Jumping into the New Year with the Skip Squad (Ep. 14)

Dizzy Skips
Hey everybody, welcome to Skip Squad Chronicles. I’m so happy to have a whole bunch of friends here to talk a little bit about 2024 and what’s coming up in 2025 and just have some fun.

I thought we’d kick it off by just kind of going around and saying who you are, where you are, and your Instagram handle and I’ll put that Instagram handle in the show notes for everybody as well.

But yeah, who you are, where you are, your Instagram handle, and then how you got into jump rope and when. So Aaron,

Aaron Fleming
I’m going to start with my name’s @aaronjumps.365 I think that’s my handle. Yeah, the king of the crossovers is what I call myself. Yeah. That’s me.

Dizzy Skips
Cool, and so when did you start jumping rope?

Aaron Fleming
503 days ago. Oh, there about that. I mean, I did a little bit before that, yeah, 503 days ago. Yeah. Cool.

Dizzy Skips
Sarah, how about you?

Sarah Marshall
I’m Sarah. Hiya. I’m based in England as well. Not too sure if anyone knows it. Robin Hood country. And my handle is @strongerwithsare.

I started jump rope it’ll be five years in February, which is much to think about. Wow, that is so awesome.

Dizzy Skips
Richard, how about you?

Richard Head
Good morning, everyone. Yeah, my name is Richard. My handle is @richardheadjumps.

I’ve been jumping for, let’s say, two years, two years and a couple months maybe. And I got started, just like everything else awesome in my life, I did it by accident.

So I just sort of came across it one day and just I haven’t really stopped ever since started, you know, positive mental benefits, positive physical benefits. So why not keep going? Right. That was all my required questions answered.

Dizzy Skips
And I don’t know if anybody heard that. I honestly didn’t know if that [@richardheadjumps] was his real name. And so when I first saw your handle on Instagram, was like, God dang, his parents did a number on him.

But it’s not his real name.

Becky Gibbs
Oh my god.

Richard Head
No, I, you know, I set out on a mission for everyone to refer to me as a dickhead And Dizzy was the very first person that said, hey, good morning, Richard, to me.

And I went to all the people at work and everyone was like, oh my god, somebody’s calling me dick, you guys, it’s coming true.

Dizzy Skips
I’m so glad to be part of your journey, Richard. I love it. Yeah. Becky.

Richard Head
Yeah, 100%. Yes, absolutely. And on that note, we’ll start drinking.

Dizzy Skips
Miss Becky, how about you? She’s choking.

Becky Gibbs
first time. So I hadn’t even crossed my mind. But so I’m in the UK. I’ve probably been jumping. I’m coming up for two years this February. I think. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips
Name, location, Instagram handle your @beckyjumpslife And Laura, how about you?

Laura Bushert
Thank you. I’m Laura. I’m in Vancouver Island, Canada. And I’m brand new so I started about three months ago. just passed the three, yeah. I just passed the three month mark on Christmas actually. I got obsessed really, really quickly. So I spend a ridiculous amount of time practicing and I got into it. I go to the gym regularly and I met someone at the gym who jumps rope and I thought it was pretty cool. So we met and then he lent me a rope and told me to check out some videos on Instagram.

Dizzy Skips
So was he just jumping at the gym and you saw him?

Yeah, yeah, and he’s really, really good. And he was doing lots of tricks and releases and his footwork’s amazing. And I just thought it was really, really cool. yeah, we met and it, yeah, and he’s the one that encouraged me to start up my Instagram.

Dizzy Skips
Nice, I still have not like run across anybody that just jumps in the park or, know, like anyone around. This is a small town, but still. Yeah, me neither.

And I’ve given away several jump ropes trying to inspire people, you know, like, hey, you could jump with me too. And they’re like, cool. Yeah. And they jump a couple of times and it just, they’re not as in love as I am, guess. Or that’s it.

Becky Gibbs
Yeah, I’m not sure what the UK people would think about that either. But I feel like if you handed someone in the UK some rope, they would probably think you’re a bit of a serial killer. Oh, you’ve done it. You’re a serial killer. Serial killer. Sarah the Ripper my God. In a penguin outfit.

How many people do you have to kill before they put cereal in front of your name?

Dizzy Skips
Tony the Tiger. Count Chocula.

More than two? I think that’s fair.

It’s clear I’d be a terrible killer then because I clearly don’t know.

Dizzy Skips
So I’m curious, like, what are some of the highlights from your 2024 jump rope journey? Richard, you’ve been at it for a couple of years now. So if I am correct, I think you really sort of found the jump rope community this year.

Richard Head
Okay. no, it found me. I didn’t even, I didn’t even know it was out there, you know? and I think the big, my big jump rope thing this year is, is just, you know, all of you guys not to be too sappy, but you know, cause I, I had, you know, I’m my private Instagram and I had been posting jump rope videos for literally like over a year. And I, think I started this one up just cause I felt like I was annoying everybody with all my jump rope bullshit.

So I was like, well, I can just post it on this one. if all my, you know, my family or whatever, they don’t, they don’t have to follow me. And then all of sudden, like, here’s Dizzy and here’s Aaron and here’s Becky. And like just all these people are like, all of a sudden there’s people, you know, just there that want to talk about jump rope and want to want to listen about jump rope. It’s just something I hadn’t found before. So I think that, yeah, just, just, just, I had no idea that there was that these people are out there and not only that they’re out there, but they’re actually like pretty good people that want to help and encourage and all that. So that’s been, I think that’s kind of the bottom line for 2024 for me is where it’s not appropriate. Is that we’re all here together. Yeah, the community is amazing.

Dizzy Skips
I was shutting the door because my dog is barking at something outside. I don’t know if you guys could hear it, but she’s annoying me.

So Aaron, how about you? You’re on, you are on a mission. You said it’s day 504 for you?

Aaron Fleming
Yeah, 503 today. 503? Yeah. So obviously I completed my 365, which were the big achievement. And then I just carried on because I’m a little bit sad. Yeah.

Well, thanks, Jerms. to his username every day. I’m going to be doing a new 365 next year as well. So yeah, we’ll see how that goes. Sorry, I’ve got a bit of a cough. That won’t be a fun one.

Dizzy Skips
So by that, do you mean, like for the people who aren’t familiar with you, when you started, you made a commitment to jump for 365 days in a row, right? And so you’ve actually, right? How do you walk still?

Yeah, I actually do like two hour sessions as well. I have no idea how I do it again the next day.

You must have like The Rock like ankles because I did it for like 28 days in February and I had a swollen ankle by the end of it. I had to really rest up. The 365 calisthenics as well as skipping so that’s going to be fun. So when you say calisthenics are you setting out a certain amount of time that you’re going to do each exercise? So sort of like with the skipping where it started out as five ten minutes and then becomes two hours, the same I would imagine is going to happen with calisthenics as well. So it won’t be much in the beginning, but then it will.

What was that? He’s gonna be built like The Rock after it. Right, right. a convoy. You’re gonna be huge of muscles. can’t do calisthenics. I can’t even say it for two hours, sure. So when you say calisthenics, Aaron, for those of us who are maybe verbally challenged, what sort of things will you be doing for calisthenics? push ups? It’s a lot of body weight exercises. But then there’s certain

So like I’ve sort of fallen out of the gym a little bit with the skipping, but then obviously like there’s like still the weighted squats and all that sort of stuff, which I liked in the gym. So it’s like a combination of body weight stuff, skipping helps as well as the gym.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. How about?

But you have you have some sort of plan as far as like you’re going to do X amount of this one day and because you start talking about, you know, calisthenics in the new year got me super excited. So I’m just I’m curious if you have some kind of like plan or you’re just going to do pushups on January 1st and just go from there. Like, please, man, what are we doing? What’s the plan? Come on, coach. have to define calisthenics for Becky.

Dizzy Skips
I was saying you have to define calisthenics for Becky.

Becky Gibbs
Right. Okay. Very similar to what they do with children then, because children aren’t supposed to overdo it. So they do exercises with their body weight. And they also do it in prison. You mean that the children in prison are doing calisthenics?

Wow. Correct. So they’re built and ready when they come out. I do that. Now my warm up routine is basically like 16 minutes of jump rope specific warm up stuff that I got from the Lauren Jumps app, that Fancy Feats app. And then the rest of the time is the 14 remaining minutes are calisthenic stuff. And so I do like sit ups and push ups and.

Planking and I’ve got a bunch of different exercises like crunches and stuff like that

Yeah. So good. exercises make me so cross. I don’t… Yeah. I just get no enjoyment out of them whatsoever. I’m just like, why am I squatting? It’s just useless. And I’m rubbish at planks. My arms are so ridiculous. Like, my children put me to shame. Do you have like Grover arms? Like Grover from Sesame Street? No, they’re just really little. Like, my husband always laughs about even how small my wrists are.

I can’t help that. That’s my wrist. But my arms, they’ve just always been quite weak. I think I’ve always had stronger legs, I genuinely just don’t really like it. So Becky’s… So since we’re on you, what about your 2024 highlights? My 2024 highlights, okay. So I would probably say I’ve been to two jump rope meets this year.

And one was the jump rope coach Chris. my god, I still struggle to say that. And Dope Ropes Meet. And I don’t know, even as an adult, a mother who you’d think is quite a worldly person, meeting that many people at different skill levels was still quite nerve wracking. it was really nice just to go there. And actually, everybody is just as accepting in person as they are online.

I didn’t really get around to everybody at the Dope Rope Meet because it was a lot busier than Chris’s in Bristol but I think that’s nature of where it was. Dope Ropes was in London for people than Birmingham.

Dizzy Skips
Like how many people show up Becky?

would it be like hundreds or tens or thousands?

no, I’d probably, I don’t know. It’s still a good number.

Well, yeah, mean, that many people jump, specifically London, like that many people jumping in Hyde Park was pretty cool. And it was really cool to be part of it because also I met Lauren Jumps that day as well. And, know, it’s a bit of a jump rope celebrity. So, yeah, was, and you know what, she’s just as down to earth in person as she is as she comes across on the screen. Really helpful, not at all stuck up like you expect some influencers to be. And she looks like a British Barbie.

jump rope wise, yeah, she’s lovely, but she, she doesn’t even behave that way though, you know, like she, she doesn’t love herself. She’s got time to speak to you. It’s not like, look at me, I’m a pretty jump roper. and you know, she’s, she’s, she’s cool. She’s, she’s really cool. so yeah, that was probably my highlight. And then I suppose working towards working with Chris in the jump rope workshops next year. So.

That’s really cool. But that’s all kind of like down on me. So when you say, can you say more about that, that you’re going to be working with Chris and teaching jump rope?

Yeah, so Chris does a lot of workshops specifically for adults, adult workshops, people that want to progress their jump rope. But he also wants to push it a lot in schools. And I think it’s because it’s quite a traditional skill in the UK. I don’t know if it was in the US, but yeah, like it’s pretty old school skipping rope. Like my mum still finds it hilarious that I’ve gone back to skipping. yeah, and he wants to really push it in schools. But there’s only so many places he can be at once.

So he’s got his own company and his own brand and I’ve got no aspirations to be my own company or be my own brand, but I do love jumping rope. And even doing it with my children is just so lovely to watch them do something so simple, so basic, but still enjoy themselves. And then I just got a kick out of it and I think it was one of his other instructors that said, oh, you do know he has a bit of a pathway for people that want to do this. And I was like, does he?

And then I got in touch with him and he was like, yeah, basically all I ask is that you go through your own gym instructing course, which obviously it will just teach you the basics of body anatomy and physiology, et cetera. Do you’ve got those skills, basic knowledge? And then he said, and then you can come and join me on the workshop and stuff. yeah, I won’t be a coach, don’t think, but a helpful instructor, which is fine by me.

Dizzy Skips
Sarah, what about your 2024 highlights?

Sarah Marshall
Yeah. Well, I started the year off with like a sprain. So for me, my first kind of like four my six months, four to six months was basically like retraining the rope to be able to control it well. So my highlight was the hundred days jumping with Joy with Peta. So I joined that day one. I saw my friend Leah, @mamaskip, she invited me and I was like, what are doing?

And that was just as my sprain and just literally kind of completely knitted itself back together. And she brought me into that and that opened me up to a world of women that I’d never followed before. And oh my God, I mean, it kind of brought me to you guys as well. So massively thankful. was a huge, huge challenge, huge thing to do, 100 days of jumping. And it wasn’t always jumping as well. was fluid flow, all that kind of stuff. It was just nice. Just picking up a rope even for five minutes, even when I had COVID during it.

Like Peta did I just picked it up just just go whoop and I’m so that was really nice so yeah, and it was nice to be in the group and People thought I was good, which was quite cute. It of gave me like a little confidence boost everyone was like, my god I’m really not. For me this year was joining that group and joining that challenge and kind of talking and making friends with people internationally.

Don’t think I really would have done that. I had my little group in the UK that came from Chris’s workshop and I’ve really loved those guys and we still meet up now and do little meetups. But that has opened me up to people internationally and they’re like, if you ever come over, can come stay with me. And I’m like, yes, I’m going to Australia. And I’ll be meeting with Peta. She’s coming over to the UK next year. don’t know if I’m allowed to say that, but she’s doing a meetup.

Yeah, she you could probably fit her in it. She’s four foot eleven. I think I think that’s what she said. She was on a previous episode of the podcast and what a lovely person. But yeah, she’s like fun-sized.

She’s going to be my little peek-a-pocket. Amazing. Yeah, I know. Someone smaller than I’m to call her that as well.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah, I think that’s probably part of her name is that she could fit in a pocket. She’s a little tiny.

Laura, how about 2024 for you?

Well, I guess for me, the biggest highlight was actually discovering jump rope in the first place, because it was not on my radar at all. And, you know, once I started uploading my videos on Instagram, which was pretty shortly after I had picked up the rope, I had no idea that there was going to be such an extensive community of people that did it. I didn’t realize that it was such a thing.

Just to be able to connect with so many people that are just as passionate about it as me is pretty darn awesome. So yeah, think just, I’m so passionate about it, that it’s really cool to discover something new. And it’s sort of, I think it’s gonna to take me in some other directions in my life than I was originally planning. So I think it’s gonna have.

quite an impact on my life because I’m thinking I’ve got some pretty big aspirations in terms of what I want to do with it. So it’s given me a lot of ideas and it’s sort of in a way opening a lot of new doors and maybe pointing me in some new directions in my life. So I think it’s really big. Yeah. That’s exciting. That’s how I felt about it as well. As soon as I started doing it and I think if anything, know, sometimes as an adult you do search for that thing.

like what is my thing? Some people are great runners and some people just don’t have runs in the park. Couldn’t think of anything worse. I can’t be doing the running. Like no, I look at people and I’m like why are you running? Who are you running from? That’s what I worry about. That’s the only reason I would run because I was running from something.

At least if I have a rope I could just you know, smash someone in the face with it We all know the handles absolutely hurt so I feel safe But I suddenly just felt like I’d found my thing and then my thing turns into my god This is everybody else’s thing and and then yeah getting to know people like Chris and just thinking my god I could make this more of my thing than I thought my thing was and yeah, it’s it’s been so cool like a lot of it now is down to me that I’m only really gonna be able to do this if I do actually

put my ass into gear and do the sodding workshop that I need to pass. But I do want to do it. It’s just I have children and suck the life out of me. just working, just working around, I’ll probably be like a 16 year old have no idea what you’re talking about. By the time I get there, I’m going to be like, I’ve made it Chris. I’ve got my walking stick and my rope. I’m going to, I’m going to try, but I love that. I love it.

Your kids are fairly young still too, hey? Yeah, they’re five and seven. So my seven year old is awesome. He’ll either watch me and go, oh, mom’s skipping again. Or he’ll be like, mom, can I grab the rope and come out with you? Whereas my other one just looks at me like, why are you not talking to me? And I’m just like, shh. Five, ten minutes, come on. I could do five mic releases. Yeah, exactly. But no, they’re pretty cool. think and that’s another thing I think it carried on because

I could just go in the garden and take 10, half an hour, an hour even to myself knowing that they were quite happy indoors. I was only in the garden. You I haven’t had to find any way to do it. I haven’t been restricted to gym classes or the gym closes in an hour or something. I don’t want to go to the gym at 11 o’clock at night. I just want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I’m so spoiled in that way.

Dizzy Skips
I don’t know if you all heard the episode with @skippyimmy on it. She was unable to join us today, but she has three children and they all have autism. And she talked about that and two of them are nonverbal.

And so the fact that she can get out into the driveway and jump for a half hour is like amazing. And I love it when her youngest comes outside and is like toddling around in the background doing fun stuff. He’s super cute.

So I’m curious, Aaron like what…

Uh, is there a skill or trick or something that you learned in 2024 that you’re especially happy about or especially proud of or something that you got better at? 2024.

Uh, not really. I suppose just, just doing combos and new combos and stuff, really. Um, see, don’t like, I’ll learn a new move and then straight away I’m like, I want a new move immediately afterwards. So I’m just constantly chasing the next move. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips
Mm-hmm. Who was I talking to the other day who was, like, they focus on one skill a week, you know, like every week there, it was Kailey (@kailey.jumps)! Kailey, like, each week she’s, trying to learn a new trick. And, I’m not that disciplined. She’s amazing. She’s amazing.

That’s probably why she’s better than I am. Yeah. I’m, I’m like Aaron and I jump from one to the other because I’m like, ooh, I’ve learned that bit now, but.

Aaron does remind me of like a jump rope contortionist. know, like I don’t really know every time I watch him, I could just see my eyes going like this. Like, is he actually going to get out of what he’s just created? he’s out. he’s back in again. It’s so funny. So funny. I could probably never be these combos.

This is shoulder mobility. My combos. It’s easier. If I showed you how to do it, it’s easier than it looks. I don’t know what it is.

Yeah.

We’ll see. I’m not even sure that my arms move in the same way yours do. when I met him. When I met you, Arred. It was just this beast and you never stopped. How long we were talking for? Five hours? Four hours?

Kept jumping around the room. Jumping around. I was like, he’s got a tire I got a tire around. He’s like the Duracell bunny. I love it. High energy and I love it. So Sarah, how about a skill that you either picked up or got better at this year? I’ve been jumping so long. This year I’ve kind of had to retrain myself following that injury. So I’m like.

I’ve done everything before, I say everything, not everything, done most things before. So it was relearning the old skills that my body had kind of almost forgot because I that six months off of jumping. Like my mic releases, my mambas, I loved, like I’m really happy with them because that was all I could do when I had the time off my feet. And now currently having time off my feet again for something else with my sports, which is great. But I don’t mind. So the thing that I was most impressed with, and Aaron will be happy about this because it’s something that he helped me with, was getting my EBs back and both sides. The thing I’m most proud of at the moment is doing it by the law and doing both sides. So any trick I now learn, I do it both sides, which I never did before. So before my sprain, I was just like, I’ll just do it all on my dom side, all fine. But now I’m getting more versatile and yeah. So it’s doing it by the law that Chris says, and you have to do it by both sides.

So that’s what I’m proud of is just kind of saying, okay, I’ve got it this side, let’s go that side, go that side, go that side, and making sure it’s versatile so I do it both ways. That’s the thing that I’m proud of. I agree with you there on all parts, apart from the mic release. It doesn’t matter why I do. I can’t do the mic release on the other side. Like I spent a lot of time also like learning the EBs and I have smashed my ears.

more times than I care to even remember and my poor little ears I’m surprised I haven’t got a chunk missing from them to the point where even on a hot day I started wearing a hat because I couldn’t bring myself I started to be scared of the pain so I was like flinching almost out of the EB that I almost I don’t know look like a worm trying to do an EB I was like

strange or some standing up salmon doing an EB and yeah, but I agree with you doing it on both sides. I think really does help. you feel like jumping rope in general sort of helps develop both sides of your brain? Like I feel like I’m way more ambidextrous than I used to be. Yeah. So Laura, you also had a recent injury that sort of prevented you from jumping for a while, right?

Yeah, I did. was almost eight weeks that I had to take off from jumping. just. my God. I was so depressed. Yeah, it was seven or eight weeks. I just overtrained when I first picked up the rope. was like gung-ho. I was doing two, three hours a day from nothing. So I just I ended up I injured my tendons in both my legs and to the point where, you know, it started hurting me and it was hurting when I was jumping. But I just like whatever pain.

and you just push through it, push through it, push through it. And then one day I woke up in the morning and I literally could not walk. The pain was so bad and I had, you know, bruising and swelling in my legs. So I tore some tendons in both my legs. And yeah, so it was really deflating, obviously, and really difficult. So I just had to figure out.

how it’s going to refocus my energy. Yeah, I gonna say it didn’t keep you down. So I did lots of rope work, right? It did not. I didn’t miss a day. Yeah, I did a lot of rope work and that’s sort of yeah, I took off with the releases at that point. That’s where they decided I was going to focus my energy on and and I still had that rope in my hand every single day working on those. So in a way it was it was kind of you know, that was the silver lining of it. It was a bit of a blessing in disguise because

I remember checking it, you know, when I was checking out people’s Instagram pages when I first started, I thought the releases were, you know, some of the coolest tricks. So yeah, yeah, I thought they looked really awesome. So it was cool to be able to focus on that for a while. And just in the last week, I’m starting to get back into some light jumping again. So, um, I’m just going to try and be careful so I don’t set myself back. Cause I know it’s easy to re-injure those things. totally did that when I just totally over jumped. And this is actually,

It was about a year ago. Yeah, it was like Christmas Eve and then Christmas, I went outside in the driveway, didn’t warm up at all and just jumped for a couple hours straight and to the point where I couldn’t jump on one leg and you know, like talk about not listening to your body, right? And then I got plantar fasciitis and couldn’t walk for six weeks and all I wanted to do was like dance and jump and it sucked.

It’s really hard not just physically but like to mentally to not be able to yeah, but you did something I didn’t keep going and like I literally like learn all the rope stuff, you know the rope wrangling which you’re I’ve seen your releases and you’ve Like wow you’ve come so far so fast. It’s awesome

Well, I looked I was looking back through videos a couple of days ago and November the 10th Was the day I I still couldn’t do a basic mic on on November the 10th So that was about six weeks ago. So maybe maybe close to seven now. So I was I’m always my my biggest worst critic. I think we always are and you sort of you sort of focus on where you want to be instead of how

far you’ve come, right? So it was really cool to look back on that video and see, okay, on November 10th, I couldn’t even do a basic like a single basic mic. So yeah, it’s been it’s been fun. I think I’ll probably do maybe a very cool release progress video or something. Yeah, it’d be it’s been nice to that I know obviously you see it but show the people because then that inspires them to go. Actually, if I actually just commit to it, even pick try a mic a day.

Mic a day or Mike a day as Aaron calls them, Mike’s. Micaday, like literally just try it and then they could be there at the same point as Laura. You’d inspire so many people. Yeah, I love those videos.

I think it’s impossible to not get it if you put in the work every day. Like eventually it’s going to click, eventually you’re going to get it. So yeah, I think that that’s what it’s all about. Definitely comes. find footwork the worst. I just really struggle with my feet. Like my head just doesn’t want to, my feet just don’t do what my head’s thinking. I’m just like, right, let’s go out and have a little shuffle. And then I’m like, okay, let’s go out and have Becky, when you’re trying to learn, you…

Dizzy Skips
Do you try the shuffle without the rope? Like do you get your footwork down without the rope and then add the rope? Yeah. I’m too impatient to be I’m impatient too, but I’ve found that that really helps. honestly, the night before last I was on URope. I don’t know if you know that brand. U R O P E dot U S. It’s @nicojumpsrope It’s her company and she’s got a really great sale on rope. So I went on and I bought a couple of ropes and she has a

She’s into dance rope, which I love. And so I bought her a dance rope course. it’s all in Spanish, but it’s English subtitled. And one of her points is to learn your thing without the rope. Learn that footwork without the rope and then add the rope.

I know. I’m like you though. I know. But then my rope is sitting on the side and then I’m just like…

Yeah. Could be worse people to be faced with. Can you do it like, you know, like, your rope’s not feeling lonely anymore. Don’t leave your rope up. Could you do it spinning the rope to the side of you in one hand? Yeah. Single-hand swing?

Because that’s what how – I don’t really know. I’ll record myself. I’ll record myself one day and you’ll see how confused I look when I go out there sometimes. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing when I’m out there. I’m just like, right, okay.

I’m inspired more about the songs. Like if I’ve got the right songs on, I just go for it and then edit what comes out.

Dizzy Skips
You do something that Laura was just mentioning, which is you’ve posted several videos that show the struggle of learning, like the mic release or something like that. And I do think that those videos are inspirational because it’s really, it’s not that it’s easy, but you can edit a really nice video that is that 30 seconds of you just totally rocking it to that Jay-Z song, but people don’t always see the 10 hours of crying and screaming and frustration and rope throwing that may have gone into making those 30 seconds. And so I appreciate when I see that.

Becky Gibbs
No, I honestly, I honestly believe that you, jump, say you jump for 30 minutes. I think I did one reel, you jumped for 30 minutes and actually all you get out of that is like probably three minutes of good stuff, maybe even 30 seconds sometimes, you know, like, so I’ve done a whole session before I’m just like, well, was absolute W-A-N-K.

I’m just gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go in because I’ve achieved zero. But then the next day, it will be like the best jump rope I’ve ever done. And I’m like, look at me. Lauren who? No, not really. love you, Lauren.

Well, I mean, have to you have to you have to look at that time that you’re up part of it too, right? yeah, but it does make me cross. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get it. I get it for sure. But I almost enjoy the crossness because I know I know now that what will come out of it in a couple of days time will be will be great. Yeah. Okay. So hold it.

Sarah Marshall
Yeah. My motto is drills build skills. I can’t remember who told it to me. Someone told it to me at one of the workshops. I don’t know if it was, I can’t remember, but drills build skills. So as long as fail as you have, it will just build that muscle memory for everything that you’re doing. And that is my motto to everyone that is. And I’ve I speak to starting to jump rope, I just go, drill it, drill it, drill it, drill it, and it will build.

I don’t think I got that until I started drilling the mic release and then I because it was the last thing on one of Eddie’s programs and I was like I’m not gonna not finish this bloody program I’m gonna get this poxy mic release is doing my fucking head in and I was like right and I picked out the fact that I was gonna do it over Easter and I drilled it for two weeks every day for two weeks and then by the end of it I was like I’ve only gone and got it. And I know some people have like practiced it for months sometimes, and I got it in two weeks because I absolutely drilled it.

But you can get really cross with the drills and it makes you clumsy sometimes because you get tired, I’ve found. And then also you’ve drilled it so much that actually you forgot what you were drilling before and then you do have to revisit that again because you’re just like, okay, now I’m just doing EBs for life. I’ve forgotten how to basic jump.

When you’re doing those drills, you go, are you like doing a certain amount of time or you? No, I go, you’re talking about drilling every day. Like you just go until you’re just pissed off and then you go inside or?

Yeah, that’s pretty much. Yeah. Sometimes five minutes, sometimes an hour. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Because I don’t do it for exercise. For me, I’m not there to be like, right, I’m going to do half an hour of exercise. I’m like, right, what can I crack out today? And

So yeah, I just do it until I’m too tired or out of breath or I’ve said the F word too many times out loud in the garden and they can’t hear the music. So I’m saying it really loud. do worry about my…

Sarah Marshall

A funny story about my, you know, the drills thing. So I drilled the Mamba squeeze so much to get it into a good squeeze, like tight where it landed perfectly round that I forgot how to Mamba. So I couldn’t go past that one, two, three, four, five, six squeeze.

I couldn’t go past that five, six and it’s taking me about two months to get it back. So I can just go past my face where it kind of goes back into it. It honestly smacked myself so many times. I’ve got such bad footage of it. Like really bad wits. Like the ear thing that Becky was on about with the EB. My ear took all of it. Even with the headphones. I it. Yeah.

Couldn’t get past that five, six of the double rotation to get back out of the squeak. It’s awful. So yeah, drills do also break the drill. Yeah. my God. can’t even feel. Just talking about it.

Dizzy Skips
Richard, how about you? What was this skill that you picked up this year? The reason I’m proud of. know you’re drilling mic releases. I’ve seen your recent videos.

Richard Head
30 minutes in. I’m 30 minutes in. I got 30 minutes of sucking at mic releases under, or excuse me, mic releases under my belt. I think for me, like I just recently got my 58 doubles in a row. That was a big one. Yeah, that was a cool reel. For me, you know, it’s, was something that, and if you look back at those reels, you know, I struggled with doing more than like two in a row. And then one day I got like 13 or 14 and maybe like a year after that, just another like suddenly, I did 42. And so was trying to get to 50. I don’t know that I was like specifically setting out to try to do 50 very often, but it was always something that was just kind of in that back corner of my brain. Like, will I ever be able to do 50? And yeah, I just recently got that. So I think apart from the sappy jump rope community stuff, I think the 50 doubles is pretty cool.

And then also just going outside and trying a mic release one time. I think just the fact that I’ve now done that is a big thing because I, you know, I saw everybody else do it and it’s one of those things that like when I did it first, I was like, okay, it seems easy when I look at it, you know, on paper, it should be easy. And now that I went out and tried it, I know that yes, this is, I’m not going to get this overnight. And so was kind of

You go out there and just go like, okay, if you want to do this, it’s going to be, it’s going to be a long road to go down. So I think the fact that I went out there and just tried it once felt pretty, like,

Dizzy Skips
I think that’s really important because to me anyway, like the first time I saw people do mic releases, was like, this is magic. Like it’s total magic. I don’t know. would ever be able to do that. And it’s taken that first step to get up there and suck at it a little while or, you know, although I have to say, Richard, I saw you posted a little picture that had a to-do list like for your workout and one of the items was like be dog shit at releases and I want to ask you like is that positive self-talk, sir? And do know what manifesting is?

Richard Head
Dude no actually actually actually actually it is positive self-talk and let me let me explain why and I was hoping this would come up because I know everyone in the jump rope community is very positive and like don’t get down on yourself and whatever however if I set the goal to go outside and be amazing at mic releases and then I don’t do it and I don’t catch it and I don’t whatever then like I’ve failed at that goal. But if I set the goal to go outside and be complete dog shit at mic releases for 15 minutes, that’s a much more achievable goal. And so when I set the goal to go outside and be complete dog shit at mic releases for 15 minutes And then I go outside and I achieve that goal, man. Now I have achieved my goal versus setting a different Yeah, so like i’m my actions are the same but my goal is different.

So if Dizzy goes out and goes, I’m gonna catch five mic releases in a row And then he doesn’t, then he’s gonna go inside feeling defeated. Whereas i’m gonna go outside and say, “Today I’m going to be complete dog shit at mic releases,” and then I go out and I’m complete dog shit at mic release. Guess who achieved his goal? It’s me. Like I’m, I’m achieving my goal, baby. know what I mean?

Becky Gibbs
So stereotypical man, your own reverse psychology.

Richard Head
Yup. Yup. So when I put that in my workout, like, okay, it’s only day number two. So today the day is to go out and actually

And really that’s an achievement too is like, I get really stuck because double pump boxer skip – I can do that all day long and people will walk by and go, look how cool that guy is. Oh my God. He’s just, you can hear that rope just whippin.

So for me, it’s like, why would I want to suck at mic release when I can do my, you know, do my thing I’m good at. It’s like, it’s almost a hill to climb to just decide to not do that shit you’re good at. okay.

Now I’m going to be dog shit. I’m, I’m going to achieve the goal of being complete dog shit for the next, you know, 15 minutes. And so that’s, that’s why I labeled it like that of like, you know, adjust your goals, adjust your goals. Right. And then later, maybe I’ll just change it to be bad at mic releases.

Dizzy Skips
I mean, you could set the goal, Richard, to just like practice. Like you don’t have to put a qualitative,

Becky Gibbs
maybe for the next jump he could as a poo he them up? next jump we could dress as emojis and he can be the poo emoji

Richard Head
Speaking of dog shit videos I tried to I tried to one time I didn’t post this but

I was like, okay, I’m going to go outside right before the sun goes down and I’m going to start a time lapse video of like me jumping until the sun goes down. But I’m out in the backyard and it’s getting darker. And at some point I stepped in dog shit and then you see me in the time lapse realized like, no, there’s it’s on my like, had to decide to stop the video and get the hose out. And my wife, my wife heard me out there.

you know, swearing and she thought the dog was out there bothering me and I’m like, no, the dog’s inside, but I’m, have this, just don’t come out here. You know what I mean? So I think I still have that saved somewhere, but you can see me like sun’s going down. It’s looking really good. all the time. That’s hilarious. And to change the subject, I also want to point out the fact that Aaron still has not explained calisthenics.

Laura Bushert

Is there a certain move that you want to be able to do? I know I’ve seen people do things like the human flag or a mud walk. You know what a human flag is? like when you hold on to a pole. human walk?

Becky Gibbs
What, is this human flag? That’s hilarious. my gosh.

human flag. is it? is this? So you look like a human flag flag. I thought you said slag. And then you said about Paul and I was like, makes sense.

So Aaron, you’re just going to flow with the calisthenics and kind of do whatever.

a lofty goals, but I don’t think I’ll hit them. So we’ll see how it goes. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips
Is one of them to be as buff as The Rock? You were going on about the rock earlier.

Aaron Fleming
A backflip, but you know when you see someone do backflip and their legs are straight the whole time? Yeah.

Richard Head
Well, I I was talking to, I was messaging Aaron, I don’t know, this is a while back about his calisthenics program. And I was like, oh yeah. Well, maybe we can work towards learning to do a handstand. And his response was like, Oh, I can do a handstand.

Dizzy Skips
There’s a lady on Instagram. took a class from her name is @shellyflex and she is like an acrobat and she taught this handstand class and oh my God, it was so much fun. I had to clear out furniture in the downstairs so that I could kick up against a wall and it was like a Zoom class where we all did handstands. I would love to continue with that, but I have not. I have plenty to do with jump rope.

I’m curious, you all have, or Becky, did I ask you what your favorite accomplishment was in 2024? Okay, all right. So I was, I’m curious also.

If you’ve had that experience, like I’ve had it several times this year where I’ve recorded myself, I record my jumping, and then when I go back and watch the video, I see something that I didn’t realize was there, like a footwork move that I did that I’ve seen other people do that I didn’t realize I did in the moment. And I’ve sort of learned from that. Have you had that experience at all?

No. I have.

Sarah Marshall
Yeah, I’ve done it and I’ve gone, I did that and I didn’t know I could do that and then I tried to redo it and then I couldn’t do it. Right, then you think about it and screw it up.

Yeah, you think about it, you procrastinate and then I kind of just kind of go, oh no, I’m just going to give up and then carry on something else. Yeah, I’ve done that quite a few times actually. I don’t know if you saw my most recent story, I ended up doing a same side step through Mamba. I don’t actually know even how I did it.

I can do steps with releases, steps with releases, so say like, the rope goes under your leg and you step through and you release it, so you go underneath. But I did the same side, it released on the same side and then into a mamba and I was like, I don’t even… I have a real bad thing when I talk to my camera. I don’t talk to my camera, I talk to myself. But it looks like I’m talking to the camera, so people that go past in the gym just think I’m absolutely the craziest lady in the world and they’ll never come near me, which is brilliant, which is exactly how I want it to be.

I did the same step through Mamba, but then I ended up getting it and I was like, how did I even do that? How did I even do that? couldn’t even believe it. But yeah, sometimes when I do footwork and I look at it and go, oh, that’s really cool. Well done, Sarah. Try and go do it again. Not a chance.

Dizzy Skips
How about you, Laura? Have you had that experience? No?

Laura Bushert
No.

Dizzy Skips
I’m also curious about the technical stuff. Like we never really talk about your recording setup or our recording setups. I’ve seen a few people post little reels showing theirs.

So like when I started out, I was propping my iPhone up against the wall and I was doing it so that the face of the iPhone was toward me. So it was like in selfie mode so I could see myself. And I and I learned that that was not the way to do it.

Becky Gibbs
that’s exactly how I do it like explain for me

Dizzy Skips
Often times I’m jumping at night and the camera that faces you on the iPhone has a slower frame stop than the one on the front of the iPhone.

So what I learned to do was I got a stand and then I sort of position it so that, so I pointed at the stand so I can’t see myself anymore. I just kind of set it up and make sure that the, or try to make sure that the, you know, jump rope mat is in focus or the limestone is in focus or whatever. And I’ve totally had those times where I skip dance for like 20 minutes and I go look at the video and I have no head, you know, like I’ve not positioned the camera correctly.

But the picture is so much better. I think on my iPhone, which is the 13 mini, I think it’s like the frame stop is 1.8 versus 1.6 or something like that. And I don’t know that much about photography, but the net effect is you get a better picture. So like my setup now is, I don’t have it up here, but it’s a little tripod that I got from Amazon that has an extendable pole.

it’s got the three legs that pop down and it’s got an extendable top thing. What do you call that? But it could go up to like six feet high and so I can adjust it to different sizes or whatever.

For some reason that made Becky laugh. But it was very helpful to me because I didn’t have to just put my phone on the ground and especially like if I’m jump dancing in the rain or snow or something it’s easier.

So what’s your setup like Aaron?

Aaron Fleming
sorry. I was weird. yeah, I just have a tripod that I set up, but I also realized that the back camera is better than the front camera. So after posting about 500 videos of me skipping the wrong way around, I told everyone I was left handed. There’s no one realized, but yeah, before that, but Mrs. Would actually stand there. I reckon for a solid 90 days, she was stood there recording me jumping rope.

I don’t think my sessions are pretty long, so she was there for a very long time.

very nice. Aw, that’s commitment.

Dizzy Skips
Yes. when you were on the show earlier, Aaron you said that when you were first trying to jump rope that she was out there and falling on the floor laughing at you.

I can’t get that image out of my head. It’s so funny.

Aaron Fleming
I used to go to gym all the time, so I was just a big guy. I couldn’t even jump the rope. I didn’t even have to jump off the floor properly, let alone jump the rope. yeah, it was funny. I remember spending like 20 minutes to try and get me to jump 10 jumps in a row.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah. Yeah. I talked to @jennyjustjump the other day and, and in prep for her interview, I went back and looked at some of my, she has been one of my longest supporters.

Like she was one of the first persons to leave a comment on my videos. And I went back and looked at some of my first videos to see when she left her first comment. And my God, that was kind of humbling.

It was humbling because I look back at those videos and my arms are way out like this and I’m doing, you know, like my jumping wasn’t where it is today. Not that it’s great, but, but you know, my first inclination was to go, my God, I sucked back then, but I tried to reframe it in my head.

Like, no, I was really trying, you know, like I was happy. I was doing, I was getting out there and I was doing it and, that showing up and you know, just working like has got me where I’m at, which I’m happy with.

Laura, what’s your recording setup like?

Laura Bushert
I don’t know, I just rest my phone on the window ledge at the gym. I don’t have a tripod or anything. But like most, like you, I used to record with the front face and then I figured out the back one is a lot better.

But that I’m going have to try this then Anna, I’m not the only one now.

Laura Bushert
The quality of the video is way better, but herein lies problem is you can’t always tell if you’re in the frame. and it like without fail.

whenever I would be nailing the most stuff, I’d be like, yes, like I just nailed it. This is awesome. I got some great footage. I go back, I’m way out of frame. You can’t see anything. and then, know, so you stop recording, you set it back up. You’re like, okay, I did it once. I can do it again. And then you’re on frame and you just, can’t get a single catch. can’t get, like, you just bomb it, you know?

Becky Gibbs
So. does it look like if you like zoom out? You know, like when you go to 0.5 or something. you.

Laura Bushert
That’s what I started doing that just make you look weird and warped?

I don’t know, it depends on the angle and how close you are to the camera, I find. So now I do that, I do the .5, but I find a lot of the times if I want to change my angle and I put it on the floor and I’m on .5, my legs look about three miles long and looks like my head’s gonna hit the roof at the gym. So it’s kind of awkward.

But I was actually just out looking at some tripods or something the other day and hopefully I can get myself a little bit of a better setup. And I do practice at home and I’ve kind of like I’ve MacGyvered this area where I’ve got like boxes stacked and clamps and this and that. I’m just trying to you know, I don’t have anything pro going on but I figured out a way to make it work so.

Becky Gibbs
I’m very similar. I’ve got like what I call my War of the Worlds tripod and it’s like, you know, the ones with the weird bendy legs and it just looks like it’s going to attack everything. And because I’m not at my actual house now, I’m at my in-laws, I just prop it up on like this plastic green stool and just hope that the wind doesn’t come because otherwise my phone, literally I’ve got this screens cover, but all the screen protector is like…

I have no idea if actually is the screen protector or if it’s really the screen. But I figured if I don’t pick it off.

Dizzy Skips
So is that one of those tripods that you can wrap around like a railing or something like that?

Yeah, but I have nothing to wrap it on. So it just sit there looking like it’s attacking.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah, there’s been a couple of times with my tripod thing where I’ve had it up at like five or six feet and I’m jumping on one of the limestone benches and then I bend it down a little bit so you can see the top of the bench. And it’s been so windy that I’m in the middle of something and then the phone faceplants, you know, that’s happened more than once. So I’ve been like putting my backpack on the base to kind of try and weight it down a little bit.

Aaron Fleming
My tripod does that in the wind as well. I looked up and then the tripod’s on the floor. Brilliant. Fun and games. Yeah, yeah.

Becky Gibbs
Oh my God, who uses their phone and their watch for music by the way? Does anyone use their watch for but their phone for recording? of the time.

Dizzy Skips
So that’s actually something that I learned was, so I’ve got an iPhone. So they’ve changed some things in iOS so it’s better now but at first if I would put it in video while I was listening to Spotify it would just put the audio on, yeah exactly.

So the trick was you put on photo and you press and hold the little thing and then slide over and it’ll record and it won’t cut off whatever you’re listening to.

It is actual video, but it’s in photo mode and then you just slide the little dot over and it’ll start recording video, but it doesn’t take over the sound.

Laura Bushert
So, but yeah. in the latest update, in the latest update, they changed it. So now you can, you go to your settings and I think you taught like you put one toggle on now and

Becky Gibbs
I need this.

Yeah, well, I get quite cross because I got really cross the other day. literally tackled my husband for his watch because I put my watch on. I specifically make sure that my headphones, because I use the, I don’t know, Leap’s headphones, and then my watch, and I specifically make sure I’ve got them on charge. But for some reason, my watch had fallen off the bedside cabinet and had discharged itself, and probably because it’s had notifications all day from my phone.

And I was so psyched to get out. It was my Christmas tree day and I was like, I’m gonna do it. I’ll get it out there. I’m gonna be part of it. And I was so excited. But then I got to my watch and my watch had not had any charge. And then I looked at my husband, I was like, give me your watch. He was like, what do you mean? I was like, I need your watch right now. Have you got Step Into Christmas on your watch. And he was like, have a what? I was like, you need to get Step Into Christmas on your watch right now. Download it, hurry. No, you need to put it on charge because it won’t download if you don’t put it on charge.

Honestly, there was like, some 25 minute faff of trying to get outside just because I need, couldn’t record and listen to music at the same time. And then the amount of times I’ve gone outside and I’ve gone, huh, huh, it’s day, been to Christmas and I’ve done like all my, all my dancing and I realized it’s not even recording on my phone. I’m Oh my life. As if trying to learn jump rope hard enough. I was out jumping in.

Dizzy Skips
It was one of those things like you said, Laura, where you’re jumping and you’re doing something that you’re so proud of and then you go back and watch the video and like you’re out of the frame. I went back and I was like, it wasn’t even on. How did I not turn it on? Like, and I was so proud of the footwork never done this before. It was so cool. I want to show somebody. then it was like, wasn’t even on. Yeah.

So let’s talk to, yeah. I want to talk about food.

Yeah, I did all the work. Because I love food. And Richard is… I know, I know, I can’t help it. Did you talk about it? Richard is our resident chef here. here’s what I’m curious about. How soon before you jump will you eat? Or how much time do you need before you jump from your last meal or snack or whatever? And is there something special that you eat before you go jump? Richard?

Richard Head
I like to do it on an empty stomach. I’ve been, we talked a little bit about it before, but when I started jumping rope, like, you know, I kind of changed a lot of stuff, changed the way I’m eating. And so now typically I’ll get up and I’ll do like water and coffee and then like one o’clock will be my first meal. So, and that’s just, you know, I know, doctor or whatever, but that’s been, you know, helping me and making me feel good. And, and so, yeah, typically I like to have a nice fasted stomach and then geez afterwards. I mean, I’m pretty spoiled because you know, I go to work and we, cook all kinds of good stuff there. then my wife and I actually met in culinary school. so she does some meal prep out of the house.

So I go from my job where we’re cooking all the stuff and eating all this stuff. And then I come home and she’s cooking more and more and more. So for me, the hardest thing for me is just to kind of control, know, imagine trying to lose weight and your boss is going, well, did you taste this? And did you taste this? And what did this taste like? And did you have some of that and what do you do? know, so that’s, it’s sort of my struggle to stay away from a lot of that stuff more than anything.

But I mean, I guess I don’t have any particular like thing that I’ve, that I’m, that I’m going to, you know, whatever my wife’s cooking.

Dizzy Skips
Did you ever read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain? One of the things I love in that book is he talks about how all good food is just butter. Like you go to a restaurant and it’s butter on everything. Like butter on the steaks, butter on, yeah.

Richard Head
Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s why everything in restaurant tastes better. It’s all just cream and butter and fat and salt and sugar. Yeah. That’s why.

Becky Gibbs
I don’t think so. What’s that? But butter is like the base layer, like the necessity layer just to make sure it’s not dry and weird. Like, but I wouldn’t say it’s like a thing. Yeah. is like the duct tape of food.

I think we’re more about bread. Interesting.

Dizzy Skips
Sarah, how soon before you jump do you eat? And do you, is there anything special?

Sarah Marshall
Like Richard, I prefer to do, if I can get in the morning at 5 a.m. jumps, then I’ll do it fasted, completely fasted. And I won’t eat probably in the middle, maybe eight, nine o’clock in the morning. If I do a jump, then get ready and go to work, get the whole morning routine, get the kids to school. And then I won’t eat till like, 9ish and that suits me fine.

If I jump at night, I’ve gone to the gym after work and stuff, it’s generally it’s like swimming. I do like the 45 minutes to an hour rule. Otherwise it’s just, it’s just not, you can just feel it coming back.

Richard Head
Yeah. And I find too, it’s like, it’s a motivational thing to like if you have a stomach full of food, you’re way less likely to go out and like do your planks or do your jump rope or whatever. But on an empty stomach, you’re way more likely to go out and do the thing you don’t want to do.

Sarah Marshall
So I weightless that I like train weightless weightlift before and then I do my cardio after. So if I have eaten and it’s been a bit less than 45 minutes to an hour, generally that kind of where you feel like something’s gonna come up is gonna be when I’m doing the weights. So then by the time I jump rope, it’s fine. It’s kind of just already gone down and settled. So I don’t really have a routine, but I’m with Becky on the carbs. Like if I’ve had a good jump rope session for maybe 30 minutes to an hour, then I will literally be on like toast or something really stodgy like oats, little porridge for breakfast. If I’m having a good jump rope session in the morning, then I really carb it up afterwards. Yeah, I like that.

But yeah, other than that, sometimes I have carbs when I get back from the gym as well. Yeah. Yeah. Depends on how much I’ve listed and exerted myself.

Dizzy Skips
And Aaron, when we talked earlier in a couple of months ago, I think you were talking about eggs, like eggs, eggs, eggs. Do you have anything else that you eat or is it all eggs all the time? It’s all a jump in. don’t, so obviously I tend to be at work, so I’ll eat at 12 o’clock then eat at night.

I’m literally fueled off coffee and protein. That’s literally my whole life. Coffee protein. Yeah.

Yeah, I hear you. What about you, Becky? Do you have any special rules for when you eat before you jump? No.

Becky Gibbs
No, no. I tend to just make sure I’m not hungry because that makes me more cross. But then I can’t eat too much because then like Sarah, it just starts to feel a little bit icky, especially because you’re jumping up and down, you know, and you’re just like, my gosh, I’m like a mixed bag of like whatever’s going on here. But yeah, no, ofs. And I have granola issues.

I just love it so much. I get, I get cross with no Greek yogurt. You get cross a lot, Becky. All right, you report that you’re cross a lot. Maybe. I know. Now she’s cross at me. Dammit, Dizzy!

Becky Gibbs
Maybe I’m a little bit like a little like Chihuahua.

Yeah, yeah. you just get a bit snacking off. Laura, how about you and eating? Yeah. Do you eat before?

Laura Bushert
Well first things first coffee coffee coffee coffee! But but yeah, I get my coffees in and I’ve tried the fasted jumping can’t do it I’m okay for about half an hour, but then all I can focus on is how hungry I am. So I usually do like a light carb load like I’ll have a piece of toast and a banana or something and then off I go It’s like just before I head out. So I’ve got something in my stomach, but I’m not too full and then I I’m with Aaron on the eggs. Love eggs.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah, @alwaysghadi did a post I think maybe it was on the Timeless or on the Skool app for Timeless Jump but he suggested or I think what he said he did was a spoonful of almond butter and honey like like a tablespoon full of almond butter and honey like a half hour before he went out and that gave him enough energy to kind of power through.

Becky Gibbs
What is almond butter?

Dizzy Skips
It’s like peanut butter but made with almonds. It’s quite nice. Yes, ma’am. Like a spread. Yeah. Yeah.

No, did someone ask me if I can smell it? Spread. Oh, spread. thought you said, you smell it? I was like, no. No, you can totally spread it. Right. You can also smell it.

I’m curious. I have another weird question. I sometimes when I record my reels and then I make a reel for Instagram, you know, I tend to…

I tend to, I’m almost always dancing with the music, right? Like my reels are very coordinated with music. And so there have been times where I have put together a reel and then watched it an embarrassing number of times. And sometimes I get emotional watching the reels for different reasons. And I’m wondering if any of you have had that experience where you’ve put together a reel and for whatever reason, like, first of all, I want to know, like, do you watch your own reels after you make them? And if so, how often do you watch them or how much do you watch them?

And then do they ever evoke strong emotion from you?

Aaron, how about you?

Aaron Fleming
I rarely ever watch myself back, to be fair. Obviously, I’ll watch it when I’m editing it, and then that’s about the last I’ll ever look at it. Yeah, yeah. Really? I’ll look at it a sense of, I’ll look at it for how go out and make sure that, like, know, the day before, I want to be able to beat that the next day. So then I’ll watch it and go, right, I did that. I need to do better today. But yeah, that’s all.

Dizzy Skips
How about you, Sarah?

Sarah Marshall
I’m like Aaron. I watch it as I’m editing and then maybe I’ll watch it again if someone points something out. Generally, mine is just taking the piss out of myself. kidding. Taking the mic out of myself. No pun intended. Just generally, just the lightheartedness. I don’t really tend to go watch them back, don’t think. Maybe if I want to show him my husband because he never looks at it, he’s not bothered.

I don’t know, like when people force things in their faces and I’m look at this. Look how cool make it up to that way. Yeah, and that goes in the pink one. But yeah, I’m kind of like the same. don’t really,

I do feel emotions like I feel like, I feel really proud of stuff, like if it is actually not a role, real, that’s taken the mic out of myself. And yeah, I feel proud and I feel a bit emotional about it and laughing, crying, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I don’t, I don’t generally watch them back.

Like on repeat, unless there’s something that I want to perfect. Sure. Yeah. Richard, how about you?

Richard Head
I watch mine a lot. I’m kind of embarrassed about how much I go back and look at my own. think, yeah, I want to document my progress, but I also sort of, I’ve said this before, I treat it like a diary kind of. And so there’s, for me, there’s things that may not necessarily be spelled out in the post, but I know like, I remember that morning. I remember, you know, whatever bullshit was on my mind or whatever thing I was worried about. And now I know how it worked out.

And things like that. I watch mine a lot because of that and also because you know, you’re sitting there and you’re on the couch and you’re stoned and you’re playing video games and stuff and you look through and you go, actually I’m actually a monster. I can get out there and do that. So it’s kind of a good way to like, okay, well, you know, if you did this yesterday, like, you know, you’re not dead yet, go out and do some more. I kind of, I look at them to kind of hype myself up a little bit and get myself up off my ass and go.

you know, do another one. But yeah, I look at mine pretty, pretty often my all the other girls in the house. Yeah, that’s funny. I’ll tell you how much I am with that.

Laura Bushert
I find for me, I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to putting my reels together. And my reels are generally like a lot of really small clips pieced together. So when I go to the gym, I’ll record like 20 or 30 minutes worth of footage. And then I go through and pick out the little pieces that I want to use. So I find I watch them a lot when I’m making them and before I post them, because I want it to sort of time right. I just want it to sort of feel perfect.

Yeah, exactly. in terms of that, yeah, like I probably watched them like a hundred times before I actually post it. And then once it’s posted, I just kind of leave it for the most part. I’m really with Richard on that in terms of looking back, because I can remember things that happened on certain days that I posted a reel.

you contrary to what it might look like, I might’ve had a really, really, really difficult day that day, but I still, you know, went out to the gym, put a smile on, got it done. And so it’s cool to sort of reflect back on that. And like you said, to be able to capture moments on camera, like say your first mic, you you’ve, you captured that on camera and that’s something that I think is really cool. And that you could be.

Dizzy Skips
Totally. You excited and proud of when you look back at it. you ever have other emotions aside from like excitement or being proud of?

I’m trying to feel better about myself by the way, by asking this question. think, yeah, I think, I think asking for a friend.

Laura Bushert
I think, I think like I can, know, in a few of my reels I like to put all the things that I screw up, you know, that I screw up as I’m doing them too. Cause it’s like you said, it’s easy to sort of piece together something that’s perfect, but really for me anyway, like 95 % of my sessions is just like fail, fail, fail. So yeah, think I like to sort of incorporate some of that frustration that I feel sometimes into those reels. But I generally, at least up to this point, I like to try and keep it a little bit lighter.

But yeah, like I said, like sometimes I go back and I look at a reel and it’ll remind me of a really tough day or something. And for me, that’ll invoke a of emotion. But yeah, it’ll, but at the same time, you can feel proud of yourself.

Becky Gibbs
I’m probably similar. For me, I probably watch mine a lot. For several reasons, one being is, one, I realize how small I am. I’m only five foot two. And sometimes in the frame that I’m in, the garden looks massive. I just look like this miniature little ant with my skipping rope. But also, I am so moved by music that

It’s nice to watch how much joy that 20 minutes just gave me, and the freedom of my face. I love capturing the fact that I have absolutely just nailed whatever that is, even if it means I haven’t done it again for months. But also, I suppose I also watch it to validate my purpose, which sounds really complex. I’m not a very complex person, but what I mean is, like, I watch it.

And there’s jump rope, like any sport, any hobby, you could easily make yourself feel crap because someone is always better than you, always. You know, there’s always someone out there that’s better. Like when you buy a house, there’s always a better house, but you have to compromise where you are. And then I find watching it validates my place in that little tiny circle of social media that I’m in. And I’m just like, actually, yeah, I did do that. And actually, I did that quite well.

And I’m quite proud of that. But mostly I watch the group ones a lot because very much like Laura, I take the editing to like OCD levels. if it, for one, I never post anything if I’m not home on Wi-Fi because I get really cross. I get cross. But it really annoys me if I know I’ve done it. I know, I’m such a cross person. Oh my God, I need to sort my life out.

But yeah, if I know I’ve timed that just right and I’ve timed everybody else just right, even like when we were doing that Halloween one, I tried really hard to make sure that everybody’s releases and catches were in the right place. And my God, I obsess over it so much. Like it has to be right. And if a stupid Wi-Fi signal bums me out, I’m going to get really annoyed. Let’s say annoyed.

But yeah, I do watch them a lot and I think it’s mainly because I know how much fun I have in that split second that I’m outside.

Sarah Marshall
Can I just add to what you were saying then about the whole joy and emotion to music? You know that post that you did about the Jump Rope community and Indestructible with the song?

Every time. Oh my god, I love that. Every time I’m in the car and it comes on in the car on the radio, I’m like, it just, it like emits something out of me and I can feel it building. I’m like, oh my god, I’m just, I want to get a rope in my hand. I’m very kind of like, bouncing behind. I know, you need to jump, don’t you? Oh my god. It’s I was going to message you, but I actually forgot. Oh, that’s To cheer you up a little bit. But yeah, I was like, oh my god, it’s just like, something comes out of me. I’m like, right, I really need to get into that bloody manager jump now. Like where have I gone? I’ve got my experience with the car and I need to go jump somewhere quickly. And it’s just something that you associate with that song and it just, something comes out and I’m like, yes. So yeah, it’s good.

Becky Gibbs
That’s really lush. I think I posted that as well, I think because sometimes I don’t know how you guys feel and I haven’t felt it so much since having this group, but sometimes you feel like you’re doing it, you are doing jump rope alone.

My best friend jumps rope, but she’s quite busy, so often we don’t get together as much as we forced ourselves to when we were doing it for cancer research. often, my husband doesn’t really care about my jump rope. He doesn’t know what a mic release is, and he doesn’t even know why I’m so worn out or cross. But someone out there, I know, will, and then I’m just an

And then it’s nice. Like you’ll just come across that one person where you’re just like, my gosh, I’ve tried doing this today. And then they’re like, my God, me too. And I’m like, great. It’s not just me being stupid with this stupid rope. Like, yeah. So it was nice. I think, I did feel a little bit alone at that point.

Dizzy Skips
It always sort of sucks when you’re so happy about like the jump rope. Like I was not joking the other day where I was talking to my stepmom about something and she said, “yeah, it all kind of looks the same to me. You know, it’s all jump rope.” And I was like, no, no way. You don’t understand how hard I worked to like shuffle, you know.

Right. She’s ejected. can’t be in the group.

Yeah. I am also very particular about the reels and putting some together. Some of them have taken me an embarrassing amount of time. And some of it is that I’m trying to time with the music, just like you said, you know. And that’s important to me.

I also, Richard, watch them sometimes an embarrassing number of times. Sometimes it’s, you know, I’ll watch them maybe 10 times after I make them or something. And then as I receive comments on them and then I go over to respond to the comments, then it’ll start playing. And then I watch it again or something. But I have had a number of, a number of times, know, dozens of times, I’m sure where my own reels have made me cry.

Or, I mean, and sometimes it’s crying because I’m sort of proud of that guy and where he’s at, you know, because I know where I was at a year ago, or I know where I was at, you know, two years ago, mentally or physically. And like, I’m kind of proud of that guy, you know, like he’s getting out there and trying and even going back and looking at some of my first reels where my jumping wasn’t that special, you know, I was trying. And so I, I have to not be hard on myself and go, “you sucked.” It’s like, no, “you tried.” And I think that’s important to acknowledge.

Sarah Marshall
Yeah, think I like Richard said with the diary type thing like I’d probably Video rope flow maybe a little bit more where I’ve got emotions. So there was one I was on holiday and I remember I remember the feeling that I had to send it break I ended up crying on the camera. I didn’t I don’t think I posted that I didn’t post that one where I cried but I know that that happened after it was like an emotional break and that like

Richard said like the diary, there’s parts and keys, not that I might have posted, but I know that happened that day. I suppose in that kind of sense, I do have that emotional aspect where I know I keep that kind of like mental diary, I suppose. Not that everyone, no one needs to know what’s gone on, that it hasn’t been perfect. Yeah, that kind of stuff. I kind of keep that diary there as well. So I kind of know that that day was a hard day, but I still got out, still moved the rope. I did something for me.

And then a post of, you know, bit of joy that came out of it afterwards or before or whatever. So, yeah, I feel that there is some path where as you kind of get emotional in that sense as well.

Richard Head
Yeah, I totally have the same thing. It’s like a way to leave a bookmark in your brain, right? Like, OK, and you look at your reel and you’re like, you flip to that bookmark and like you kind of revisit those emotions and revisit.

Like, yeah, you might’ve posted like, Hey, I’m doing double unders and that’s what this is about. But really, you know, that’s the day you got a promotion or that’s the day you got fired or that’s the day, you know, something good happened or whatever. And like, you don’t need to share that part with everybody. You can just share your little reel and your little, your little Paula Abdul song and your little shorts and all that. But you know, like really I overcame this extra thing that day or whatever it is. Yeah. They’re almost like, you’ll do it.

Becky Gibbs
I you what, I might share being cross at Instagram for deleting two of my favourite reads.

Yeah, I’ve lost our first Halloween reel. You know Meta had that big crash and ever since that big crash I’ve lost my progress reel that was pinned to my profile, which was my now and then reel where I was galloping like a gazelle into this lovely swan ant with her rope. I’ve also lost my

my first Halloween reel which really that really has made me quite cross to the point where I signed up to by the way Instagram I signed up to their stupid meta verified to get enhanced support and actually all they’ve done is keep taking so long to reply to my case that I haven’t been notified that they’ve replied so then they closed the case on me I’ve done this about seven times now so I’ve given up on the bloody reel

It’s so annoying. I was so proud of that real and they’ve got no idea how long that took me. No idea. Do you still have that footage or like saved in your phone? Do you guys save all that stuff on your own or do just? Yes, I know. But it’s not the same is it? Because I’ve lost everyone’s comments now and how everybody felt about doing that real and that really annoys me because that real kind of like… That would make me so cross if that happened to me. That’s I’m cross. Maybe that’s why I’m

Dizzy Skips
So here I have another question which is I saw, I want to say his name is Qaisar I think @halfcenturycarbon is his Instagram name. Yeah. I think it was him. Or maybe it was @seeseanskip . One of these guys posted something like, Hey, once you get over 40, here’s what I recommend for jump rope: ibuprofen.

And I thought it was, I thought it was sort of funny. but, but I have all sorts of things that I do to try and recover from muscle strain and pain and stuff like that. And I’m curious what you do.

Like, and I’ll tell you what I do. Like I did, I have a kidney thing, so I’m not supposed to take too much ibuprofen. I take ibuprofen occasionally, but, I use, Tiger Balm So I’ll put Tiger balm like.

Becky Gibbs
Oh my god, I have two lots of tiger balm Yeah, yeah, the red is fun.

Dizzy Skips
It stains your skin, doesn’t it? But yeah.

Becky Gibbs
It’s weird, man. Really weird. It’s like strange drugs in a bottle.

Dizzy Skips
It’s an ancient Chinese secret. They’re literally over there. I use that. And I also am like a geriatric. Maybe that’s not nice, but funny. I will get in a hot bath.

I bought this house and for four years I never used a bathtub. Like I would just use the shower. And over the last year I’ve used the bathtub and then I bought Epsom salts and put them in the bathtub and I will sit and soak my legs.

I’m curious, any of you like take any special medication or do anything special to recover from strain or injury? No.

Aaron Fleming
No, just for me, I just survive and go out and jump again.

Laura Bushert
yeah, I do now, big time. Before I didn’t really do much. I would warm up a little stretch whenever and that was it. Now I incorporate foam rolling. have a lacrosse ball that I use to roll on my muscles. It’s just like a little more targeted than foam rolling is. I do hot and cold therapy and a lot of stretching. And I’ve started doing that religiously. And I’ve also looked up some

some physio type exercises to help keep, you know, all the muscles in your lower legs and all the tendons stronger. So, I, I know I have to start taking better care of myself if I want to, get back. can you, I’ve got a foam roller as well and I’m curious, how do you use it? Are you like on the ground rolling it on the back of your legs ?

Yeah, so I can, I do the front back and sides. yeah, so some days I just do my lower leg. I’ll, I’ll, are you sitting on the ground when you do that back and forth on it? You can also kind of propping yourself up. You’re sitting on the ground and I can always, I suppose I can always, you know, I thought about posting a video about my, like my recovery type work. But yeah, you’re sitting on and you’ve got

say I’m gonna roll my right leg. So I put my right leg on the foam roller and I cross my left leg over top and then I use my hands and push my body back and forth. It’s a weird feeling I find it’s like it’s a real like it’s so good but so painful at same time. Yeah and you can definitely pinpoint the spots that yeah you know where if you’ve got a knot or something it hurts like it hurts a lot.

But the more you do it, the less it hurts. you tenderize your muscles a bit and then it’s not quite as worth it. Yeah. Do you ever have that experience where you hit that spot where it almost takes your breath away? Like, Oh, Oh, it does take. Yeah. just sometimes I feel like my soul leaves my body for a minute and then, and then it’s like, know, um, but then that’s the spot. And then you, if you, if you stay with that spot and then focus on deep breathing.

Sometimes you can actually feel that little spot release. So that’s a pretty cool feeling. So it’s worth it. It’s painful. So is that just part of your cooldown? you do it, less painful it becomes.

Dizzy Skips
Richard, how about you?

Becky Gibbs
Sorry to interrupt, but if I cut off, it’s because I’ve got 10 % battery.

I don’t have the capacity to have headphones and charger because it’s a stupid iPhone where they ditched the jack and I don’t have the jack socket now.

Dizzy Skips
Richard, do you have any special thing you do to cope with pain or strain?

RIchard Head
you know, I have, you know, like we talked about in the other podcasts, like the whole jump rope thing started for me out of a routine of stretches. And so I guess I don’t really do anything afterwards. I just try to make sure I’m getting that stretch routine. have like a 15 minute stretch routine that I’ll, if I can do it, know, four times a week or something, I’m pretty happy with that.

sometimes it’s just independent of the jumping. Sometimes, you know, like it’s for me, it all depends on time because, know, I’m usually before work. I struggled with the, with the plantar fasciitis before I started jumping and I have some rollers and stuff for my heels and, just trying to make sure that stuff keeps in check. But I mean, I don’t really, not specifically every time. Like I just want to make sure that I stay stretched out throughout the week.

And then for like a warmup, have programmed into my phone a routine where it’ll give me a 10 second rest and then five seconds of jump roping and then a 10 second rest and then 10 seconds of jump roping and then a 10 second rest and then fit. So, and then I build that up until I’m doing one full minute of rope. And that’s kind of, if I’m going to do a hard rope session, I’ll usually do that. It takes about eight minutes. So it’s like five seconds, wait 10 seconds, wait 15 seconds, wait.

But as far as afterwards, there’s not a lot of usually just thumbing through the fridge exercising the fingers and the mountains. It’s my cool down routine. Usually.

Dizzy Skips
Aaron, how about you?

Aaron Fleming
Yeah, totally. I’ve learned nothing.
No matter how many times I get injured, I still won’t warm up and I still won’t cool down. I’ll just go in and jump.

Dizzy Skips
Do you take ibuprofen or anything to like deal with pain or strain?

Aaron Fleming
When I met up with Sarah, both my wrists were swollen to the point I could barely move them.

I just crowded on through the injuries. really? Yeah.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah, way to listen to your body. Yeah, Tiger Balm, I will say, is really, been helpful for me.

Becky Gibbs
It’s amazing. I actually originally bought the white one for gnat bites in Thailand and randomly I found that Morrisons have the red one and I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting close to 40 But I think I’ve got arthritis in one of my index fingers. So I was like, oh, maybe I’ll use this but this is them So you’ve got the little little little white one. Oh, do you yeah, I also use this for headaches. Oh Interesting. Yeah, I put it I put it on my temples and and the red one. don’t know why the red one’s a good

Dizzy Skips
The red one does actually kind of stain your skin a little bit. was using it during the summer and it made my legs look a little more tan. I know, I do like it though.

I spray it on. I just get in the shower and spray it on. No, I don’t. kidding. You have a spray? No, I just rub it on my legs. In fact, I bought like latex gloves. So I’ve got gloves everywhere in the house. I’ve got gloves in my jump bag and then I’ve got tiger balm.

Becky Gibbs
Serial killer. Yes! Oh my god, you beat me to it.

Dizzy’s little house is covered in rubber gloves and ropes.

Dizzy Skips
There have been times where I’ve been at the park and like my legs are so strained that I want to put on Tiger Balm and I have to pull my… I’m sitting in the driver’s seat and then I have to like pull my pants down so that I could get to my legs.

Becky Gibbs
Right. So hang on a minute, Dizzy, right? So you have gone jump… you’ve gone jumping rope in an empty park on a lintel.

Lots of red flags. So many red flags. Yeah, no, I haven’t posted video of that, no, I have thought about posting video of my sort of warm-up routine because I’ve sort of refined it to the point where I do the same thing and it takes, especially in winter time, I will do it for a half hour.

Like I said, those two different things twice each and I found it really helps.

… look at the puppy.

Becky Gibbs
Who’s that? can’t see.

Dizzy Skips
Richard’s got a puppy.

She’s gorgeous.

Sarah Marshall
You should count yourself lucky. Boys, we might need to count ourselves lucky because I’m currently going through that plantar fissure. I’m guessing that’s what it is. I’m crippled in the morning. I can’t walk. And then it wears off as I go through. But like, I don’t, I use a tennis ball, but I don’t know anything else to help with the pain under the foot. I’ve got to my warm cool down.

Richard Head
Yeah, is it in your heel? Yeah, the worst in your in your heel,

Sarah Marshall
Right? hello. Where’s it going? Here. That was a way to leave a conversation. they’re on the cops. Yeah, one of these.

They look like it. They’re wood and you can roll that sore spot on your heel on there. I’ve got something like that too. It was a game changer. Just like three wooden rollers that are textured, Becky, that you can put your feet on and then…

Probably I got them at, I found them at Goodwill, but they were like, I actually have two, cause I had it in both cases. I just sit there and roll my heels. That plantar fasciitis That’s one of the most painful things. Oh, that shit is the worst.

Dizzy Skips
I think I’ve said several times, I would just roll out of bed onto my hands and knees and crawl around the house. Cause I couldn’t walk. Yeah.

Richard Head
And it’s always, it’s always the worst in the morning. Like you wake up and you’re like, Oh cool. I just woke up and I want to kill myself. Awesome.

Sarah Marshall
Yeah, you know what mean? So I found a way around it. I sleep in a splint now. So like a metal, like a thing that keeps my foot stretched, which is very annoying. And that’s way that, so if I want to go jump, I would do that because if I don’t, my God, the pain is just, I can’t walk. I can’t even get to the bathroom. Like it’s just awful. And I hobble, hobble, hobble, hobble.

Dizzy Skips
So you do that regularly, Sarah? Like you sleep in that constantly?

No, only on the days that I know. So not on the weekend, I’ll sleep on it five days a week. wow. I kind of stopped over this Christmas. That’s a lot. But it happened three, four weeks ago. It’s just so painful. I don’t even know how it came about. Like, I don’t know. I don’t know why.

Becky Gibbs
Have you asked Chris about it?

Sarah Marshall
He did tell me about the tennis ball and the massaging so I did start to do that and I’ve got like a, so you said foam rollers I’ve got a massage gun that like really smacks all the…

parts of like those knots. So does the work for me instead of me having to roll around on the floor like a I bet that feels brutal sometimes. No, it’s brilliant. I like pain. That’s the way that went wrong. Yeah, well, I like the doms. I don’t like the plantar fasciitis pain. That’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt. But like muscle doms and stuff like that, I love it. It’s just a weird pain. So when you get a knot like Laura was saying, when you get it and it releases and feel that pop.

It’s just something I wouldn’t like. a weird, weird association. It is that I’ve done a good job. I’ve been a good girl. Yeah, but this plantar thing is the pain. It’s worse than the spray. It’s the worst pain. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips
So some, you just mentioned meetups and that was one of the things I was wondering is like, how many of you have been to a jump rope meetup or done like a collaboration with another person? I know Aaron and Sarah, you guys have done a collaboration together.

And Becky, you mentioned going to a couple of meetups this year. I’m sort of fascinated with these. Like I’ve never been to one, but one of my goals for the year is to see if I can make it over to London or over to the UK in maybe September so that I could take part in that jump thing that Mandy’s organizing, that trying to set a world record. What?

I interviewed her, I don’t know, was she on episode eight or something like that, but she is in the UK and she’s trying to set a record in conjunction with Cancer Research UK.

Aaron Fleming
that- I’m part of that as well.

Sarah Marshall
I’ve got confused when you said Mandy. Is it Amanda? Yeah.

Dizzy Skips
Did I not say it in a British accent?

Jolly good show I interviewed Mandy. that was better.

But I think like the short story, well, you could go back and watch that episode with Mandy, which is a great episode, but she’s trying to set a world record for the most number of people jumping at one time.

And there are two different records that you can go for. requires that she get between 80 and 90,000 people skipping at the same time. It could be multi-venue, so different venues all across the UK. Yeah, know, right? Yeah. But she’s working with Cancer Research UK to organize it.

So the 80 or 90,000 people, to set that record, they have to all jump for three minutes. And it could be, I think, any kind of jumping.

But there’s another record that she could go after, which would require more like a thousand people. And that is everybody doing like alternating foot skips. so, that’s right, Aaron, right?

Aaron Fleming
Yeah. So it’s all going to be, it doesn’t have to be necessarily just in the UK, but obviously if it’s away from the UK, to be for Cancer Research, UK.

But yeah, it’s obviously, there’s gonna be locations all across country that everyone skips at the same time for three minutes unbroken. Or I think you can have a little break in the middle. But yeah, they will just, we need to get like hundreds of thousands of people and yeah, a fun one.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah, that would be so cool. I would love to come over and participate in that, you know.

I think it’s one thing that’s so cool about the UK is it feels like you have a high percentage of jumpers. And I can’t help but wonder if it’s not because of things like Cancer Research UK putting on these, you know, a hundred skips a day things or these different sort of fundraising events.

Becky Gibbs
would, I would say we don’t. I would say we’re quite like small in comparison to other countries. I mean, for one, we don’t really call it jump rope. I’ve adapted to call it jump rope because everyone else does. But generally in the UK, it’s been known as skipping.

Aaron Fleming
You know, there is a lot when it comes to those challenges, there’s a lot of people to do it. But then after the challenge, they all lose interest pretty quickly. me and that Mandy here in the same group, there’s only like five of us that

Me and that bandit. It’s hard to keep people inspired a bit. Or they’ll still skip, but they obviously won’t record themselves skip anymore. I know that. I think it’s… Yeah, everybody does boxing skips. that’s avenue.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah. I think there’s like four people that I’ve interviewed from the UK who were either exposed to Jump Rope through those fundraisers or sort of fell in love with Jump Rope as a result of taking part in like the 100 Skips a Day fundraisers?

Becky Gibbs
I think, yeah, I just don’t know of that around here. was running into the journey, like I even know that the charities did them, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Does that make sense? It’s dreadful. It’s dreadful. They send you a really crappy rope, though. You’re worried for Christians to get in on that one. Yeah.

It’s the worst rope ever. It didn’t take me long to get onto Amazon and then it didn’t take me long before I bought my first beaded rope. yeah, I mean, I think it’s maybe just because it is Cancer Research UK, it’s probably pushed more. I saw mine, I think, on Facebook and I was like, I’ve not long lost one of my cousins and I was just like, I need a bit of focus. And then I just started doing it from there and then it kind of, well, you know.

Dizzy Skips
So I have kept you guys so long. This conversation has gone so quickly or the time’s gone so quickly. I’m curious, like for 2025, do you have any special goals or are there any things that you’ve got jump rope wise that you want to do in 2025? Becky, how about you?

Becky Gibbs
I was really thinking then. I think for me, it’s probably to… I guess, as you’ve seen from my messages in the group, I’ve definitely focused on quality rather than quantity. I feel the closer connection I have with somebody, the more I’m spurred on to continue or try something or get better at something or even help the next person.

Instagram can suddenly feel really flooded with random people in countries I know I’m never gonna meet, you know, like Japan and stuff like that. I’ve literally just started filtering them all out. So I guess for me, it’s just being more present with the connections I have made that are solid. Yeah, I saw online earlier a conversation where Aaron was telling you about how to filter what you’re looking at on Instagram by just the people that you’re following. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips
That’s what you do all the time, right, Aaron? Like, I think you’ve said that you just kind of filter it that way.

Aaron Fleming
It’s little bit easier for me because I will soft side post every day. So I just scroll down to my last post and then go in date order all day up to the top and then do it every single day. Sure. But you’re filtering your feed all the time so that it’s only the people that you follow. So you don’t get other like I don’t actually meet any any new skipper unless they follow me first or like you know like when we join a group and I’m like I follow all these people inside it

Becky Gibbs
Yeah, I prefer it that way though. It’s a bit more organic than just your random follower. So I’ve got loads of jumpers that I’ve not even had conversations with. And often, to be honest, if I don’t really know them and they haven’t cropped up or we haven’t had a chat, I’ll scroll right past. They could do the most amazing tricks on the planet. But I would much rather tuning to something Aaron’s done, Dizzy’s done, Laura’s done, Sarah’s done, because I’m like, look at my pals. Look at them go.

You know, whereas I’m just like, I don’t know you. don’t know you. then I’ll get cross because of these people who are trying to jump rope. So yeah, it’s definitely toning it down.

Dizzy Skips
Laura, how about your goals for 25? Focusing on the present.

Well, if we want to talk specifically about jump rope goals the thing that there’s two things that I want to I want to learn is I want to learn how to shuffle and I want to learn I want to nail a mamba like to do the back and forth catch it and I The mamba I have met my match with the mamba it is it is really tricky and I feel like I’ll have a day where I can just about get it and then the next four days it’ll just be a disaster. that’s been a hard one. I’ve picked up on a lot of the releases fairly quickly but that one’s really given me a run for my money so I want to nail that and I also want to learn how to do some footwork. I’ve never done dance, I’ve never done anything like that. I feel like I have two left feet.

So the footwork is gonna be tricky for me, but I love the look of the shuffle. love watching the And I’d love to learn how to do that. And then the other thing…

Becky Gibbs
You’re quite a fast learner though.

Dizzy Skips
She’s gung ho, she puts in the time. She’s going out for two or three hours.

Laura Bushert
I do, I do practice. Yeah, right. It’s like, it’s like a day. Yeah. So I do practice a lot.

Yeah, and I think just because I’m still so new, I want to connect with a lot more people in terms of the community itself. I feel like I’m starting to get to know some people and form some relationship with some people. So I’d like those to continue to grow, not just in quantity, but in quality. I’d like to get to know a lot more people and to get to know people better.

Dizzy Skips
Richard, how about you?

Richard Head
man, I love it dude, I love it. So I think for me, there’s not like a specific trick or whatever, but I just want to really be focused on just being smarter with my time. Like every single time when I work out, it’s, or if I jump rope or whatever, it’s always a like, okay, well I have two hours and then I’ll come up with, you know, I’ll program something into that app and go do it and so I want to start looking at all of my exercise more as instead of just oh I have two hours to kill I’ll go out and get sweaty I want to look at it more of like plan it out over the course of a week or over the course of a month and that’s why when Aaron was talking about calisthenics program I was like oh hey yeah whatever like I want to really get into more of a weekly routine or a monthly routine and I started like I got myself a little book to start kind of writing that stuff down.

Tomorrow morning, it’ll be three weeks in a row of getting up and doing 60 pushups in the morning, every morning and just, yeah, more than like achieving one goal or whatever, but just trying to kind of organize myself a little bit better, organize my time, know, because yeah, I gotta go to work. I got two daughters, I got a wife, I got, you know, so I wanna make sure that you know, I can, I can get it in and do that.

But I think just organizing myself in a way of like, you know, this is the plan for the week, or this is the plan for the month instead of just, I’m to go out there and I’ll come back in an hour and see what happens.

Dizzy Skips
Becky’s battery must’ve died. She’s probably quite cross.

Yeah. Sarah, how about you? Do you have any goals for 2025?

Sarah Marshall
I’ve got quite a few, so I’m just going to stick with the one that I’ve already said I’ve committed to, let’s say. So, Coach Chris’s app Trictionary Plus. I’m going to set my goal of January to my birthday, March 13th. I’m working my whole way through the app. So I’ve never looked at it and gone, like tick it because there’s like things that you can tick and say you’ve done it so i’m working through all the challenges which i think he said was 97 challenges um and all the tricks i’m literally going through the whole lot i’m ticking it all off i’ll try and aim for one or two a day um which seems probably mental but it’s i really i really want to do and i don’t know why said it is my birthday but I just want to do it before I turn 38. I’ll be quite happily just to tick them all off.

And yeah, I probably will get to the point where one of them’s really asking for straight in, then it might have to go to the back of the line. But I want to work through them just as like a little yank for me type thing. So that’s one thing I’ve committed to, which does seem like.

I’m setting for failure, but I know I’ve got that commitment and I know I’ve got a drive to do it. So I’m committed to it. I’ve already told Chris about it. He was like, wicked.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah. Aaron, did I ask you? No. So the next year I’ll just be going to be trying to get to all the meetups that are happening. Add more moves to my combos. So a lot of the moves I can already do. but obviously he’s trying to get it from a cross and to a TS and all sorts of stuff like that. And then obviously the calisthenics journey. And then I’ll probably add running to it maybe as well, but yeah, we’ll see. Mine’s just all challenge based.

Dizzy Skips
Why would you do that to yourself? That’s so boring.

Aaron Fleming
football as well. Yeah. I just, I’ve just got no chill. I just keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to.

Dizzy Skips
Well, actually I had a breakthrough with releases this morning. I was jumping in the park and I injured my right calf the other day. It was kind of one of those things where I was jumping and I just felt the little muscle strand break, you know, and I had my noise canceling headset on and yelled out the F word and then looked around to see if there was anybody there. But anyway, so it started to act up this morning. So I decided I’m gonna just work on releases for a while. And normally I catch maybe one out of ten or two out of ten or something and I got up to like seven out of ten this morning and I was like all right I sort of got and I think it was helpful because of that dance rope class that I bought from Nico at URope because the way she explained them like she does the wrist pop rather than the tissue box I had never really heard those terms before, but my coach, he’s a fan of the tissue box.

But she does a little wrist pop. And one of the things that she does is she said as she was spinning around, she’s kind of lifting her hand up. So she gets it up a little higher. And one of the problems I’ve had is when I catch, oftentimes I’m catching the rope, you below the handle a little bit. But I found that when I spun it up a little bit, then it was easier for me to catch it closer to the handle. But anyway, I want to get good at releases because they just, they do look like magic.

And you know, Chris Peterson, he’s out there doing releases and catching a behind in his head. Sean is the same way, just the releases look like magic to me. So I want to get good at those. I’ve been focusing a lot on footwork. And then the other thing I’ll say is, like you, Richard, I want to be more deliberate about my learning. I think over the course of the summer, I spent a lot of time not actually practicing specific skills, but like you said, Richard, I had a certain amount of time in the evening before the sun went down and I was like, I want to go out and flow. I’m using this for mental health. Right.

Yeah. It’s way more fun. Yeah. It’s way more fun to be awesome at jump rope than just dog shit. Sometimes I just wanted to my heart rate up or it wasn’t all about the fun so much as just feeling better.

And so I didn’t concentrate on that stuff. But I was inspired when I talked to Kailey. She’s like trying a new thing each week. And so I think I’m going to try that.

Like at least try to work on one skill each week and, and suck at it like dog shit for, you know, a little bit and then, work into like, okay, now I can land it. Right. Yeah. Achieve your goal of being terrible. Well,

Yeah, I find you just have to do things like 9 million times, you know, it’s just the drilling. think that’s And part of my not wanting to drill some of those things is exactly what you said, Richard. It’s like I want to go out and have fun. You know, I want to listen to Jay-Z and get my footwork in and and rather than stand there and look like a fool for, you know, 10 or 15 minutes. But this morning I decided to look like a fool. And and I the I guess the thing about the releases that has been tough for me is consistency and feeling when to catch, you know?

Like I feel like I’m almost better at it when I don’t watch, when I just feel, if that makes sense. Yeah, sometimes like when I feel like I’m watching too much, then I’m thinking and processing too much. But if I can get to a point where I just feel it, then it works, you know?

Richard Head
Well, I think that’s what the drilling does, right? Is it gets you to a point like, you know, where you don’t have to think about it. You know, like I’ve cut onions for fucking 20 years, right?

So I can cut an onion and just make visual icon and have a conversation wall. And people see me do that and they’re like, my God. Well, it’s like, I cut onions for 20 years. That’s the secret is just go do it for 20 years and then you’ll be that good too, you know? And people want to hear the like, what’s your trick?

Dizzy Skips
You put in your 10,000 hours!

Richard Head
half my life. That’s the trick.

Dizzy Skips
I wondered if we could close out by we’re all at sort of different stages of our jump journey and, what advice would you give somebody who’s just starting out or thinking about starting out? From like what rope to use to any advice you can think of like Laura, how about you?

Laura Bushert
I think the biggest thing, the biggest piece of advice that I would give is don’t overdo it. Pace yourself and really warm up well and put some time into recovery, whether it’s like do a lot of stretching, warm up properly, do some foam rolling and listen to your body. You know, know, like it’s one thing to push through a little bit of discomfort.

But you sort of learn as you go, you know, when it’s discomfort and when it’s pain and when you should stop.

Dizzy Skips
When you’re to the point where you’re only jumping on one leg because you can’t on the other leg. listen to your body, Go watch Frasier. stop. Don’t do what I did.

How about you, Sarah? What would you recommend? Yeah, so. What’s your advice?

If you were gonna give advice to a newcomer or somebody who’s thinking about jumping, Sarah, what would you tell them?

Sarah Marshall
it was me, sorry. It keeps putting out, my connection’s gone a bit dodgy and I keep, I’m kinda halfing it out. My, it would be close to what Laura said about just not overdoing it, but also really invest in a good rope. everyone says that they can start, I started with a PVC, like my first, 12 to 18 months was pure PVC because I only jumped inside. I didn’t have anything outside. jump in the gym. I jumped purely inside in a very low beam. So I had a PVC rope and I tried to think that I could do everything with that and I couldn’t when I got outside.

So invest in a good rope because it makes the difference. And I know that on your podcast you spoke about the different bead sizes and things. All of that just makes such a difference.

You can take so many recommendations on ropes. It’s just how it feels in your hands. That’s the only thing. people, and just make sure the rope size is right for you. over, don’t like, don’t go too long. People go so long because they go for their arms a lot wider. Shorten it in and your arms have no choice but to stay nice and clean in their pocket. yeah, just rope is a massive thing for me.

Dizzy Skips
How do you size your rope, Sarah?

How do you size yours?

Sarah Marshall
So I, I, I’m generally kind of, uh, I measure it to my kind of just, just below my ribs. kind of just an enable ribs kind of way, like that kind of part. Um, I suppose the handles come all the way up into like pull them up to here, but that I go to the rope where the rope is where the handle starts. Does that make sense? So like right here. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips
How about you, Richard? What’s your advice?

Richard Head
Don’t start.

Dizzy Skips
my God, Richard.

Richard Head
Don’t do it. Don’t start. Yeah. No, no. I, you know, I think my advice would just to be think about like why, you know, what are your goals? Cause I think, you know, I, I started jumping rope because it, it, it, cleared my head out. You know, it was the quickest way from feeling like shit to feeling like, okay, I’m actually like, I’m, you know, helps me with my confidence, helps me withmbeing able to kind of slow my brain down. And so for me, it was mostly about that. And then I found the jump rope community and I can do tricks. And so all that stuff for me is all the tricks and stuff is kind of secondary to just getting out there and getting my blood moving.

But I would say, A, you like you guys are saying, don’t overdo it. B, focus more on it’s going to be better for you to jump rope 10 minutes every day for a week than to jump that same amount of time in one day.

You like just a little, like, you know, you eat the elephant one bite at a time kind of thing. And then, yeah, and just goals. Like why, because if you don’t, you know, I heard Aaron talk about people sign up for the cancer research thing and then they lose interest immediately afterwards because before, you know, they had a very clear goal of like, I’m going to do whatever for the cancer research. once, yeah, but once that’s over, they don’t have a goal anymore. So if you don’t have a goal, how are you going to achieve that goal or you know if you don’t just get in your car and start driving like you know where you want to end up before you start going there so I think that that’s just really important and it could be you know your goal could be like I’m gonna do triple unders and be amazing and you know my ass is gonna look great on Instagram or your goal can be you know just be dogshit at mic releases for 15 minutes or whatever so I don’t think what your goal is is important but that you set that goal and work towards it is important. It’s going to be so insanely different for everyone, right? Like, you know, some, I got to learn this trick or I got to do this. And, and me, I’m like, I just want to jump some ropes so I don’t cry at work, you know, or whatever, like just have a goal. And it doesn’t matter what that goal is, but if you have a goal you’re working towards, it’ll help you, you know, take that journey. think, so I think goals are super important and what that goal is doesn’t matter.

Dizzy Skips
I there’s also, like for me, and I think I could probably speak for several of you, if not all of you, in saying that when your goal might be to get out there and learn how to do a mic release or whatever, but the benefits that you get from Jumping Rope are way more than you would have expected, or at least for me, know, like I didn’t know upfront, like the mental health benefits I was gonna get from this, or the amount of focus I would get, or self-confidence, or the relationships I would make with wonderful people like you.

You know, like that was just never something on my radar, and it was more like, hey, I’m gonna video myself so that I could see how I suck and get better. And then I started doing it, and I started like, wow, I feel better physically, I feel better, like I have some definition in my legs that I didn’t have before. I lost three dress sizes that sort of go ahead.

Richard Head
Well and you know it’s oh sorry what I was gonna I totally forgot what I was gonna say but yeah. the other thing that you sort of were hinting at is like show up like you make a goal and show up like

Well, yeah, okay, it’s back now. But what I was going to say, yeah, you go out and you learn your mic release and you, you know, spend however many days doing that and you struggle and you struggle and you struggle. And then now you know how to do that. But another thing that does is it proves to you that whether it’s jump rope or whether it’s a financial goal or whether it’s whatever, like, you know, you have it within you to go chip away at that thing a little bit every day until you get it. And so it’s, it’s a good way to prove to yourself you know, jump rope or not, like, hey, I can, I can, you know, just go struggle until I finally do it. And so, yeah, it’s cool to do that stuff to jump rope. once you, you know, like I talked about before, you apply that shit to other things in your life and who knows what you’ll be able to do. So, I mean, and that’s what I want to do and moving into this year is just, using that strategy.

Dizzy Skips
Aaron, how about you? a cross label. What advice would you give? No. Of course.

I would always say that, you know, when people are struggling with moves and then there’s continuously struggling with it, ask someone for advice. Everyone’s going to help you out.

If I can do a crossover, you’re going to do a crossover. I’m not going to stop sending you stories until you do it.

And then I would also say, don’t do what I do. Like if you get injured, chill. Don’t keep jumping on that injury. Right.

Yeah, even down to training. It’s not good doing two hours every day, even though I do it. It’s not for everyone. obviously, you’ve got to set realistic goals. So if you want to skip, so if you’re trying to get into skipping, just do it three, four times a week, don’t try to do it every day. And slightly build up the times, but everything takes time to build up. You’re not going to be doing TS’s on day one. I hope not. I hope not. If you do, then I’ll quit. But yeah. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips
I know I fell in such deep love with jump rope that I didn’t want to stop like you know my experiences last year where I was jumping on Christmas Eve and Christmas for two hours in the driveway and stuff I was having so much fun but I injured myself to the point that I couldn’t jump for you know almost two months and that was so frustrating but when I get that way now when I start to feel like, “hey I’m overdoing it here,” the way I’ve sort of reframed it in my head is even if I were to only jump for 10 minutes or I mean, I go out for hours too, Aaron, but even if I were only to jump for 10 minutes and maybe it’s working on, maybe some of it is just flowing and maybe some of it’s working on a mic release or a mic release, my God, Aaron, mic release or some other trick, that 10 minutes, if I stop, my brain’s gonna still chew on that overnight, you know? And when I work on it tomorrow, I will have made progress even in the off time. And that’s been my experience.

There have been so many times where I work on something to the point where I’m frustrated, like angry, you know, like, and then I just have to stop. And then the next day I go back out and I try the same thing and it’s not like I’m great at it, but I can land it sometimes or I’m a little bit better. And so I think that showing up, you know, 10 minutes a day if, or when I get to the point where I want to overdo it, if I can say, you’re still going to make progress if you chill and come back to it tomorrow.

That’s helped me.

Aaron Fleming
not every day is If you go out and you have a bad day and then you’re trying to push through your bad day, it’s not going to go anywhere. You’re just going to get more and more stressed out.

Laura Bushert
Yeah. And I think that’s the other thing is get, when you get into it, you sort of have to mentally prepare yourself to have days that are going to suck, you know, like in terms of like, you’re just, you know, you don’t make any catches. You keep tripping on the rope. You’re not landing anything.

And I think it’s, it’s just part of the process. And as far as, you know, in my experience and everybody I’ve talked to, that’s what we all go through. And so to not like, don’t become too discouraged, you know, like I’ve had days where I’m like, okay, time to retire, I’m hanging up my rope, know, when I fight with that mamba for an hour and a half straight and I haven’t landed a single one for an hour and a half and it’s like, you just want to rip your hair out. But it’s like you said, Dizzy, it’s like you go home, you process, you come back and there’s always something that’s a little bit improved the next so.

Dizzy Skips
I know one piece of advice that I’ve heard from several people and I talked to Kailey about was not comparing yourself to other people or not using other people as the measuring stick for your progress. Like know, like Laura, you do releases so much better than I do. And if I were to judge myself based on your progress, then I’m never gonna win, right?

Like I need to be happy with where I’m at. And I think, like I said, over the course of the summer, there were a lot of times where I just didn’t work on specific skills except going and flowing with footwork. I learned stuff and I stumbled upon stuff and I made progress, but when I look at some people who started after me, I wonder, should I be better than I am? Like, should I be doing better?

And just getting to the point where like, no, this is the process, you know? And it’s okay for me to go out and flow some days.

It’s okay for me to go out and suck some days. That’s part of the process. But I’m showing up and that’s important.

Sarah Marshall
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think, I think every- No, I was just gonna say, it’s one of things that I taught the girls in the Jump for Joy group that-

You’re in your own lane. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing. If you’re inspired by it, great. If you find it amazing that they’ve done it so fast, then great. Congratulate them on that. But don’t judge that on your own progress because you’re always in your own lane. If you compare yourself to the day before, even if it’s a crap day or a good day, just compare yourself to you. And the little point I was just going to say on what you were saying about being really frustrated with things.

I would end, so if there’s something that can’t get, yeah, I get angry and yeah, you probably don’t see it because most of time I’m just laughing at myself because that’s all I do is just laugh. Me too. At my failures. But I end on something I’m good at. So then I always end on a high. That’s smart. So I put that positive spin on a dog shit day, let’s call it. So I always make sure that I’m on something, just a really nice clean snappy mix release or a nice clean cross or a nice clean…

TS if I could be as good as Aaron. Yeah, things like that. just nail something right at the end and then I just go, that’s enough, thanks, and then put the rope down. So just a positive signal of rough time. Yeah, that’s great. I don’t know if that would help people. That’s great. There it is. There’s always tomorrow. go ahead, Aaron.

Aaron Fleming
…slightly different angle. I do think some sort of comparison is…

It is good in a way, you know, like when you like see someone who’s doing something better than you, then you want to aim for that. But obviously don’t think, they’re that good and I’m not that good. Yeah. I guess my inspire to be as good as someone. you. Right.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah. I think there’s a difference between being inspired and then judging yourself by. like if my happiness with my progress is based on your jumping I’m screwed, you know, but if my happiness is based on how I jumped today versus how I jumped yesterday or last week or something, then I can make progress.

I still look at you and I’m inspired all the time. Like the way you are a trick machine, like the cross king, like I’m inspired by that, but I’m not down on myself because I can’t do all that stuff yet. I know I’m, I’m working into it and I’m learning some of the stuff that you do. And, and I, it makes me think of you every time I do some of those moves.

I’m like, Hey, I’m going to be like Aaron, but, but my self-worth isn’t tied to being like, that’s what I will look at.

Aaron FlemingLike coach Fabian or the crazy stuff he does. I’m like, want to be that good.

Dizzy Skips
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Well, Hey, I, you guys have spent so much time with me today and I really appreciate it. And, I love that you all were able to come out on such short notice and hang out with me.

I just think the world of all of you, and I’m so thankful to have you all as friends on Instagram and to be able to talk to you. It’s so fun to be able to talk like this where it’s more than just, you know, 20 words in a comment or some emoji.

So thank you so much for showing up and for being part of this. It really means a lot to me.

Thanks for having me. Well, thanks for setting it. Thanks.

Thanks for having us. Thanks for setting it up. This is really great. my first time doing it and it be cool to maybe try and make it a little bit more regular thing.

Aaron Fleming
It’s probably not a time now, but yeah, sick of me.

Dizzy Skips
No, no, man. I love you. It’s always fun to see. And Richard is my accountability buddy. We’ve been sending videos back and forth when I’ve sent a video to him saying, “Richard, tell me to get off my ass and go out and jump.”

Ten minutes later, I get a video. “Dizzy, get off your ass and jump.” Yeah, if anybody needs a profanity-laced inspirational, he’s so good at it. He’s got that perfected. And thank you for your motivation, Richard, because it has helped me out.

Richard Head
Noted.

Dizzy Skips
All right. Well, cheers, y’all. I hope you have a Happy New Year, and I’m sure I will be talking to you on Instagram.