I was four years old. And we just had a weekend away. It’s one of my reels from about a month and a half ago. And so I just brought my jump ropes. And I’m like, right, who’s going to jump with me today? Because I’ve got to jump.

Dizzy Skips (51:24)
my goodness.

Peta Mawby (51:36)
So that’s how I do that. Yeah, I did, I did, yep. If it’s online, I just sort of send them the stuff that I started learning with and they end up going down the rabbit hole. I also have in my highlights a start here that I set up when I started the 100 Day Challenge. I’m not in any way, shape or form interested in becoming a coach at all. I’ve just just,

Dizzy Skips (51:38)
Did you recruit people? Did you get them to jump with you? Good for you.

Mm.

Peta Mawby (52:04)
It just takes you off to different people’s tutorials and stuff about how to do your rope. None of it’s my material. I’ve just put it all in as highlights so that everyone can use it. Yeah, so that’s kind of how I get people going. But the main thing that I do is just hype. Do a lot of hype. A lot of,

Dizzy Skips (52:07)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Cool.

Yeah.

That’s amazing. That’s one of the things that makes the Jump Rope community great. And I’ve seen you do that online and that’s wonderful. Cheering people on feels so good, doesn’t it?

Peta Mawby (52:38)
I grew up in a household where fun was not really a thing and anything beyond work was kind of a waste of time. it’s taken me a long time to unlearn those habits and become pretty much the opposite of that. So I see it in other people and I just want them to realize it doesn’t have to be so serious.

Dizzy Skips (52:38)
Yeah.

Well, that’s one of the things I love about watching your reels is you always look like you’re having a ball. You always look like you’re having fun and you’re just being PETA. And I just think that’s awesome.

Peta Mawby (53:12)
Thank you.

Dizzy Skips (53:14)
Well, thank you so much for coming on and talking to me. I really appreciate it and we’ll keep connected on Instagram. Any last words for the Jump Rope community?

Peta Mawby (53:25)
I just want to say thank you to you for starting up this podcast because I agree with what you said about why you started it is that you you can start to know people online but a 15 second story or a reel doesn’t sort of give you the depth to get to know people so I’ve really enjoyed watching and listening to the episodes you’ve already done and I’ve got to know people a bit more and one thing I learned

from the people I met in New York is the people I thought were going to be my people and the fun people, they were lovely, but other people who were really quiet online were actually the fun people. So you kind of learn a little bit more with what you’re doing. So thank you.

Dizzy Skips (54:08)
Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for listening and thank you for posting about it. I really appreciate the support. This has been so much fun and I just am tickled to have had you on and been able to talk to you from all the way down under.

Peta Mawby (54:22)
Well, yes, my pleasure. Thank you very much.

Dizzy Skips (54:25)
Sure.