Skipping for a Cause: Mandy Shaw’s Journey, World Records, and Cancer Research (Ep. 10)

Dizzy Skips (00:37)
Mandy Shaw, thank you so much for joining me on Skip Squad Chronicles. I’m so glad to have you here.

Mandy (00:41)
Hi Dizzy, yeah it’s an absolute pleasure I’m so excited to be speaking with you, really am.

Dizzy Skips (00:48)
This is lovely. So can you tell me a little bit about where you’re at?

Mandy (00:52)
where I live. Yeah, so I live in a small village called Tackleston. It’s about 20 miles south of Norwich in Norfolk UK.

Dizzy Skips (00:53)
Yes.

Okay. far away, really good with geography. How far away are you from like London?

Mandy (01:10)
about two and a half hour drive yeah not too bad and and the roads are pretty good they’re mostly like dual carriageways or motorways so it’s a decent journey yeah

Dizzy Skips (01:12)
Okay.

Okay. I’ve talked to some people before on the podcast about, think Becky, talked about like a London jump rope meetup. Have you ever been to any of those big jump rope meetups?

Mandy (01:30)
Yeah. No, I haven’t. nearly got to one back in the summer, but it ended up clashing with some family that were coming over to visit. So it’s kind of like family jump rope. You know, it was a tough decision. I’m not going to lie. It was a tough decision. I really wanted to go. But yeah, I would love to go to one of those meetups. They look such fun and there’s some really excellent pro skippers that go there as well.

Dizzy Skips (01:45)
Yeah.

They sound so exciting.

Yeah, no kidding. So when did you get started skipping?

Mandy (02:00)
So, literally just over a year ago, 13 months ago now, I actually started, picked up my first skipping rope in October 2023, and that was joining the 100 skips a day challenge for Cancer Research UK. So I’m kind of like, how difficult can it be? Pick up a skipping rope, do some skipping, it’s only 100, that’d be easy, Mandy. And I’d never done a sponsored.

Dizzy Skips (02:18)
cool.

Mandy (02:28)
event ever before so I thought it be a first for everything. Anyway on that first day, 1st of October, I did about 20 or 30 skips, basic bounce, you know, had to go and sit down for five minutes to recover. my gosh, yeah it really is and it took me, so the challenge was to do a hundred skips a day, it didn’t really matter

Dizzy Skips (02:39)
Mm-hmm.

hard as an adult, isn’t it?

Mandy (02:54)
to an extent if you did that all in one go or two lots of 50 or five lots of 20, whatever, just whatever your skill level was. Yes, 100 lots of one, perfect, yeah. And there’s some really, really amazing people that take part in these challenges, cancers, survivors and fighters, people that are going through treatment and everybody’s at different skill levels. But the community and the encouragement that

Dizzy Skips (03:01)
or 100 lots of one.

Mandy (03:23)
people give each other is absolutely amazing. It’s really, and I think that was partly what hooked me to stay in the skipping community as well. So yeah, I started on that first day, needed a rest after about 20 or 30 skips. It took me until the 13th of that month to do my first 100 in one go. I was like, yay! But I was also…

Dizzy Skips (03:33)
Mmm.

Mandy (03:50)
quite tearful because it was the anniversary of my mum’s passing and she also passed away from cancer. it was mixed feelings and it was probably quite a good thing that the battery ran out on my phone because I was doing a little after speech and I’m like, and today I’m so tearful because and then it cut off. But there we are. So that’s where I started and I kind of like I just caught the skipping bug.

Dizzy Skips (04:08)
Yeah.

Mandy (04:15)
I guess, and I thought, like you’ve said, and I’ve heard other guests say, I saw it benefiting me personally. So I’m stronger physically, I’ve got better stamina. I can run and be with and not get left behind by the children that I take care of. I can pick up my granddaughter and not be puffed out. It’s helped me lose over a stone in weight as well.

Dizzy Skips (04:16)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. You can catch the little rascals.

Congratulations.

Mandy (04:45)
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s, can’t, you know, skipping is, I was going to say easy, it’s not easy, but it’s easy to pick up and it’s easy to start. You know, you can get a fairly decent skipping rope over here for less than 10 pounds. And there’s not many sports that you can do that with, is there?

Dizzy Skips (05:03)
you can throw it in your purse or your backpack and just hang it around your neck like this and walk around. I have my backpack of like a dozen. Yeah.

Mandy (05:06)
Yep.

Yeah, I think I’m going to take a couple with me actually. Yeah, I’m going to take a couple with me when I go to Texas to see our son over Christmas. So I’m jumping the gun a bit with things we’re going to be talking about, but I’m going to I’m going to challenge him to skip with me. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (05:20)
Yeah.

Good for you. Did you hear that previous podcast where was mad that she had to check her rope in her luggage because they thought that it could be used as a weapon if it were on her carry on?

Mandy (05:34)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good point, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (05:38)
I never would have thought of that, like, I’m gonna choke someone out with my jump rope.

Mandy (05:42)
Yeah, exactly. That’s a good point, actually. Maybe I should put it in my in my suitcase luggage rather than my carry on luggage.

Dizzy Skips (05:48)
Yeah. I would just be so sad if they took it and I couldn’t, like, you know, they just pitched it in the garbage or something. Because I named them all. They’re my babies, right? So what was the, you caught the bug, what was the first thing that, what was the first sort of feeling you had like, hey, might just keep this up because I like

Mandy (05:53)
Yeah.

No! Yeah. I’ll be careful.

Yeah, exactly that, to be honest. You know, like I mentioned just now, the skipping community that we’ve got, there’s a group of just over 400 of us now in a Facebook group. And we all started in the cancer research skipping challenges. So we’re kind of like lots of people were saying, I think I really enjoy this, you know, I’d like to carry on. And I’m like, OK, skip over to this other group.

Dizzy Skips (06:30)
cool.

Mandy (06:38)
you know, welcome you with open arms. Everybody encourages each other. And yeah, and I also, like I say, I felt it benefiting me as an individual, you know, like I say, my fitness went stronger, more stamina, able to keep up with the kids. And so I’ve actually completed three of those types of skipping challenges, four actually now. I did October last year, March.

Dizzy Skips (06:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy (07:01)
June and October this year.

And I think it just gives you a little bit of a buzz as well, do you know what mean? Because there’s so many things you can do to progress. It’s not like you learn the basic bounce and that’s it. You know, then you do like alternate foot skips or you learn crossovers or double unders and side swings. And there’s all these fancy footwork things that you can pick up. And it’s like, there’s always something new to learn that you can push yourself to do better or, you know, things like that.

Dizzy Skips (07:18)
care.

Yeah.

I know what you mean. And it doesn’t take much. Like for me, I am practicing someday and I just do one piece of footwork a little different and notice it on video, I’m like, that’s so cool. And I was talking to my stepmom the other day and she’s like, it all just looks like jump rope to me. I was like, no, but you don’t understand. did the, was doing the running man backwards. But yeah, you’re right. There’s so much to learn and it’s so fun. I don’t, I just never get over how fun it is.

Mandy (07:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, you have to be in the community.

Dizzy Skips (08:00)
Of course, I am a music person. Do you jump to music?

Mandy (08:00)
Yeah.

haven’t learned how to yet. tend to, my skipping space is in my back garden so I’ve got like a paved area where I skip and I do film myself obviously but I’m not techno clever enough to do it to music so I’m just kind of like, I count when I’m trying to do my challenges like my newest personal best, you’ll probably laugh at this because you probably do loads more but…

Dizzy Skips (08:09)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (08:29)
My newest personal best was 340 non-stop basic bounce. Yeah. It took me just under two minutes so it was a pretty speedy speed as well. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (08:33)
That’s awesome. I wouldn’t laugh at that at all.

That’s cool. Did you, did you use a rope that actually counted your skips or how did you count?

Mandy (08:46)
No, I just count in my head and then if I lose count this is why I video it and then I just watch it back and count when I’m watching it back.

Dizzy Skips (08:52)
Count again. Yeah, that’s great. had a couple give me those ones that actually count your skips. And you know, I haven’t even used one of them yet. I have two of them, but I haven’t even tried it yet.

Mandy (08:59)
Yeah.

Yeah. I don’t know if I would trust them because they’re just going to count the motion aren’t they?

Dizzy Skips (09:10)
Yeah, for me, that’s, honestly, the reason that I’ve been procrastinating using them is that that’s not really why I jump rope is the number of skips. Like, I don’t care if I burn 700 calories or 800 calories or whatever, it’s the fun of it. know, like I’m in there to dance, you know, totally.

Mandy (09:20)
Yeah.

Yeah absolutely, yeah I love your style Dizzy, I watch your videos nearly every day now and they’re just so fun and the fact that you don’t fall off of those rocks, how does that even work? We’ve got like invisible glue that springs up with you!

Dizzy Skips (09:34)
thank you.

Hahaha, yeah.

I have a lot of practice. think you probably heard me talking to Janie about falling off the rocks and how she said was so worried about me falling out. Like every time she watched these videos, like worried about me. And I said, don’t worry about it, you know?

Mandy (09:52)
Yeah.

There was a really thin one yesterday or a couple of days ago. It looked like it was literally only one width of a foot wide and I’m like, he’s going to fall off, he’s going to fall off. But you didn’t. It was amazing.

Dizzy Skips (10:07)
Yeah, there’s one that I’ve jumped on pretty routinely that’s a foot wide, last weekend I went up to the high school and they’ve got these barricade things that you would have in the road and they’re eight inches on top or seven or eight inches. And so I was like, I’m gonna do that. they’re up higher, so I that. That was fun. But I think I gave people heart murmurs.

Mandy (10:22)
Yeah.

I wouldn’t be born to have to do that.

Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (10:34)
So do you like to do? Like how would you describe your style of jump rope or what are the things that you enjoy most?

Mandy (10:41)
I think I enjoy pushing myself to see how many consecutive jumps I can do. I think that probably stems from where I first started, you know, in the skips challenge. The whole point was to do these hundred skips and then I’m like, okay, well, can I do 150? Can I do 200? Can I do 300? So I like to push myself and see how many skips I can do without stopping.

Dizzy Skips (10:55)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy (11:06)
and then the other one I like to do but I’ve gotten worse at it rather than better recently is the double under so I’ve somehow fallen into a terrible habit of jumping but then doing a little half jump backwards as I land and consequently when I do that it’s catching on my feet so

Dizzy Skips (11:21)
Okay.

sure.

Mandy (11:27)
I’ve got to work on springing up rather than jumping and then I think I’ll be back to doing still only about half dozen in a row but you know that’s that’s not bad for somebody of my age I’m gonna say.

Dizzy Skips (11:36)
Yeah.

No, that’s great. double unders are not something that I’ve really worked on a lot. But sometimes I just like while I’m doing my thing and listening to music, I will try it. I tried it the other day with that jump rope from Mira Wate know what I’m talking about? That blue one that I’ve talked about before. And it’s it’s think after I resized it, it’s a quarter pound and.

Mandy (11:53)
yeah. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (12:01)
had that thing flying around and I was like, I’m gonna do a double under and I caught myself in the ankles so hard it just almost took my breath away. But I like to say that hurt so good, yeah.

Mandy (12:01)
Wow.

Well, I’ll tell you a funny story. Yeah, no, talking about hurting parts of your body. When I was learning crossovers about six or eight months ago and it kept whipping me on my buttock. my gosh, hurt so much, right? So I decided to go into my son’s old bedroom.

Dizzy Skips (12:24)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Mandy (12:31)
and he had cricket pads, you know, that you put on your shins and on your thighs. So I decided to put one of these pads in my shorts across my buttock to save my poor area of my body.

Dizzy Skips (12:34)
Yeah.

Did the neighbors have line of sight to you? Okay, well, that’s hilarious.

Mandy (12:50)
No, luckily not! But what it did, all joking aside, was it meant that I wasn’t then scared to try the skill because I knew that even if the rope hit me it wasn’t going to sting and hurt and make me run around the garden in pain for five minutes. So yeah, there you go, how to learn crossovers with the zero pain going on.

Dizzy Skips (13:01)
Right. Yeah.

yeah.

Yeah, yeah. been super cold here the last week and or the day before I was out there and I was with that heavy rope and had it going really fast and hit myself in the butt hard that it was really cold. Like mean it was like I think it was like 16 degrees or negative seven Celsius, something like that. And whacked myself for some reason when it’s cold like that. It’s just

takes my breath away. And I walked around for like a minute just rubbing my butt. thought I, yeah. It was amazing. Yeah. That was the hardest I’ve been spanked in so long.

Mandy (13:42)
Yeah.

I can relate. Ouchie.

Yeah, yeah, it’s not fun is it? You know when you think about how fast those ropes are going around our bodies and when it just suddenly stops all of a sudden on your foot, your ankle, your back, your face, whatever, my gosh, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (13:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, if you don’t listen to music you may not have this experience but I was laughing at one lady on Instagram, Terinka, who is just a lovely skipper, she’s super fun, but posted a video at one point where she was skipping with a beaded rope and caught her over the ear headphones and made some smart alec comment about it and she said something about how frustrating it was or how mad it made her and…

I just kind of laughed it off. And then a few days later, I did it to myself and just launched them off my head. And of course I was like, she’s right. have been taking part in several different challenges, but you are also organizing a challenge if I understand correctly.

Mandy (14:38)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, literally as a direct result of taking part in all these challenges. In fact, the story is that I was kind of like contemplating the challenge and one of them, this was back in the March one, and I was just kind of pondering about the skipping community and I thought, I wonder if there’s a world record for the most number of people skipping together at any one time.

and obviously good old Google, you just look it up and yeah, there are several world records that you can have a go at with regard to skipping. the big plan is that we need around, depending on which world record we go for, we either need a thousand people or we need 90,000 people.

Dizzy Skips (15:38)
So what are the different world records there? Yeah, that is a little bit of a difference.

Mandy (15:39)
Big difference. So the big number is freestyle. So you can do any style of skipping you like. The only criteria is you have to skip for three minutes nonstop. So this is partly why I aim for 300 skips, because if you’re doing a beat of 100 BPM, then that is three minutes, 300 skips. So that was where my mentality was for that. Or

if we don’t quite reach the heights of the big numbers, the slightly more achievable record is alternate foot skipping. So any style where you’re doing alternate foot, so kicking out or bouncing side to side, boxer skips, whatever.

Dizzy Skips (16:19)
So it doesn’t have to be a routine where everybody’s doing the same thing. It’s just everybody has to be doing foot alternations.

Mandy (16:23)
No.

Yeah, just alternate foot and that’s more achievable because you’re only going to need about a thousand people to take part to do that one. So if we go somewhere in between, then it’s going to be alternate foot skips. If we can reach 80 or 90 thousand, then we can do freestyle and do what you want as long as it’s nonstop for three minutes.

Dizzy Skips (16:29)
Okay.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

So when you say nonstop, like if I were taking part and I trip up, do I have to start over for three minutes? as long as you just keep the rope going.

Mandy (16:55)
Well…

Yeah, a skip is counted as one rotation and jumping over it. So here is where I still need to get some clarity from the Governing Bodies because in the rules it says if you trip up you’re disqualified. If you stop on purpose for more than 10 seconds then you’re also disqualified.

Dizzy Skips (17:04)
Okay.

Mandy (17:20)
So you’re thinking what I’m thinking, how you’re to tell the difference if you’re judging that section. So the thing is, if you wanted to take…

Dizzy Skips (17:22)
Yeah.

If the person’s howling in pain and grabbing their ass, then they probably didn’t mean it,

Mandy (17:29)
Yes, yeah exactly, exactly. yeah that’s something I need further clarity from on from the regulatory bodies that are going to hopefully oversee all this but the the main key is is at least do alternate foot skips and aim for three minutes. If you can do that then you can take part in this world record attempt.

Dizzy Skips (17:50)
Okay, I’m curious leading up to that, are you to put together any sort of like resources or educational stuff or like Zoom meetings or something where you can help people learn how to alternate foot skip?

Mandy (17:59)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we’ve got a very, very good connection here in the UK with a guy called Dan the Skipping Man. And he is, yeah, you can Google him. He’s on the internet and he has many connections with the schools community. And so we are hoping that schools will become our venues.

Dizzy Skips (18:11)
Hi.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (18:25)
and then the community that is around the school, i.e. the pupils, the parents, the teachers, the grandparents, the villages and towns where they live, all of these people can choose that as their venue and they go there on the specified date and at the specified time everybody starts skipping. Three minutes, everybody stops skipping, hopefully we’ve broken a world record.

Dizzy Skips (18:47)
Wow, and so this is not just to get a world record though, right? This is also a benefit, like a charity event.

Mandy (18:53)
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, the whole idea is to basically raise funds for Cancer Research UK. So at the moment, and I keep saying at the moment because everything is still in the planning stage, obviously, you we’ve still got 10, 12 months to go before the event is due to happen. So at the moment, plan is that September 2025. Yeah, September 25. So the plan is that people will be able to register.

Dizzy Skips (19:05)
Right.

in September of 2025, is that right?

Okay.

Mandy (19:20)
on the Cancer Research UK website and each person registering will pay say registration fee of fairly minimal, five or ten pounds per participant. But however many people we get taking part, all of that money will go to Cancer Research UK. So simple maths, if you have 90,000 people taking part to go for the big one, because that’s the one that we really want.

Dizzy Skips (19:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy (19:45)
and you times that by five pounds, that gives you nearly half a million pounds.

Dizzy Skips (19:51)
a lot. Yeah.

Mandy (19:52)
It is. people can search for this now. All the information is not quite on the website yet. It will be soon. But you can go on the Cancer Research UK website. You can type in sport beats cancer. Skipping. That will take you to an information page and you can follow the clicks through there and it will take you to.

Dizzy Skips (19:58)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Mandy (20:14)
The main information we’ve got on there at the moment is how to become a volunteer and help to run an event. Eventually you’ll be able to go on there and register as a skipper, as a venue and as a corporate sponsor.

Dizzy Skips (20:26)
That’s great. curious, like you must have sort of, or I’m guessing that you’re working with somebody or you’re doing a lot of math yourself to try and figure out like how many sponsors do you need? How many volunteers do you need to run something that is gonna be a thousand people versus 90,000 people? How do you arrive at those numbers?

Mandy (20:38)
Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. What we’re working on at the moment is like a basic template, like a venue information pack. So in this venue information pack, it will give the people running these events up and down the country a kind of template as to how their event should look and how it should run. So you’re going to need some, depending on how many people are at your venue.

Dizzy Skips (20:49)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy (21:05)
You’re going to need some stewards who will oversee each group of people. And, you know, if you are unfortunate to trip up and you have to be disqualified, they are the people that will be watching and ticking people appropriately. Yeah. But, obviously, within event of this scale, there is a lot of background work going on.

Dizzy Skips (21:20)
They have the hook and they pull you off stage. Yeah.

Mandy (21:31)
We’re in close liaison with Cancer Research UK who are doing a lot of the website design, a lot of the information pack design. They’re going to take care of all the background tech so that people can register and they’ll get a welcome email, etc. it’s absolutely it is. Yeah, yeah, absolutely it is. So, yeah, there’ll be there’ll be more details coming out soon. But if people are curious and they want to click through on the Cancer Research UK website.

Dizzy Skips (21:38)
So amazing.

that’s so amazing. That’s a great resource to have.

Mandy (21:59)
register some interest, let our contact Polly there, let her know that you’re interested, whether you want to be a skipper, a volunteer, a venue, corporate sponsor. And you can also, you can have my direct email address as well. Shall I read that out? Is that okay?

Dizzy Skips (22:14)
know what, if you want to just give it to me, I can put it in the show notes if you’d like.

Mandy (22:17)
Yep, okay then, yep, we’ll do that, yep.

Dizzy Skips (22:20)
That would be great. So that is that is a huge event. So when you’re going for a world record like this, does everybody have to converge in one place? Like, is everybody going to London or is this in groups throughout the UK?

Mandy (22:31)
No, is, yeah, this is the title that we’re going for is Across Multiple Venues. So if you go across multiple venues, the current record, says, glancing at her notes, is stands at 70,880 people across multiple venues.

Dizzy Skips (22:40)
Okay.

70,000.

Mandy (22:52)
If we go for one venue then it’s just under 10,000 people.

that means everybody has to converge on one place.

Dizzy Skips (22:57)
still.

And wouldn’t that have to be like London or some big place like that? Manchester.

Mandy (23:05)
London, maybe Manchester, Birmingham, there’s some huge venues. Milton Keynes is quite central to the UK. That’s another big, you know, there’s other big exhibition halls there. When we were first talking about this idea, we wondered about football grounds, but obviously the problem with football grounds is it’s going to be grass and you can’t easily jump rope or skip on grass. It’s a bit…

Dizzy Skips (23:17)
Okay.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mandy (23:31)
I’ve tried and I can’t, it’s not, it’s can’t do it. Yeah. So the idea is, like I was saying about the venue information pack is that we will give that to each individual venue and they will basically run their own event with the only criteria that at, you know, say three o’clock in the afternoon, a big siren will sound, everybody will skip for three minutes. Another siren will go off at the end of that and, you know,

Dizzy Skips (23:33)
Yeah, it’s a different texture, isn’t it? Yeah.

That’s awesome.

Mandy (23:59)
That’s the bit that is the important bit. Everything else around it is going to be up to each individual venue.

Dizzy Skips (24:06)
So I have a weird little question. Like, could you jump for six minutes and then people are tripping and falling out, you still potentially get three minutes in a row where everybody’s skipping? Or is that cheating?

Mandy (24:20)
Hmm, not really. No, I think that the guidelines that we’ve been given are quite strict. It’s that everybody skips for themselves and it has to be three o’clock, three minutes past three. And if you trip up, sadly, you’re out. Wah, wah, wah.

Dizzy Skips (24:27)
Okay.

won’t So when you’re looking for corporate sponsors are the sponsors, you looking for just monetary contribution stuff or jump ropes or

Mandy (24:49)
A mixture really, know, and our contact Dan is also a skipping supplier, so he’s going to be able to supply the skipping ropes to the vast majority of people. There are obviously other skipping organisations that we’re trying to forge links with. That’s all sort of still going on in the background.

Dizzy Skips (24:59)
Okay.

sort of what sort of sponsorship that you need.

Mandy (25:14)
sponsorship, yes, sorry, I’ll go on a wavelength. Yes, definitely monetary contributions because there is a huge fee to pay to have the proper authorities to regulate and judge this world record. So that is going to be one of our bigger expenses. So, if there’s any corporates out there looking and interested in the project, we would dearly love

Dizzy Skips (25:33)
Interesting.

had no idea that that…

Mandy (25:41)
to make some links with some people who can just like, know, chuck us a few thousand pounds towards this project, that would be amazing. And of course, you know, there’s going to be some advertising involved, there’s going to be some media coverage involved, there’s going to be like some printing and admin and information packs that need to be given to the venues, posters, maybe table covers, know, practical things for on the day, making it look like a proper event and making it look all fabulous.

Dizzy Skips (26:00)
Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mandy (26:10)
But there’s also, I’m in touch with a guy, a brand new contact who is basically a business development mentor. And so he’s going to hopefully help us get some strategy, get a plan and, you know, make sure that the event is big because that’s what it deserves to be.

Dizzy Skips (26:17)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I’m sure you probably have connections with people who have organized these types of cancer benefits before because…

Mandy (26:35)
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, there’s been a Sport Beats Cancer Cycling event. I went to that a couple of months or so ago. So, yeah, we’ve got some contacts with people that have organised such things. And of course, Cancer Research themselves have, you know, they do Race for Life events, they do nighttime walking events. So they themselves actually have a lot of expertise that they are, you know, supporting us with to put this event on.

Dizzy Skips (27:01)
Yeah.

Mandy (27:01)
basically on their behalf. you know, it’s a win-win, isn’t it?

Dizzy Skips (27:06)
Yeah, no kidding. mean, what better win-win because is like of, like you mentioned the health benefits you’ve got. I’ve got all those same health benefits and more. be able to do that and also contribute to cancer research to a cause that is that’s touched everybody that I know, know, cancer in some way.

Mandy (27:22)
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the part where you kind of put your serious face on because the sad statistic is that one in two people are likely to get cancer at some stage in their life. If you’re married, it could be your partner, could be one of your children. And that’s what drives most people to take part in these events. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (27:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. My stepmom has had cancer four times and beat it. And just like amount of it takes to keep going when that shit happens. If I can use a technical term.

Mandy (27:50)
my gosh, no way.

Absolutely. Well, hat off to your step mum. Amazing.

Dizzy Skips (28:02)
Yeah, she’s hero.

Mandy (28:04)
Yeah, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (28:06)
So I have mentioned, well, we will definitely have you back on when we’re closer to the event, or when you’ve got all the technical stuff sorted out so that we can really give people direct instructions on how they can get involved. I think that would be so fun to take part in something like that. by that time I’ll be rich enough to out to UK and skip with you.

Mandy (28:14)
Yes.

Yeah, that would be absolutely amazing, Dizzy, yeah.

Yeah.

Well you see maybe we just get some sponsors to pay for your flight, who knows?

Dizzy Skips (28:34)
Right, right. you know, one thing that’s so cool is like we’re talking about the benefits of skipping and stuff, but I think two or three other people I’ve had on the podcast so far started skipping falling in love with skipping because of a cancer research benefit, the 100 skips a day thing. I think such, I mean, the benefits that I get from jumping rope, the idea that cool charitable

Mandy (28:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (28:59)
event could introduce people to the kind of feelings that I get on a daily basis from going out and bouncing is awesome.

Mandy (29:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and that’s why, you know, one of the things that gets mentioned in this media release that we’ve got, it’s already prepared, you know, we’re just waiting for the right moment to put it out there. And both myself and Polly, our contact at Cancer Research UK, we’re both totally advocating the personal individual benefits to everybody that takes part. Because it’s like, you know,

people picking up a skill that they learn as a child, you know, in primary school, and then suddenly doing it as an adult and like reliving those benefits and that fun and, you know, that sense of progress and achievement it’s just amazing. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (29:45)
Yeah, it is the most fun I’ve done. the most fun thing I’ve done as an adult. I mean, I just, have so much fun with it and with music. You know, it’s just amazing.

Mandy (29:50)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I need to learn how to do it to the music.

Dizzy Skips (29:57)
It’s, yeah, it, are you a musician at all?

Mandy (30:00)
I am actually, I play drums in my local church music group. There you go. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (30:04)
No kidding, that’s awesome. Well, I think then you wouldn’t have any trouble with it. Like I think problem that some people have jumping to music is just kind of finding the beat or keeping the beat. But if you play drums, know, can keep rhythm. You can just find the songs that are at the pace that works for you. And if it’s too fast, then you jump in half time, kind of. Do you know what I mean? Or too slow, you do double time or whatever.

Mandy (30:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (30:31)
I have so much fun with that.

Mandy (30:32)
Yeah. I found a metronome drum beat YouTube clip when I was trying to get the rhythm for alternate foot or Boxer Skips. I was really good at it and now I’m getting really rubbish at it. Like I did 30 or 40 and I was tripping up like every five or so. I’m like, Mandy, come on.

Dizzy Skips (30:50)
Did you still use the metronome or have you taken that away?

Mandy (30:54)
No, I’ve taken that away now. I was doing quite well with the metronome but it was a drum beat metronome and I thought, yeah, I can pick up on that, know, like bass beat on one and three and the snare on two and four and I got it to an extent but I’d haven’t learned how to play the drum beat metronome and also video myself at the same time. I’m not sure if I can do that on one design, on one device. I don’t No, little android.

Dizzy Skips (31:02)
Mm-hmm.

Do you have an iPhone?

Okay, I know one thing I learned about the iPhone was I would listen to Spotify and then I would want to video myself and if I started videoing myself it would cut off the music. I think iOS has changed so it doesn’t do that as much now but one of the tricks was to listen to the music and then…

Mandy (31:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (31:42)
press and hold on photo and then just slide the thing to the right. So if I press the little button and slide it to the right, it will actually start videoing, but keep the music going. yeah. So as far as your own skipping, what are you, you mentioned some of the tricks that you like doing. Do you, do you plan on, what you’re going to do next? Like, do you have goals for your, your next skipping challenge?

Mandy (31:52)
Okay, I’ll have to a little play with that then.

Yeah, yeah, I like to stretch myself on the number of skips I can do in any one go. And the other day at the gym, I did 25 crossover to open nonstop.

Dizzy Skips (32:09)
personally.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (32:24)
And amazingly, without getting too much out of breath, I kind of surprised myself, you know, so I know it’s doing me good. But one trick is eluding me at the moment, and that’s the EB, you know, where you go behind in front and then skip. I can’t seem to get that one down. So that is a trick that’s eluding me at the moment.

Dizzy Skips (32:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don’t practice that one a lot and every once in a while I get cocky and I’ll be flowing and I’m like, I’m gonna just throw this in and then smack myself in the head or catch it around the back of my neck or something. yeah.

Mandy (32:57)
Yeah.

Yeah I need to find a good tutorial on that one I think.

Dizzy Skips (33:04)
We’ve talked about him on every episode. Aaron, you know Aaron jumps 365. I think he mentioned you. really great with all of those crosses and EBs and stuff like that.

Mandy (33:09)
Yeah.

my gosh. Literally, every skip that he does is a trick, isn’t it? He doesn’t even do a trick to open. He just does, you know, so he means…

Dizzy Skips (33:24)
Yeah, only this last week has he, like I think he announced recently that he’s trying to work on footwork more because that’s one of his biggest challenges. he’s been actually jumping more rather than just like, he’s a trick machine. Like you said, there’s almost never a skip that doesn’t have a cross or an EB or a toad or a frog or an elephant. Yeah.

Mandy (33:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. Yeah. I want to learn all these names as well to the tricks. It’s like the frog and the elephant and the toad. I’m like, what? What are they talking about?

Dizzy Skips (33:48)
I, yeah, I just, I have no idea. I know, I just said elephant. I have no idea if that’s a trick It’s the crocodile. Yeah. Have you faced any injuries or challenges skipping?

Mandy (34:04)
No, only when I was learning the crossovers. Did I tell you about that already? Yes, on the bottom area. yes, yes, yes. My son’s cricket pad there. So at least I could learn the skills. So nothing more than the odd whip, really. I think I had one time where I got

Dizzy Skips (34:09)
smacking yourself with the rope. Yeah, right, right. And having to wear a pad. Yeah. Yeah, that’s pretty amazing.

Yeah, yeah.

Mandy (34:28)
caught on the back of my head, smack right across the back of my head. Yeah, that wasn’t fun. That took my breath away. And I’m like, just stopped the video back in a mo’ No, lucky. Yeah, exactly. And then the odd kind of like if you don’t warm up properly, note to self, always warm up properly, especially if you’re skipping outside where, if you kind of land not quite right, you might like just crack your ankle and you’re like, just a moment, be back in a sec.

Dizzy Skips (34:36)
Yeah, after I have a little cry

Mm-hmm. What is your warm-up like, Mandy? What is your warm-up like?

Mandy (34:55)
But yeah, nothing more than that. Sorry.

Well I kind of like do some calf stretches you know where you just, I can’t demonstrate it without doing it, yeah you know where you have one leg bent and one leg straight out and you just point your toes up so I do that both sides. I do use

Dizzy Skips (35:12)
Mm-hmm. So you’re trying to really like stretch the back of your knee or the calf area. Mm-hmm.

Mandy (35:17)
Yeah, stretch the back of your calf, flex, warm up your knees, warm up your ankles. And then I do some push ups just to get strength in my shoulders and in my wrists and just get your heart rate going. then, yeah. And then I and then I do some squat thrusts just to say like this do.

Dizzy Skips (35:30)
Mm-hmm shape those guns

Hahaha

Mandy (35:45)
like this in that position yeah so I do some of those and yeah that’s just enough to get your heart rate going a little bit warm up your calves and your ankles and your knees get your shoulders a bit warmed up and yeah I find if I don’t do that these days I end up tripping up a lot or you know running out of breath or my calves start aching after a hundred skips instead of you know 300 skips so

Dizzy Skips (35:45)
Yep, I do this.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (36:12)
Yeah, I’ve got quite a good little warm-up routine now. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (36:16)
Yeah, I do too. you, mentioned, especially if you’re doing it outside, is that because of the cold? That it’s, yeah.

Mandy (36:23)
Yes, yeah, there’s been occasions when I’ve tried to skip indoors because it is so cold outside and the roofs in my house are only just tall enough, only just high enough to do a decent skip and I have to be really aware of what’s around me and that can kind of put you off a little bit because you’re kind of like, I can’t do many tricks indoors because obviously your hand position changes slightly.

Dizzy Skips (36:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you can’t double under in there.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mandy (36:51)
So yeah, I mostly skip outside or at the gym where of course the ceilings are higher anyway.

Dizzy Skips (36:57)
Hmm. Are there other people that skip at the gym?

Mandy (37:00)
No, I’m the only one at the moment but, excuse the pun, I am hoping to rope them into the world record breaking attempt.

Dizzy Skips (37:03)
Yeah.

That’s great. well, they could be a venue. mean, I think it’s such a natural thing as a company to want to participate in that because there’s no downside. All you could do is help the community and help everybody and, you know, a little money at it, you know, or jump ropes or something like that.

Mandy (37:19)
No, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, I mostly skip outside in the garden. yeah, it’s important to have a warm up because you’re going into the cold. So you need your limbs to be warm. Otherwise you can do self an injury. And you know, we don’t want injuries really. We want to avoid the injuries.

I need to say bye bye to my daughter.

She’s going to be our participant communication officer for the skipping challenge. I have, roping everybody in.

Dizzy Skips (37:50)
nice. You’ve roped your daughter in already.

Don’t skip that. I’ve noticed here since it’s gotten below freezing that I will do my warmup routine and then just do it again. I use that Fancy Feats app. think I’ve mentioned that before and Lauren has like her intermediate warmup. And so I do that with some variations and some extra stuff in there,

Mandy (38:08)
Yeah, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (38:15)
cold days like today, I will just do it twice. I notice, know, sometimes I feel like, I just want to start jumping to music. when I do the shoulder rotation thing, can, I get super tight. And it’s amazing how going through that routine for 20 seconds for three times in a row, like, really opens things up and I feel so much better. And, and…

Mandy (38:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

yeah it really does make a difference to do a proper you know just take five minutes ten minutes to do a proper warm-up and then it really does benefit you know whatever you’re trying to do in your session after that yeah yeah definitely.

Dizzy Skips (38:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Do you do a cool down as well, Mandy?

Mandy (38:53)
not strictly, no. Maybe I should introduce a cool down, but my cool down is normally flopping in the armchair and watching my video back and counting my scripts.

Dizzy Skips (38:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that’s great. I don’t do a proper cool down as well, usually. I that’s, yeah, that’s something I need to work on. I often am like, all right, really like now it’s, it’s really cold. I want to get back in the car and thaw out, you know, so I, but, yeah, I think that stretching and stuff after the fact can really help too, because I know there are times where

Mandy (39:18)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (39:27)
I haven’t paid attention to the post-stretching stuff and then an hour later I feel like I’ve had it happen where I just might, I’ll cramp up, know, like get the Charlie Horse kind of stuff, which is no fun.

Mandy (39:39)
Yeah, yeah, not good, not good.

Dizzy Skips (39:42)
Yeah. I’m curious how often are you jumping? is this a daily thing for you or how often do you jump and for how long?

Mandy (39:49)
Okay, so when I’m doing one of the skipping challenges, obviously it’s every day and I do the minimum 100 skips and you know depending on time constraints I’ll see what else I can fit in. These days I’m probably skipping three times a week but every time I skip it’s like a good half hour workout rather than just you know 100 skips and then you’re done sort of thing. like

Dizzy Skips (39:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Mandy (40:16)
Yesterday I did a whole routine out in the garden and I did my I did another 300 skips not all in one go that time I did take a break. So I did some basic bounce, did some boxers, I did some 360 where you go all the way around and then start again, I did some arm wraps, I did some

Dizzy Skips (40:33)
Hmm

Nice.

Mandy (40:40)
crossovers, did some double bound double unders because I haven’t done any of those for a while so I’m definitely out of practice on the double unders and then you know I kind of like I can come back indoors and feel really great after a session like that because you know you’ve kind of pushed yourself just enough that you can achieve a new goal or you know try a new skill or you know

Dizzy Skips (40:46)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (41:03)
you do just enough so that you can come in and go, that was good session. I feel good. I’ve burned a few calories. I’ve done something new or I’ve done a few more continuous, whatever. But the only trouble with that is, is then I then have to take a day to recover from a workout like that. from a consistency point of view, it would probably be better to do less, but do it more often.

Dizzy Skips (41:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Threat, yeah.

you’re doing a half hour or more like every other day basically, yeah

Mandy (41:31)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what I aim for. Sometimes life gets in the way and you don’t quite achieve it, but that’s what I aim for.

Dizzy Skips (41:41)
Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, my challenge is that since it’s been getting dark so early on the weekdays, you know, like by the time I’m done with work for the day, it’s already basically full dark. And so I had, I just make a decision to go jump in the dark and evenings that’s harder than others, but the weekends while it’s light, I go out and jump as much as I can. And then I pay for it on Monday, but, but

Mandy (41:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I also prefer actually, if I can do it and I can motivate myself to do it, is to do skipping first thing in the morning. So the first challenge I ever did back in October last year, one of my friends I was speaking to, she said, well, why don’t you do it first thing in the morning? And then it’s done and that’s the first job off your to-do list done for the day. And I’m like,

Dizzy Skips (42:16)
sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (42:31)
It’s a brilliant idea. yeah, when I’m doing the challenges, I try and do it first thing in the morning, seven o’clock in the morning, half past seven in the morning, then I can dash in, do a quick shower and then I’m ready to go for the day at eight o’clock. Yeah, absolutely it is, Yay! Start the day in calorie deficit, you know, it’s always a good way.

Dizzy Skips (42:43)
a good way to start today. Breakfast of champions.

There you go, yeah. Yeah, think this coming Wednesday I will release a interview with Sean, see Sean skip and he’s a morning jumper as well. I think that’s kind of his window and think it is such a great way to start the day.

Mandy (43:02)
huh. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it really is.

Dizzy Skips (43:10)
Well, really appreciate you coming on and talking to me, Mandy. This has been so much fun. And like I said, have, definitely have you back on and let me know as soon as you’ve got more details on the date and stuff like that, because like I said, we’ll get you back on, but I will be happy to announce it or sure that we get as many people in the UK as excited about skipping as possible.

Mandy (43:15)
arse, it’s been brilliant.

Of course.

Yeah, yeah, I mean that’s at the end of the day, that’s the aim of the game, isn’t it? know, if we can have a craze about a Rubik’s Cube why can’t we have a craze about skipping?

Dizzy Skips (43:42)
I know. And it’s so much healthier than the Rubik’s Cube.

Mandy (43:46)
Well, I’m not going to comment on that.

Dizzy Skips (43:48)
I think it’s more fun. mean, the Rubik’s cube was fun, but I was always a cheater. I was the guy who would pry it apart, you know, and then pop it. Yeah. That’s the only way to solve it. That’s the engineers way to solve it. Right.

Mandy (43:53)
Yeah, me too!

Yeah, always.

Dizzy Skips (44:01)
Well, thank you again, Mandy. I really appreciate you coming on and it’s so much fun to learn more about you and your skipping. And I just think that this this goal of setting a world record is so fun and what a way to not only benefit cancer research, but also benefit individual people and inspire individual people with something that makes everybody better. And like you said, the community is amazing, right?

Mandy (44:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely amazing. Yeah. I mean, when I first put up my first skipping video on that first of October, 2023, I had almost a hundred likes within an hour of putting it up there.

Dizzy Skips (44:36)
Isn’t that amazing? Yeah. Yeah, I bet that made you feel good and just feel like there’s people out there. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I just am so I feel so fortunate to be part of the jump rope community and to try and contribute because I amount of and support instruction that I’ve got from people in the community is just so thankful for it.

Mandy (44:37)
Yeah, absolutely amazing. Yeah. It really did. It encouraged me. It kept me going. Yeah, it really did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. I think it’s brilliant. And thank you for having me on your amazing podcast, Dizzy It’s been a pleasure.

Dizzy Skips (45:08)
Absolutely. I’m so glad you could come. you, Mandy.

Mandy (45:11)
Thanks Dizzy!