Beads, Balance & CMT: How Anna Found Joy in Jump Rope (Ep. 32)

Dizzy Skips (00:42)
I’m gonna do my best here. So, Anna, Oyegarden, Larson, thank you so much for joining me on the Jump Rope Podcast. I know I did not do your middle name justice, but.

Anna (00:48)
Yeah.

It was quite good. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. I’ve been looking forward to this.

Dizzy Skips (00:58)
it’s my pleasure. I’m so glad to have you

Is that right? ⁓ Lisa is from Norway, yes. yeah? Yeah, isn’t she great? I love her. Yeah.

Anna (01:00)
⁓ I heard you interviewing Lisa from Norway. Actually, while I was mowing the lawn the other day. Yeah. Yeah, she is. It’s quite

impressive what she’s accomplished in a fairly short time, I think.

Dizzy Skips (01:17)
Yeah. So where are you in Norway, Anna?

Anna (01:19)
I live on the west coast of Norway, close to Stavanger.

Dizzy Skips (01:22)
Okay.

Okay. And have you been there your whole life?

Anna (01:27)
No, I moved here

about 10 years ago because I got a job in this area. So I’m from a city, another city on the West Coast, a little further north.

Dizzy Skips (01:30)
Okay.

know your profile says you’re

Okay. I know your profile says you’re a physiotherapist. Is that your day job? For those of us who aren’t maybe as medically inclined, can you explain what a physiotherapist does?

Anna (01:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, we work with the musculoskeletal system. So we work in hospitals and in homes for the elderly and also with

Dizzy Skips (02:02)
like long-term care.

Anna (02:03)
Yeah, but also with children. Our patients, as a profession, our patients are aged from one day old to a hundred plus. But my patients are grownups, 18 years and older.

Dizzy Skips (02:13)
And

Okay. And what sort of issues do they have that require them to see a physiotherapist?

Anna (02:23)
In my job, it’s mostly elderly people. some of them have been to hospital for something that has occurred. Yeah, either it might be like a stroke or heart disease, lung disease, or they’ve fallen and fractured a hip.

Dizzy Skips (02:34)
An injury or something.

Mm.

Anna (02:47)
Sometimes they also need physiotherapy after a planned procedure such as a hip replacement or knee replacement or other fractures.

Dizzy Skips (02:55)
Mmm.

How does physiotherapy differ from physical therapy?

Anna (03:02)
I wasn’t aware there was a difference. I thought it was a matter of just different terms for the same thing. if it sounded like I was describing physical therapy, that’s exactly what it is.

Dizzy Skips (03:05)
⁓

⁓ is it? Okay.

Got it. So your job is basically to help

these people who’ve been through some issue kind of get them mobile or get them as healthy and

Anna (03:23)
literally

try to help them back on their feet and back to the activities that they’ve been doing before.

Dizzy Skips (03:27)
Yeah, that’s really cool.

Yeah. So when did you get started with jump rope, Anna?

Anna (03:32)
Yeah.

I started in the summer of 2021. So a little bit after the first, yeah, close to four years now, a little bit after the people who started in lockdown.

Dizzy Skips (03:38)
Okay, so you’ve been doing it for a while.

Yeah.

Yeah, COVID. Yeah, the COVID craze. Yeah. And what got you started?

Anna (03:49)
Yeah, I started a little bit after that.

I think my story is pretty similar to most other recreational jumpers. I stumbled across a video on Instagram. This was back in June of 2021. And it was some Norwegian jumpers who posted, I think it was every day in June, to raise awareness about cancer and about physical activity and the importance of that.

before, during and after cancer treatment. And then after seeing one video, you know how the Instagram algorithm works, you stumble across another one. So I fell deep down into that rabbit hole on Instagram and I never recovered.

Dizzy Skips (04:23)
Wow.

Yeah?

What appealed to you about it?

Anna (04:39)
At first it was just pure amazement of what’s possible to do with the jump rope. Because those first videos that I saw were like dancey footwork stuff. And together with the music, it was like I couldn’t stop watching it. And then I remember the first time I saw someone do a release, I was like, what exactly am I looking at here?

Dizzy Skips (04:45)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I totally get that.

Mm-hmm.

Anna (05:05)
And I had to rewatch it a few times because I thought I saw someone letting go of a handle and catching it again, which seemed just crazy. then like, yeah, magic, pure wizardry. And then I saw a mic release in slow motion. was like, yeah, just totally amazed. And I didn’t think in my wildest fantasy that I would ever be able to do that. But I was at the same time,

Dizzy Skips (05:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, magic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anna (05:31)
it looked like a lot of fun and I figured I ought to give it a try. And at first when I started, I was thinking maybe one day I’d be able to get a crisscross. That was like, as far as my, could stretch my imagination of what I would be capable of doing. And so I did that and then some.

Dizzy Skips (05:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

How long did it take you to get to the crisscross?

Anna (05:58)
I don’t think that took very long. And actually the first, when I look back, I’ve deleted most of my videos from my phone because as you know, maybe the problem we all struggle with is not enough storage space on our devices. But looking back on my very, very first Instagram post, that was actually unlocking the toad.

Dizzy Skips (06:00)
Mm-hmm.

I

Yeah?

Anna (06:21)
on my living room wooden floor. And I remember I’d been struggling with it for about two weeks. couldn’t, I could not comprehend the timing of it. And when I jumped at how to uncross my hands at the right time, it just, it did not feel intuitive at all. And then I got one and I was like, yeah, and just baffled that I was able to.

Dizzy Skips (06:24)
Nice.

Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah.

Anna (06:49)
But it took me years to get the toad consistently and to get it on the other side. And I still have to like really focus not to gallop out of it on my non-dominant side. that’s the trick that has, it’s followed me since I started, but now it’s one of my favorites actually. Yeah. I never pictured myself a leg cross

Dizzy Skips (06:53)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anna (07:14)
person but Toad has become a favorite.

Dizzy Skips (07:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, I’ve joked before that this is a toad free zone, but it’s not because I hate the toad. I mean, it’s kind of an awkward move, or it looks awkward to start, but I have messed around with it, but I’ve never really practiced, practiced, and I’ve pulled it off like once, but it’s not really pretty.

Anna (07:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

But you know,

there are those people who say that, no, I’m not a like cross person. Hypothetically, we could call one of them Kathy. And have you seen what’s happened at her account? Yeah. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (07:41)
I know.

Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She’s wicked. Yeah.

So when you got, when you got started, Anna, how did you learn? Were you just watching videos or did you use an app or get a coach?

Anna (07:51)
Cheers.

I just watched videos on Instagram. I came across Coach Chris’s account pretty early on and I followed Kathy Jumps since the beginning. There was a woman called Jump Rope Kate back then and a few other accounts and I just looked at the videos, tried to do what they were doing.

Dizzy Skips (08:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Anna (08:23)
but I didn’t have any guidance at first. So it was a lot of trial and error and more error than anything at certain points. Yeah. But then again, I mean, one of the things that I discovered really early on was this amazing community. once I made, I mean, I was like lurking behind in the background for a few weeks, a month maybe before I made an account because I’ve

Dizzy Skips (08:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Isn’t it always, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anna (08:52)
I felt really, really awkward about filming myself and sharing that. so that held me back for a little while. But then I realized that there’s this amazing community out there. And to be part of that, need to just let go of that self-awareness. And ⁓ that stopped being awkward pretty soon. It wasn’t many posts.

Dizzy Skips (08:55)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ yeah, right. Open up a bit. Yeah. Yeah.

Anna (09:19)
until I felt more at ease about it because if everyone else can, why can’t I? Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (09:26)
Right, exactly. And

it’s just such a great community. Like you never get, or I mean, I shouldn’t say you, I should say I’ve never gotten really negative feedback. You I get razzed by my friends or something, but even when I was starting out people are always encouraging, you know, and it’s just so helpful.

Anna (09:42)
Yeah, it’s an

amazing positive environment. back in the beginning when I didn’t really have any guidance other than looking at videos on Instagram, I remember people getting help from each other by posting something, trying something, but not succeeding, and then tagging someone they knew to do it and then get feedback and correction.

Dizzy Skips (09:47)
Yeah.

Anna (10:07)
in that manner and that worked well too because I remember for instance I struggled with the forwards EB for a long time the EB swing at first and then trying to jump it was a different story and then eventually about half year in or so I was trying to figure out the backwards EB swing and I just my mind could not.

Dizzy Skips (10:07)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Anna (10:30)
comprehend what was going on and I looked up tutorials several of them still couldn’t get it and then I posted a video of me trying it was all flailing arms and none of it made sense and then I tagged someone who I’ve seen do it and she Sent me a DM and was like, you know, I could film myself doing this trick and explain it to you today How would you like that? And I was like, of course

Dizzy Skips (10:32)
Mm-hmm.

Anna (10:58)
Just so helpful and within minutes I got my first backwards EB swing. Just from that video in my DMs just showing me the ropes literally and how to do it.

Dizzy Skips (11:04)
That’s amazing. That’s so cool.

That’s terrific. Yeah.

That’s amazing. Anna, I’m going to put my dog in the other room real quick before she starts with her squeak toy.

Anna (11:21)
Sounds like a good idea.

Dizzy Skips (11:22)
She waits until I’m in a meeting or something like that to go to the bottom of the stairs and then yell up at me like, dad, come carry me up the stairs.

Anna (11:32)
She can’t walk up the stairs.

Dizzy Skips (11:34)
She could totally walk up the stairs and

in fact she will run up the stairs if I go downstairs with a jump rope and start setting up the living room like I’m gonna jump rope. She knows what that looks like and she’s like I am out of here. I hate this and she’ll run upstairs and then get under the bed as if there’s gonna be fallout from a shelling in a war or something. She cracks me up. Yeah. No she wants to be carried up the stairs unless I’m jumping rope and then she can

Anna (11:46)
Of course.

Yeah.

Just because she wants

to. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (12:02)
Yeah, and she can haul ass. So

has your method of learning jump rope routines and stuff changed over time? Like you said, you started just watching Instagram Reels. Is that what you’ve kept up with?

Anna (12:13)
⁓

I did that for a long time and then I don’t remember exactly when, but at one point I started to get coaching, which was a total game changer. As I know you’ve worked with a coach as well and it’s something completely different, both in terms of getting that instant feedback and the exact corrections that you need to make, just like put your left arm a little bit further to the side or your…

Dizzy Skips (12:24)
Yeah?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anna (12:41)
One of your wrists are slacking, so you need to correct that. It’s just so helpful. also working with the coach has been eye-opening in terms of how I’m able to do more than I think I’m able to do. I’ve had coaching with the Jump Rope Coach Chris, for a period of time. And yeah, he’s really, really a great coach.

Dizzy Skips (12:45)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Anna (13:07)
The way he like spots what you need to correct as it’s happening, it’s just mind-blowing. And then sometimes he would like throw a trick at me that I was like, no, that’s way above my level. And he’s like, no, give it a try. Because you can do this and you can do that. And you should be able to do this as well. And I would try, he would correct me and eventually I’d get it.

Dizzy Skips (13:15)
Really? That’s great.

Anna (13:34)
At one point I remember doing an inverse toad on my parents’ terrace while visiting them a summer a couple of years ago.

Dizzy Skips (13:44)
As we all do, And inverse toad while visiting your parents.

Anna (13:45)
Yes, and I really

didn’t think that I would be able to do an inverse toad but then I did.

Dizzy Skips (13:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, it is amazing what you could do when you just show up and keep practicing. And when you have somebody from the community or a coach that can say, Hey, you know, tighten this up and it’ll come, you know.

Anna (14:07)
Yeah.

And at first, when I was just learning by watching Instagram videos, I remember how much more helpful the videos that had like points, you need to be aware of this and that while trying this trick, how much more helpful they were because now I can more easily spot what’s not working. But way back then, it wasn’t as easy.

Dizzy Skips (14:17)
Yeah. Right.

Anna (14:29)
And it was really helpful when people pointed out like common mistakes when doing this trick and what to pay attention to.

Dizzy Skips (14:29)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, totally. I love those videos. I also love this slow motion as well.

Anna (14:41)
But also, yeah.

Yeah. But now, for the past, I don’t know, a year or so maybe, I’ve been using Tricktionary+ Coach Chris’s app, and I really, really like that. And also, yeah. you should. It’s an amazing learning tool. And also, recently, it’s become more of a social platform as well because…

Dizzy Skips (14:52)
yeah?

I’ve heard amazing things. I haven’t tried it yet.

Mm-hmm.

I’ve heard that.

Anna (15:07)
And now the

community members can interact and upload videos and remix each other’s videos. And the people who posted it originally will still get the credit even though someone else posted. So that’s a cool feature. And there’s also…

Dizzy Skips (15:14)
Right.

That’s really cool. That is cool. I think when

Eilidh was on, she was talking about doing leg wraps and things like that and posting some of her videos to Tricktionary.

Anna (15:30)
Yeah,

there’s a lot of her videos on there. So there are videos from a number of different coaches. I don’t know if you saw Lisette’s Mic Monday series. No, you should check those out if you’re into releases. A few years ago, she did a Mic Monday, like a routine containing different mic releases.

Dizzy Skips (15:34)
Yeah.

No.

Yeah? Yeah.

wow.

Anna (15:55)
every Monday. So I think if you go to her Instagram page you’ll find highlights with the Mic Mondays and they’re also in the T plus app.

Dizzy Skips (16:01)
Okay, cool.

Cool. Since I don’t know Tricktionary well, I know there’s quite a library of stuff in there. Is there also like a learning path? Like if you were starting from scratch, is there like, hey, start here if you’re just learning jump rope? Or is it more all a cart?

Anna (16:12)
Yeah.

No,

it’s… Yeah, you can say that it’s kind of a la carte. There’s a huge number of tricks in there, like separate tricks, so you can search by a trick name, and you can also search for combos that has that trick you’re looking for. And there’s also this feature where you can just like surprise me with a combo or surprise me with a skill. So if you’re…

Dizzy Skips (16:31)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Cool.

Anna (16:46)
If you’re going out to jump rope and you don’t know exactly what to do and you kind of want to learn something new but don’t know what, that’s a cool feature. And there’s also, if you jump to music, there are playlists sorted by beats per minute, by tempo. So you can, you’re doing a combo and you know that, okay, I can do it to this song or a song with approximately this tempo.

Dizzy Skips (16:53)
Yeah, that’s cool.

Crazy cool.

Right, yeah.

Anna (17:11)
you can get a playlist with songs with that tempo because if you’re working on a… It’s really helpful. And if you’re working on a combo for an hour to that one song… Yeah, you can instead you can listen to different songs at the same tempo and work on that routine and then… Yeah, it’s a really really cool feature. Yeah, and also there’s the I don’t know if Eilidh talked about that but…

Dizzy Skips (17:15)
That’s super helpful.

Yeah. Yeah.

That’s slick. I like that. Yeah.

Anna (17:40)
the trick of the day. You’ve probably seen people posting trick of the day and that you’re on a trick of the day streak. And that’s a section where there’s every day there are three different options for trick of the day. And if you unlock one of them, the app will count your streak if you do them for days in a row.

Dizzy Skips (17:41)
Okay. ⁓ Yep.

Okay.

fun.

Cool, so it kind of gamifies it for you.

Anna (18:02)
Yeah, and it also, if you’re on a streak, on a trick of the day streak, it’s growing and you’ve maybe even reached a personal best on the streak, you really, really want to get one of the tricks for that day. So there has been times where I’ve been working on, if I see in the morning that there’s impossible, impossible and almost impossible.

If those are the options, then I’ll probably work on the one that I think I may be able to pull off a little bit, a little here and a little there during the day and maybe work on it for an hour at night just to get it before midnight. Get it before the time is up. Because if you don’t get it, of course you lose the streak and it starts counting from day one again.

Dizzy Skips (18:26)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Womp Womp. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ well, I understand obsessive. Yes, definitely with jump rope.

Anna (18:49)
So I can get a little bit obsessive about that, I’ll admit that.

Yeah. So that’s my streak

within my streak right now. I think I actually have three different streaks going simultaneously jump rope related. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (19:02)
That’s fantastic.

Yeah, that’s great.

So what does your jump rope practice look like? How often are you jumping and where and when? You’re a mother, correct? You’ve got children. You’ve got twins, right? Wow, that must keep you busy.

Anna (19:15)
⁓ yeah, that’s, yes, I have, yeah, have two eight-year-old twin daughters.

Yeah, they do. Yes, but my jump rope sessions, they are not very structured. I do jump rope, or not necessarily jump, but I move with a rope every single day. Sometimes it’s two minutes, sometimes it’s two hours, depending on how much time I have available. And sometimes I may work on a

Dizzy Skips (19:28)
Yeah. So when…

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Anna (19:50)
specific tricks that I want to learn or that I want to make look smoother. Other times I may have seen a combo that I want to work on and I also use Tricktionary+, the app that we talked about for inspiration and yeah, and a lot of time I just put on some music that I like and go with it.

Dizzy Skips (19:55)
Mm-hmm.

right.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. So are you a morning jumper or evening jumper?

Anna (20:16)
A little bit of both because when I have the chance to jump in the morning I do, but that’s usually on the weekends. So on weekdays it’s nights, afternoons and nights because I work in the daytime five days a week and the mornings in my family is just, they’re too busy for me to go off and jump rope.

Dizzy Skips (20:26)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Yeah, I can imagine.

Right, Yeah.

Anna (20:39)
at the time,

but that’ll probably change eventually.

Dizzy Skips (20:43)
So how would you describe what you do with jump rope? If someone were to describe Anna’s jump rope style, what would that sound like?

Anna (20:50)
Ooh,

that’s an interesting question and I don’t know quite how to answer it. 98 % of the time I jump with beaded ropes. And my skills are more like arm skills than footwork. I think footwork is one of those things that looks super, super cool when others do it.

Dizzy Skips (21:02)
Yeah?

Okay.

Hahaha

Anna (21:17)
And it’s

one of those things that caught my eye at the very beginning. And I was like, that looks so fun. I want to, I want to do that. But at the same time, I’m not light on my feet and, doing footwork combos, maybe at a high speed. And it’s not something that comes easily to me. And I remember one of the first footwork skills that I saw was the Running Man shuffle

Dizzy Skips (21:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mmm.

Anna (21:43)
and I thought it looked super cool. And I was like, yeah, I should try that. And then that was back in the day when Instagram reels could only be a maximum of 30 seconds. That’s the longest reels you could make at that time. And I remember there was a lot of those reels where people would show the moves, jump without the rope for maybe 12 or 16 counts or something like short sequences.

Dizzy Skips (21:43)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Anna (22:11)
move, show them first without the rope and then maybe with the rope ⁓ and with the rope in slow-mo. It was like, looked almost doable. So I tried without the rope and it didn’t take me that long before I could do a running man shuffle without the rope. Then I tried adding in the rope and it was a completely different story. So I think I was two or three, I was…

Dizzy Skips (22:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anna (22:36)
or three years into my jump rope journey before I could do a fairly decent running man shuffle. I was two left feet for way too long. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (22:41)
Mm-hmm. Do you?

Really? I’m curious.

Do you listen to music when you’re jumping? Always or most mostly. Do you find that helps at all with beat and yeah.

Anna (22:48)
Yeah, almost always, most of the time.

Yeah, absolutely.

also like listening. It depends on where I am when I’m jumping, but I also like jumping, but having… always jump with AirPods, but depending on my surroundings when I jump, if I’m alone, I like to not have it in… What’s it called? Like not… Yeah, not noise cancelling because I want to hear the rope.

Dizzy Skips (23:02)
Mm-hmm.

Noise, noise canceling. Yeah.

Anna (23:20)
But if I’m jumping at the gym and there’s a treadmill class going on behind me, which makes a lot of noise, I turn it on sound cancelling and that works best in those situations. But if there’s not a lot of sound and things happening around me, I like to hear the music and the rope.

Dizzy Skips (23:20)
Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Me too, I love it. I don’t always hear the ROPE, but these headphones have that same feature that my AirPods Pro have where you could put it on transparent mode, or I forget what they call it, but it’s where you can hear some of the environment as well. I think that, I don’t know, there’s something primal that the sound of beads slapping does for me.

Anna (23:49)
Yeah.

It’s almost therapeutic,

Dizzy Skips (24:00)
It really is. I feel almost like hypnotized or it just kind

Anna (24:00)
that clicking of the rope. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (24:04)
of lowers my blood pressure and my heart rate just listening to it. I’ve put out several reels recently where I’ve been mixing the music down and the environment volume up so that I can hear the beads in the reel, because I just love it. It’s peaceful. It’s like ASMR.

Anna (24:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, me too. It is.

And also if you, I think I’ve heard on your podcast that you’ve tried rope flow a little bit. Is that correct? Yeah. And also with the rope flow, that’s a completely different sounding rope. And that’s swishing of a heavy rope has something, I don’t know, medit, I can’t say the word, medit, yes, that’s what I’m looking for.

Dizzy Skips (24:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

It is.

Meditative. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I, I, yeah.

Anna (24:49)
of equality about it.

Dizzy Skips (24:51)
Absolutely. I just made another rope flow rope. got, went to REI, this outdoor store and bought a length of rope and made another one and it’s stiffer rope than my original one. And I was out yesterday working with it and I had my headphones on and at some point I just kind of put them down around my ear. Cause it was, it’s just such a great sound. It sounded very martial artsy to me, you know, like swinging a sword. It’s kind of.

Anna (25:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, it has this really nice swishy sound.

Dizzy Skips (25:22)
Yeah, yeah, super fun. And I’ve, do you do rope flow as well? Yeah.

Anna (25:26)
Yeah, it

depends. mean, how much varies. But I’m part of the JumpForJoy100 group. And one of my goals for JumpForJoy100 was to pick back up rope flow. So I set a goal of doing rope flow at least once a week. And I did it the first…

Dizzy Skips (25:33)
Yeah, me too.

Okay.

Anna (25:46)
60 days maybe. Now it’s fallen out a little bit, but I’m going to pick it back up. Because it brings something different.

Dizzy Skips (25:48)
Mm-hmm.

Can you talk about?

Yeah, that’s what I was just gonna ask you. Can you talk about what it does for you differently than normal jump rope? Or not normal jump rope, but standard jump rope.

Anna (26:00)
Yeah, I think I want

to start with saying what got me started with rope flow. And I think it was a little bit similar to what I’ve heard from a few other jumpers. It started with an injury. So I wasn’t able to jump or jump as much as I used to or as I wanted to, but I still wanted to move with a rope every single day and actually a jump rope friend of mine.

Dizzy Skips (26:06)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Anna (26:26)
a friend who I’ve met through jump rope and have traveled quite a lot with jump rope related. She gifted me a flow rope and sent it as a Christmas present when like half a year after I started jumping. Yeah. And then we took a rope flow class online with a coach called Hardcore Hansen. ⁓ She gave rope flow classes and we were

Dizzy Skips (26:37)
⁓ so nice.

Okay.

Anna (26:50)
I don’t remember how many we were, but like six or eight people or something. So there were like this miniatures of us on screen and we, she taught us different patterns and how to transition between them. And, and it’s, it was, yeah, I really liked it. And it’s like, you can go slow, you can go fast. And you can work on sometimes if you’re learning a new jump rope pattern and you don’t quite figure it out.

Dizzy Skips (27:08)
Mm-hmm.

Anna (27:17)
it helps to get that extra feedback that you get from a heavy rope. And also taking the jumping out of the equation. It’s one less thing to coordinate.

Dizzy Skips (27:21)
Yes, amen.

Right.

Yeah, totally.

Anna (27:32)
And for me, rope flow can be a great warm-up. I’ve used it as a warm-up. I’ve used it as a cool-down. Sometimes that has been my rope workout because, mean, if you flow with a heavy rope or a lighter rope but add more speed, you can absolutely get a full workout out of rope flow. Just as much as you can with… And who says you can’t jump even if you’re doing rope flow? I mean…

Dizzy Skips (27:43)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Totally. Yeah, absolutely.

Anna (27:59)
Look at, Em in Australia for instance, her jump rope style and flow rope style, which to me, when I see her jumping rope, they’re intertwined. You can totally tell from her style that she does rope flow too. And I think that’s really, really cool.

Dizzy Skips (28:00)
I do.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. One of the things I was thinking about with rope flow while I was practicing yesterday was that because there’s so much added weight with the rope,

Anna (28:17)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (28:27)
it tends to exaggerate the movement. So one of the things I’ve been working on with rope flow is keeping my elbows in like I would with jump rope and keeping my movements tight and still making the movements but not getting my arms way out and you know muppet land and I feel like that extra weight just it feels good when you get your flow and you can keep it in tight. It’s lots of fun.

Anna (28:38)
Yeah.

Yeah. But that’s the

thing though with the rope flow because you can choose to like move really tight. Like imagine that you’re standing in a narrow hallway or you can go all out and like with big movements and depending on your mood or the music that you listen to or what you want to get from it. You can go big or you can go narrow.

Dizzy Skips (28:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. don’t know.

You can go small. Yeah. One of the I’ve tried a few times to go big, you know, several episodes ago, I had Robz360s on and he is just amazing. He’s like a whirling dervish tornado.

Anna (29:20)
Yeah.

His turns

are otherworldly.

Dizzy Skips (29:27)
Right? And so I got it in my head that, yeah, I’ve got so much feedback with this flow rope. I’ll try and pull off a few of those turns. And I, and I’ve been practicing and I, you know, I can turn and stuff, but the turn and jump swing, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve hit myself at a hundred miles an hour with that heavy rope, right? You know, like wrapped it around me and whack.

Anna (29:45)
Yeah, and I

feel that if I try to turn fast with the heavy flow rope, it’s kind of like the rope takes hold of me. I mean, I guess you’re supposed to let the rope lead in a way. But if you give it that kind of momentum, at least for me, I have poor balance. And if I give it that kind of momentum, it comes to a point where the rope is more in control of me than the other way around.

Dizzy Skips (29:54)
Right.

Hmm

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I hear you. Hey, one thing I wanted to ask you about on your profile, you said you’re a physiotherapist living with CMT. And I had to look that up. Can you explain that and how does that affect your daily life and your jumping rope?

Anna (30:20)
Yeah.

Yeah, I’m glad you asked. CMT is a group of rare neuromuscular conditions ⁓ that affects the peripheral nerves. the nerves, the longest nerves are the ones that are most affected, meaning the nerves to the hands and the feet.

Dizzy Skips (30:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Anna (30:47)
And in CMT, the nerves conduct signals at a slower pace than they’re supposed to. So that leads to poor balance, weaker muscles, poor agility. Those are probably the main symptoms. But at the same time, people with CMT are a very diverse population, so to speak.

Dizzy Skips (30:54)
Okay.

Okay.

Anna (31:11)
So

how it affects your daily life varies greatly within that group. Some people work full-time jobs and live active lives. Some people need a wheelchair in order to get around, but may also be able to walk, but still need that wheelchair to…

Dizzy Skips (31:15)
Sure.

Anna (31:31)
Like to save energy and to make the day work. And then there’s everything between. And for me, it of course, it affects my balance. It makes me, I can’t jump high. It’s one of the things. Yeah. Both. It’s something that I’m born with and it progresses slowly over time. So it’s something that I’ll die with.

Dizzy Skips (31:33)
Sure. Right. Yeah.

Can I ask, is this something you were born with or that you kind of developed over time?

Anna (31:57)
and not from, to put it in those words. And for me, as a child and growing up, I struggled with it quite a lot because it’s one of those things that… I I had a really, really strained relationship with physical activity when I grew up. All my childhood and my adolescence.

Dizzy Skips (32:06)
Really?

Sure.

Anna (32:18)
because in PE classes in school, I just couldn’t keep up. And we all had to do the same things in PE, whether we had the ability to actually do it or not. And of course that does not feel good as a kid. That leads to anxiety and withdrawal and you just want to like disappear. ⁓ Yeah, exactly.

Dizzy Skips (32:24)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

No.

Yeah. Right. You feel like you’re less than when you can’t keep up. Yeah.

Anna (32:45)
And also in the playground, of course, when the other kids would run off to the next activity, I couldn’t keep up. And that doesn’t feel good when you’re growing up. But as you grow older, you can choose your activities more. There’s no PE class. You can go to the gym and work. No, no, I am the

Dizzy Skips (32:53)
Yeah.

Right, you don’t have a PE teacher.

Anna (33:11)
I was going say, now I am the PE teacher, but that’s not quite right. The physical therapist, which is something completely different, but it’s different though.

Dizzy Skips (33:13)
I know. I mean, basically. Yeah, I know. But you get to boss

people around and get them to do physical activity, right?

Anna (33:22)
Yeah, or encourage them, try to motivate them. But with that in mind, it took me, I had to, I discovered the joy of physical activity as a grownup in my early twenties. I was actually halfway into my bachelor’s degree as a physical therapist before I…

Dizzy Skips (33:24)
That’s right. Yeah

Okay.

Anna (33:45)
started working out because that’s when I discovered that I can be physically active without having to be compared to anyone. Without having to be the last, without having to be the one who’s just seeing everybody else’s backs way in the distance.

Dizzy Skips (33:53)
That’s so cool.

Right, Was your struggle with CMT, did that inform your decision to go into physical therapy?

Anna (34:08)
absolutely. I mean, I was a child who was in need of physical therapists and later on a youth who needed the help of a physical therapist. the physiotherapist that helped me when I was growing up, she had a really, really good way of explaining the mechanics of how the body works and how movement

Dizzy Skips (34:27)
Mm-hmm.

Anna (34:28)
what facilitates movement, what restrains it. And it got me curious. So that’s actually a big part of the reason why I chose this profession. And also I figured that, I mean, in my class while I was in college, there was a lot of people who were like, who were excelling at their sports and always had.

Dizzy Skips (34:31)
Mm-hmm.

That’s so cool.

Anna (34:54)
So in the beginning I was like kind of wondering how do I fit in here because it didn’t seem like an obvious choice of profession. when I finished my studies and I started working as a physical therapist, I mean pretty soon you realize that most of the patients aren’t the ones who always won. Some of them are, but most of the patients are

Dizzy Skips (35:00)
Mm-hmm.

Anna (35:18)
ordinary people who had something happen to them, which makes them in need of physiotherapy. And you don’t need to be the number one in a sport to be able to do that. And I guess also having struggled with these things maybe enables me to have more understanding for that side of things.

Dizzy Skips (35:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, no kidding. You’re an empathy machine when it comes to those kind of things. So I’m curious, is the symptom more a deadening of nerves or do you have nerve pain?

Anna (35:50)
Actually, for me, it affects my balance. And also, as I said, I can’t jump high. sometimes I get cramped in my hands and also in my legs. But talking to other people with CMT has made me realize that, I mean, of course, if I could have chosen, I would have chosen not to have CMT.

Dizzy Skips (35:54)
It

Mm hmm. Sure.

Anna (36:12)
But we don’t get to make those decisions. And having CMT, I realized that I’ve been lucky because my symptoms could have been so much worse. And I’m lucky that I’ve hardly any pain. And I know a lot of people with CMT struggle with pain and all the struggles that come with it.

Dizzy Skips (36:15)
want one.

Right.

That’s good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anna (36:35)
trouble sleeping and Yeah, and also the amount of energy it takes to be in pain So I’m I’m really fortunate to not have that

Dizzy Skips (36:38)
Mm-hmm

Yeah, it’s just draining.

Yeah, absolutely. Does it affect your like you personally, I realize it’s it’s different for different people. Does it affect your like grip strength?

Anna (36:57)
Yeah, it does. mean, the number of times I’ve stood in the kitchen wanting to open a jar of jam or whatever. Okay, I’m not having strawberry jam today because I can’t open the damn lid.

Dizzy Skips (37:09)
Yeah, well now you have eight year olds. You put them up to it, right? Who can open it faster,

Anna (37:11)
Actually, ⁓ yeah.

My husband sometimes joke about when I ask him to open some jar, he’s like, I’m so glad that you still need me. he so at least that’s there’s that. And also IKEA has some great tools to to open stuck jars and milk bottles and so forth. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (37:23)
Ha

Did you-

Yeah, yeah, they’re ingenious.

So after you started jumping, did you notice a difference in your CMT symptoms or your relationship with CMT?

Anna (37:44)
Bye!

That’s a difficult question because what I found in jump rope that I’ve never experienced anything like it is how fun physical activity could be. Because I did have a workout routine before I discovered jump rope. I always, after I started working out, mean, from halfway into my bachelor’s degree,

Dizzy Skips (38:00)
Right?

Anna (38:11)
I started working out, but it was on and off, aerobics for a while, then spinning for a while, then nothing for a while. And it went on like that for quite a few years. And then after my daughters were born, that’s when I started exercising on a regular basis and not falling out of it. But still, back then, it used to be a period of time doing this, a period of time doing that.

Dizzy Skips (38:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Anna (38:37)
But I never found something that I really truly enjoyed over time. It was more, it was okay and it felt good when it was done. But with jump rope, it’s been, when can I jump? Yeah, you just look for that little space of time where you can just disappear into it. And that’s been, that’s been, I mean, it probably sounds like

Dizzy Skips (38:47)
Right, yeah.

Yeah, it’s the best, right?

Yeah.

Anna (39:04)
big words, but to me, jump rope has been life changing, really. And also the way that jump rope is, I mean, of course you can compare yourself to others, but I don’t think that ever leads to anything good. But it’s just, yeah, I don’t know where I read it, but you probably read the same thing too, but I read somewhere that comparison is the thief of joy. And I think that is just spot on.

Dizzy Skips (39:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s manufacturing misery.

Mm-hmm.

Anna (39:30)
But with jump rope, when I’m in my zone, everything outside of it doesn’t exist. And I can compare myself, I can compare to what I was able to do a month ago or half a year ago or a year ago. But I try to avoid comparing myself to others because it’s just, it’s not, whenever you compare yourself to someone else, you don’t know what you’re comparing to.

Dizzy Skips (39:34)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah.

Anna (39:52)
You don’t know the whole picture

of what you’re comparing yourself to. So it’s going to be comparing apples and pears.

Dizzy Skips (39:57)
Right, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I kind of my my rule now is: “be inspired by others, compare to yourself,” you know, compared to yourself yesterday, like.

Anna (40:08)
Yeah,

you put it so well right there. also, mean, as I said earlier on, when I started jumping, was like, I set myself what felt as a big goal back then to maybe get a cross and like, maybe even get out of it and keep jumping.

Dizzy Skips (40:13)
Yeah.

That’s the tricky part.

Anna (40:31)
And

yeah, so but then I’ve exceeded my own expectations of what I’m capable of so many times. I haven’t stopped saying that something is impossible because some things literally are impossible for me to get jump rope wise. But even though there’s still and it feels like there is an unlimited amount of things that you can learn. And if you learn a new trick,

and you feel pretty confident about it, try doing it backwards or faster or on the other side.

Dizzy Skips (41:01)
Right.

With a heavier rope or something, yeah. Yeah, or a lighter rope.

Anna (41:07)
With a heavier rope or transitioning, yeah,

or transition from a different skill into it and a different skill out of it than what you would usually do. The possibilities are endless and it just…

Dizzy Skips (41:16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Take it from 90 beats

a minute to 120 and have fun.

Anna (41:24)
Yeah. And it’s like, I’ve never liked running. I’ve tried to like running more than once with a rope in hand. I can run. And it’s even fun. I can run in a spot with a rope and enjoy it, but running on a treadmill or outside, it’s not for me. I mean, kudos to those who do it and enjoy it because I mean,

Dizzy Skips (41:28)
Yeah, it’s so boring. I know, me too. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Yeah.

Anna (41:52)
It’s just as accessible as jump rope You can do it anywhere. It doesn’t cost much, but… Well.

Dizzy Skips (41:57)
Right, yeah.

Yeah,

it’s pretty amazing. It’s funny. I was thinking, you know, I like

Guilting myself into getting a gym membership and then going in there and getting on the treadmill or getting on the elliptical and you know going for 30 minutes or whatever amount of time like to me the most fun part of it was I would take my iPad and put cartoons on Netflix or something like that but I was always happy when it’s over and never once did I drive around town and say my gosh that would be such a cool place to do elliptical in but I do it all the time with jump rope right

Anna (42:20)
Yeah.

That is That is 100 % relatable.

And it’s not that many days ago since someone asked me, like when you tell people that you jump rope, I’m sure you’ve been in this conversation a hundred times because you know the second you say it that what they’re picturing is not what you’re doing.

Dizzy Skips (42:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, right. You’re doing Double Dutch

on the playground or something.

Anna (42:53)
Yeah, well, actually Double Dutch is really, really fun. We can get into that later, but ⁓ yeah, it is fun.

Dizzy Skips (42:56)
I’m sure. Yeah, no, I would love to do it. But I’m just thinking the mental

picture that most people have is not an adult out there rocking and rolling.

Anna (43:06)
They picture what they’ve seen in playgrounds. And it’s not that many days ago since someone asked me, so when you jump, do you watch something on TV while you jump? And I’m like, no, no, no. That’s not what I’m doing. It’s like when I jump, I’m gonna, when trying to coordinate two arms, two feet, a rope and some music, there’s no room for anything else.

Dizzy Skips (43:09)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Yeah, yeah, it’s an in motion crossword puzzle that just never stops, right?

Anna (43:31)
And that’s part of what I did.

Exactly.

And that’s part of what I love about it because when you have, when you’re combining all those things at the same time, there’s just no room for thinking about what should I make for dinner tomorrow or overanalyzing or worrying about what someone might’ve meant when they said this or that. There’s no room for that while you’re jumping rope because it takes, it takes all you’ve got.

Dizzy Skips (43:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, you know, Sarah Marshall also in Jump for Joy 100, @strongerwithsare, she said it so well on an episode where like, once I get my rope spinning, I’m inside my force field and nothing can touch me. And it’s the same thing for me. And it’s the focus that I. ⁓ yeah, I consider that more like a slap or a backhand. yeah, touching is a little bit mild for what my rope does to me. But but the focus that comes with just.

Anna (44:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

except the rope that touches you really hard sometimes.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree.

Dizzy Skips (44:30)
having the music on and working the hands and the feet and stuff is second to none for me. Like I can’t think of anything else that has given me that kind of joy.

Anna (44:35)
Yeah.

It’s the same for me and for me it’s like I was… wait… I was 38 when I discovered jump rope and I don’t see myself ever stopping unless I have to. I mean of course I don’t know how long my feet will allow me to jump but I’ll jump for as long as I can.

Dizzy Skips (44:48)
Okay.

Right.

Sure.

Yeah, and if you ever

get a day where you can’t jump, you’ll flow.

Anna (45:07)
Yeah, that’s right. I don’t see myself giving up jump rope anytime soon.

Dizzy Skips (45:09)
Yeah.

Yeah. Do you have, like, do you feel like you’re more spontaneous with the stuff that you’re learning or do you kind of have a plan? Do you plan out like, Hey, the next thing I’m going to learn is the triple back flip double under toed? Yeah, me too.

Anna (45:25)
I’m more on the spontaneous side.

And I spend probably a little more time than I should on social media. And that’s also where I, a lot of times I see someone doing something that looks cool. And if I’m able to, I’ll pull up a rope as soon as I can and then try to figure out how to do it. Yeah, so I’m…

Dizzy Skips (45:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So.

Anna (45:49)
Usually it’s what happens in the store of the moment with jump rope for me. I rarely have planned sessions. I have had a few of those like at jump versaries, you want to do a cool combo and share. And I’ve done that a few times, but most of the time it’s just going out and it’s usually I start freestyling and then there’s I trip up on something and maybe I’ll drill that.

Dizzy Skips (45:54)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anna (46:16)
for a little while or I see some story on Instagram and want to try whatever they’re trying. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (46:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You mentioned community and how much that’s meant to you. You just recently went to a meetup, right? Can you talk about that a little bit?

Anna (46:33)
Yes, I did.

absolutely. In April, we had a meetup in Bergen, Norway, which was our second international meetup. The first one was in September last year in Stavanger, which is close to where I live. So I was pulling some strings then to find a venue and things like that. And also got to show

Dizzy Skips (46:47)
Okay.

Anna (46:57)
the international guests around in my town in this area. So that was a lot of fun. And then now in April, there was the meetup in Bergen, which is actually close to where I grew up. Yeah, so we were…

Dizzy Skips (47:01)
That’s so cool.

cool. How many

people go to the meetup?

Anna (47:14)
That varies a lot. mean, the meetup we had in Stavanger in September was the first international meetup in Norway. the community in Norway is fairly small. It seems like more people are discovering jump rope. But I guess there’s going to be more people jumping than the ones that you see on Instagram. And then there’s…

Dizzy Skips (47:26)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Anna (47:37)
a group of people who like jump for exercise, which is awesome, but who aren’t as nerdy into it as some of us are. So the meetup half a year ago was like a couple of handfuls of people, like eight or nine people or something. But Coach Chris came over from the UK and Lisette came from UK and

Dizzy Skips (47:41)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

That’s so cool. Nice.

Anna (48:03)
There was some Norwegian jumpers, both living locally here and also flying in from other parts of the country. And we had a Danish jumper there, my friend Lulu. Yeah, so that was really, really nice. And there’s a group of us, a couple of other Norwegian jumpers and myself and…

Dizzy Skips (48:12)
Nice. Nice.

Anna (48:23)
Lule from Denmark who have traveled together since our first meetup in Copenhagen in 2022. Yeah. Oh, it’s a lot of fun. for, oh, you should. You have to. It’s something completely different. I mean, that first meetup in Copenhagen back in the summer of 2022, I’d been jumping for a year.

Dizzy Skips (48:31)
Wow, that’s gonna be fun. I still haven’t been to a meetup yet and I’m just dying to go, I can’t wait. Yeah, yeah.

Anna (48:52)
And I have gotten in contact with quite a lot of people on Instagram, some Norwegian jumpers who I’d never met because as I mentioned, the community in Norway is small and we live very far apart from each other. Norway is a geographically big country with a small population. So when we traveled to Copenhagen to meet there, it was like when we met,

Dizzy Skips (49:03)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Big gap.

Anna (49:15)
It was, we felt like we knew each other. was like when we met each other, it was, of course we’re going to give each other a hug because we were friends. We know each other, although we hadn’t met in person before, but you get that connection over a shared interests that no one else really knows about or cares about. And that it’s, it’s special.

Dizzy Skips (49:17)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s a deep connection. mean, like, yeah.

Anna (49:38)
It is.

And then I remember going to Copenhagen and meeting all those people. Actually, a very fun part of that experience also for me was I shared an Airbnb with three other jumpers. One from, yeah, that I hadn’t met before and they hadn’t, I don’t think they’d met before either, but the three of them were all based in Germany.

Dizzy Skips (49:53)
yeah?

Okay.

Anna (50:02)
but they were from the US, Ireland and India, but based in Germany. And I met them at this apartment in Copenhagen for a jump rope weekend. So the ropes came out the first night we were there, like the night before the meetup. All ropes were out and we were like doing, I remember, you know Owen on, you should check out his account on Instagram.

Dizzy Skips (50:06)
Wow.

Nice.

You

I don’t know if I do. Okay.

Anna (50:28)
Amazing

with wraps and also all kinds of crazy releases and I remember him trying to teach me a wrap and there was a group combo with some wraps in it and and it was all Greek to me So we were there in the kitchen at the apartment trying to well I got tangled up and tangled out again and didn’t quite figure it out, but it was like that whole atmosphere of

Dizzy Skips (50:34)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Anna (50:56)
people meeting from different countries with our first common language being jump rope. We all spoke English, but we had the jump rope interests in common and that was just a great start to a jump rope weekend that is, it’s almost difficult to explain.

Dizzy Skips (50:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s such a cool language. Yeah.

Yeah, it sounds amazing. When Em Foley was on, she mentioned, or Doc Jumps, she mentioned that one of the great things about the meetup is that we have that common language. Like you don’t have to explain to somebody why Jump Rope is special. Like we all know that. Yeah, we all bounce for happiness and for mental health and for fun and…

Anna (51:30)
They know. Yeah.

Yeah, and it’s so cool because, you know, as you mentioned, everyone has their different style. So when you go to a meetup, if you’re curious about wraps, you ask the person who’s into that, or if you want to try rope flow, someone’s bound to have a flow rope with them and show you some moves. So it’s all inspire and be inspired.

Dizzy Skips (51:50)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

At these two meetups that you did in Norway. Was there structure at all to the meetup or was it just okay? How was it structured?

Anna (52:07)
Yeah, that’s

when both these meetups were hosted by The Jump Rope Coach Chris. And at those meetups, there’s usually a few competitions, like usually one of those last jumper jumping kind of things.

Dizzy Skips (52:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anna (52:25)
So

for instance, it might be jump backwards. Whoever jumps for the longest period of time wins. Or double unders or mic releases or consecutive crosses or whatever. at least my impression is that if he knows the crowd that’s there, he’ll choose a competition that most people can join in on.

Dizzy Skips (52:30)
The longest, Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah. He’s not going to make all the newbies do back flip releases or things like that. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Anna (52:55)
No, no backflips in those competitions.

But they’re fun. And then we usually do a group combo that’s been posted a little in advance of the meetup. So people have the chance to practice it. And that’s always fun to do a group combo and to be able to share it after.

Dizzy Skips (53:02)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

I always

love seeing the videos of those. Just a group of people all smiling and jumping. It just looks like, yeah.

Anna (53:18)
Yeah.

They’re super fun.

obviously those always take a while to film because someone always messes up. Once or twice or yeah, that’s part of the game. Put a mic release in there and you’ll be sure that someone drops it. Or we simultaneously drop it. That’s another option. But it’s fun to do those things together as well.

Dizzy Skips (53:31)
Yeah, that’s part of the game.

Right.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, absolutely.

Anna (53:51)
And also at meetups, I love being able to do partner skills like two in one rope or Double Dutch or Chinese Wheel. Because since I don’t have anyone to jump with on a regular basis where I live, I don’t get to practice those things. But at meetups, there’s always someone who wants to practice that. And that’s actually one of those things that was a highlight of the Bergen meetup for me.

Dizzy Skips (53:55)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anna (54:19)
that I got to practice Chinese Wheel and even learned some tricks in wheel because I’ve only done that a couple of times before and I’ve barely been able to get the rhythm of turning the hands, one hand up and one hand down simultaneously. And then being able to actually do a turn and a cross in Chinese Wheel was super cool. But I had the best coach.

Dizzy Skips (54:23)
Nice.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

Neat.

Anna (54:44)
doing that.

Dizzy Skips (54:44)
Yeah.

Anna (54:44)
Lisette Skipping taught me some Chinese Wheel moves and we had a lot of fun with that. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (54:46)
Mm-hmm.

That’s awesome. That’s terrific.

That’s so cool. I think it’s so cool that jump rope coach Chris organizes so many meetups. I know he’s even done some here in the US as well.

Anna (54:59)
Yeah, it is.

went to his meetup in New York two years ago. That was really an adventure.

Dizzy Skips (55:05)
Yeah? Yeah? Wow.

Yeah, I bet. Well.

Anna (55:10)
Yeah. But imagine

the look on people’s faces when I said I was going to New York and they asked me, what will you do there? I was like, I’m going there to jump rope. Well, we did that too. We did that too. So note to self the next time, don’t go to a Broadway show the day after you land because the jet lag will have you sleeping.

Dizzy Skips (55:18)
Right, yeah. Like, people go there for Broadway or Wall Street or, yeah. That’s cool.

through the show.

Anna (55:37)
Not entirely, but there was, I fell asleep more than once and I was not alone. But there’s a pretty big time difference. And when you try to go to a show at night, the day after you land, I should have anticipated that, but I didn’t. So if there’ll be a next time, I’ll put the Broadway show a few days into the visit. But it was awesome though. mean,

Dizzy Skips (55:39)
Ha!

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I could imagine.

Yeah, I can imagine.

Yeah.

Anna (56:05)
Getting to see New York, getting to meet Kathy, who I’d connected with on Instagram right from the beginning when I started in 2021. And also meeting Kathy, getting to know her. And yeah, she is. She really is. And also getting to travel there and experience all of that together with my Scandinavian jump rope friends was, it was an adventure of a life.

Dizzy Skips (56:14)
Yeah.

She’s amazing.

Yeah.

Anna (56:35)
lifetime really.

Dizzy Skips (56:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, I just keep thinking about like, what would it be like to see these people that live in my phone and who I think of as my best friends, basically, like to see them in person. There’s no reason I wouldn’t hug them like that. I am closer to so many of these people than some of my own family, right?

Anna (56:45)
Yeah

Yeah.

No, but I’m straight.

Yeah, I mean, I’m sure that when you meet them, it’ll feel like you know them because you do.

Dizzy Skips (56:59)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Anna, this has been so lovely. I really appreciate you coming on to talk to me. This has been so fun and it’s so fun to watch you skip. I want to thank you for your support and being such an inspiring member of the community.

Anna (57:03)
In many ways you do.

Thank you. That’s nice to hear. I had a really good time talking to you.

Dizzy Skips (57:23)
Yeah. Likewise.