Skipping Like a Boss!

Firstly let me preface this for all of my American / Canadian readers by stating that “Skipping” is what the rest of the world call your “Jump Rope”. Please don’t imagine me prancing down the street with pigtails in my hair since that is not what I am on about at all. Now that we have got that out of the way let me explain why I feel like I am now awesome when I skip.

I have always wanted to be one of those cool amazing boxing skipping guys that you see on TV in cool guy gyms but never was any decent at it before I put in some practice. A while ago, way before I went away, I decided to get a skipping rope as an easy way to do some cardio that was a bit different from the monotony of running. At first I was terrible. I had to stop every few seconds as I just couldn’t get the right rhythem, until one day I finally found my flow.

The big problem that I always had with skipping was that most people tend to start skipping my jumping on both legs at the same time but for me this just doesn’t work. Every since I damaged my knee when I was 14 I have had issues with my right leg and although it doesn’t effect me all the time some tasks are more difficult that others. If I hop on both feet at the same time what actually happens is that I just use my left leg to jump and end up tiring it out while my lazy, crappy right leg hangs there and slacks off. The only way to ensure that my right leg puts in its fair share of the work is to skip on one leg at a time, alternating each step. The hidden benefit of that for me is that this instantly makes you look like you can skip much better than you can just because you are bouncing about from foot to foot.

The next little trick is listening to music. Music can make all the difference and if I don’t have the right stuff on then it seems like I cant skip at all. Finding the right set of music has been a god send and has really improved my skipping while I have been away (oh yeah forgot to mention I have a skipping rope with me!). Every couple of days I try to find a little bit of space and practice for about 30 mins hopping about all over the place while I try and do bigger and bolder movements all the time. Having a playlist of certain tracks with the right beat all helps too as I can kind of see how I am improving by how long I can keep going before making a mistake

Yesterday I headed out for a little run and a skip and found myself at the seafront dock in Paihia. There was not really anywhere else that I could skip with a decent amount of space and some lighting as it was getting dark so the seafront it is. Back in the day I would have just avoided this with it being on the main road where people could see but now a days I just don’t care. I have come to the realisation that no one is really bothered about what you do and even if they are curious or want to watch they are not going to say anything so it doesn’t really matter anyway. With that though in mind last night I skipped my ass off like a boss and had a great little workout. The thing about it that got me most hyped though was the fact that sparks (yes sparks!) were coming off of my skipping rope as it impacted the concrete floor.

The skipping rope that I have is made from metal wire that has then been coated in plastic to keep it from getting damaged. Over time this plastic coating has worn out quite a bit leaving bare metal which as it turns out not only cuts you when the frayed ends hit you but it also makes awesome sparks if you skip fast enough.

I have never felt as cool as I did yesterday skipping in the middle of a random bit of concrete in a random town while some little kids looked on from across the park and just said “wooooooow cool!”. That may not be some peoples classification of cool but being vindicated by little kids sounds good to me.

God damn I’m cool!