“Jump Rope Is My Sudoku” – Sarah Caldwell on Skipping & Staying Sharp

Dizzy Skips (00:00)
Sarah Caldwell, thank you so much for joining me on the Jump Rope Podcast. I’m so excited to have you here and see you again.

Sarah Caldwell (00:05)
Dizzy, it’s an honor. I, in my wildest dreams, would never have thought I’d be a guest on your podcast. I listen to them. I know you’ve done at least 40, and I’ve listened to a lot of them and I’ve had great takeaways. So I’m thrilled. Thank you.

Dizzy Skips (00:20)
Thank you so much. Yeah. This is podcast episode 41. And I was thinking about it earlier thinking, well, we’re 41 now. That means we’re going to have to wear bifocals and yeah, we’re in midlife. That’s okay. I think we’re maturing a little bit. Not me, not so much, but yeah. Yeah. Well, I tried to look back and I still have to nail down how to do this on Instagram to see when we first connected, but

Sarah Caldwell (00:29)
Yeah, the midlife podcast. That’s OK. It’s very good. ⁓

Dizzy Skips (00:45)
I did roll back and saw that the first messages that we traded, I think, were in November of last year. And I think it was after I had had @aaronjumps.365 on the podcast. yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (00:51)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, that’s great. Yes, I remember seeing you first getting out there and figuring out that we really weren’t that far away from each other. It dawned on me that you were in the Midwest and that you were in a colder climate than me. But being that I’m in Chicago and you’re in Minnesota, that’s pretty close because at the time, I really didn’t have a lot of localized jumpers here that I knew.

Dizzy Skips (01:07)
Right.

Yep.

Yeah.

Right.

Sarah Caldwell (01:24)
That was good to connect with you.

Dizzy Skips (01:26)
Yeah, likewise. You said Chicago, you’re kind of in a suburb of Chicago, right or a nearby town.

Sarah Caldwell (01:31)
Yes.

Yes, we are about equidistant between Milwaukee and Chicago. So it’s about an hour drive. During COVID, it was like 30 minute drive, but it’s about an hour drive to Chicago and about an hour to Milwaukee. So we’re in the northern suburbs. We’re not on the lake. We’re in an old village and we’ve lived here for 40 years. So.

Dizzy Skips (01:42)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (01:55)
Long time our kids are raised here. One, two of our grandchildren are being raised here, so it’s a village. We have a lot of friends and a lot of colleagues and yeah, it’s wonderful.

Dizzy Skips (01:57)
Wow.

Wow.

Nice. It’s

so beautiful. I love you’re reels – you have such great backdrops. I think you jump sometimes in front of your house and there’s like, I’m not sure what it is, a magnolia, but it’s not a magnolia. There’s some sort of bush behind you that’s got white flowers on it.

Sarah Caldwell (02:18)
Yes, that’s the hydrangeas on the side of our house are huge. Yes, ⁓ that’s sort of a nice place to jump in the afternoon because the sun is now in the west side of the house and I’m not being baked to death. And sometimes it cuts down on the wind. So I go there in the afternoons. Perfect. Thank you for noticing that.

Dizzy Skips (02:21)
Hydrangea. my gosh, beautiful. Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (02:39)
Sometimes when I jump by the swimming pool, it’s always a little tricky because you’re so close to the water and sometimes the ropes get wet, sometimes I get wet. But it’s fun. Thank you for noticing.

Dizzy Skips (02:49)
Yeah.

Yeah. I skip on a lot of limestone benches, right? And, I was watching you jumping on the diving board on several reels thinking, we’ve got that in common. We like jumping on these little spaces. And it’s kind of a challenge.

Sarah Caldwell (03:03)
It is, it’s really about having a great body awareness, I think, where you are. I know it makes people nervous that you’re gonna probably fall off or twist an ankle, I think would probably be pretty likely, but the diving board where I jump on it toward the very back, it’s not that bouncy. So it looks a little more precarious than it feels.

Dizzy Skips (03:09)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Right.

Yeah, it is. It’s interesting to me how the process of learning jump rope has increased my proprioception or my, you know, my awareness of where my body is at. And so I’ve had people comment sometimes when I’m jumping on those limestone benches, like you don’t even look down and I don’t anymore. I mean, when I started, I was like, I’m going to fall off, but now, now I just feel it. You know, I know where it’s at. I’ve done it so much.

Sarah Caldwell (03:35)
Yes.

Dizzy Skips (03:51)
There’s one of your swimming pool videos that just tickled me, which is you on the diving board skipping. And I think the caption is see who gets wet first. And your dog, who I think is a pit bull mix or a pit bull is, she’s sitting by the pool and she’s just kind of basking in the sun. And then you’re jumping and then you throw a ball or something into the pool and you dive in first. And she kind of casually gets up and kind of swims down in the water.

Sarah Caldwell (04:04)
Yes.

She used to be a little speedier at her water entrance. And I have to admit that most of the time it’s my husband who’s throwing the ball and diving in and she goes in after him or the grandkids. But if you put the ball in the water, she will go after it because she’s a little bit ball obsessed and she’s older, she’s 11. And she came to us as a rescue.

Dizzy Skips (04:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (04:43)
ball obsessed, meaning you could pretty much get her to do anything as long as you had a ball. So we can get her to jump in the water. We can get her to navigate the entire pool if we have the ball. If I didn’t have the ball, she would not jump in. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (04:54)
If you have the ball. That’s hilarious. That’s so

funny. She’s so adorable. I love dogs and I love pit bulls. They’re just amazing animals. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (05:06)
She is, ⁓ she

thinks anyone and everyone that comes to visit and rings the doorbell is here to see her. So she has to put on, yes, I mean, she is the cutest thing ever. And she has abnormally soft fur. So most people, when they say, we pet her, they’re amazed by how soft she is. So she’s always been just this really adorable little smiley face dog to give your

Dizzy Skips (05:12)
Of course. Why wouldn’t they be?

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (05:31)
love to but people are a little nervous around pitbulls as you probably know.

Dizzy Skips (05:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, my stepmom and dad had a pit bull that just passed a few months ago and they’re just amazing dogs. They get such a bad rap. And when I have a dog that is a Cairn terrier, she’s about 13 pounds. I adopted her in Tacoma at the Humane Society and when I went in there, I would say 60 % of the dogs in the Humane Society were pit bulls.

Sarah Caldwell (05:44)
Mm-hmm.

Dizzy Skips (05:58)
Like there’s so many people that get pit bulls and then give them up or that are just afraid of them as a breed. And if I ever get another dog, it will be a pit bull. Like I just love them to pieces.

Sarah Caldwell (05:58)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Honey is our second rescue. Our first rescue was Flora, and she lived for 13 years. She was an outstanding companion. And Honey is 11. So I say it, know, in dog years, she’s 11, but in dog years, I’m 11 too. So we joke around a lot about that. But she came, was rescued on the streets of Chicago.

Dizzy Skips (06:28)
Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (06:32)
But she came with all of her manners. She was potty trained and she knew all of her commands to stay, sit. I mean, that’s dependent on what she feels like doing, of course, because now she’s got her ageing girl mind and she does whatever she wants. for the most part, she was just like the perfect dog. We were just so grateful and truly blessed. Our family is so blessed to have her. She’s made the biggest difference.

Dizzy Skips (06:32)
Wow.

Wow.

Hahaha! ⁓

Right.

Sarah Caldwell (06:58)
in our lives and in the lives of many people that also love her. So she’s a nanny dog to our grandchildren. She’s so precious and sweet. you you think, my goodness, are you comfortable having a pit bull with them? And we are very, she’s, she just would do anything to make sure they’re safe and keeps them away from the pool to a certain extent. So anyway, she’s a doll.

Dizzy Skips (07:09)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They are so

attentive, aren’t they? I mean, like deceptively attentive. They know what’s going on around them and yeah, I have, is she, yeah. Making sure that you don’t say anything incorrect. Yeah. So, you don’t work now or you’re retired. Is that correct?

Sarah Caldwell (07:20)
Yes.

Yes, she’s right at my feet here. She’s listening to you.

Right.

I am retired. I retired in the summer of 2020. So COVID hit us in March. Yeah, lovely. And my kids moved home. My youngest son and his wife moved home. They had just been married six months before and moved home because Chicago sort of closed down completely. Their jobs were remote. So they moved in the house and there was a lot going on.

Dizzy Skips (07:41)
COVID.

Sarah Caldwell (07:59)
I volunteered with three other ladies to sew masks for daycare workers in the city of Chicago that were taking care of health care workers’ children, as well as for assisted living workers. And they couldn’t get masks. Yeah, it was such a.

Dizzy Skips (08:13)
Right.

Sarah Caldwell (08:18)
interesting time I actually came across one of my pictures in my memory came up about with me sewing masks and ⁓ we got very disciplined about it we had tons of fabric donations of all different NFL teams, baseball teams for the guys we had different floral patterns or stripe patterns or what whatever you have for the women and then we had all kinds of superhero

Dizzy Skips (08:25)
Yeah.

Cool.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (08:42)
fabrics for the kids and we sewed masks like it was our full-time job. So I made, I think, over 2,000 masks in a period of like six weeks, seven weeks. It was crazy because I had a Singer sewing machine that my mom had given me probably, you know, 20, 25 years ago. Never really used it, but got so comfortable with it that, and I mean, granted, I’m doing, it’s mass mask.

Dizzy Skips (08:52)
Wow. Wow.

Hahaha

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (09:09)
production, you haha, it’s funny, but we’re mass producing them on our own. And so you could kind of do it in your sleep, you know, you got so good at it. But I’m not a sewer. I’ve never been someone that has wanted to like pattern a dress or what anything but if I was good at it and we just turned them out like crazy and then neighbors wanted them and they were quite stylish. Now they’re in my car. They’re all over our house. You’re not

Dizzy Skips (09:11)
Right.

Yeah.

Right.

great.

Sarah Caldwell (09:35)
really comfortable getting rid of them, but I probably should. So it was a fun part-time activity. And then what did I do? We did our first trip to Vermont to see our oldest son. We were so nervous about travel. And that’s where he brought out a jump rope because all the gyms were closed. My gym was closed, his gym was closed. And he said, let’s jump rope. And I was like, let’s, I haven’t jumped in 50 years.

Dizzy Skips (09:38)
Yeah.

Okay.

Sarah Caldwell (10:04)
happy to try it. I don’t know if anybody follows @jimmysaysrelax He’s ⁓ been jumping for a long time. Jimmy Reynolds, though George, Jimmy Reynolds produced these stay gold. That was his company and he made beaded ropes. And during COVID he would constantly sell out and we’d have to wait for the next release or whatever. And it wasn’t like it was a stylish release or anything. They were, they were

Dizzy Skips (10:05)
Wow.

Yeah.

Yep.

Okay.

Sarah Caldwell (10:30)
great ropes, but it was that people were buying them because of COVID. So those were my first ropes. It was all white. I loved it. And that’s what I learned to jump with was a Jimmy Says Relax or Stay Gold white beaded rope. I still have it.

Dizzy Skips (10:33)
Right.

That’s amazing. So your son got you into it.

Sarah Caldwell (10:47)
Yeah,

yeah, George, my son George, my first video of jumping rope with him is we’re jumping together. It’s like in one of my highlights. ⁓ So yeah, I know it was really fun.

Dizzy Skips (10:57)
That’s great. Does he, does he

jump regularly?

Sarah Caldwell (11:01)
He doesn’t jump regularly anymore because he has had a kind of a foot issue. And if I guess if you have a foot issue, it’s like not recommended, but he jumped for years and was on Instagram. He’s done a couple of my Christmas jump rope videos. So I’m grateful for that. But he does, he has other things he does now to stay in shape, but we still have our Stay Gold ropes, which you can’t buy anymore. So I feel like it’s pretty special.

Dizzy Skips (11:08)
Okay.

fun.

Sure.

Yeah, that is pretty special. You should like frame that or mount it in some way. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (11:34)
I know, I know. I’m gonna think

about like a shadow box or something.

Dizzy Skips (11:38)
Yeah, totally. That

would be a nice little piece of art and memory. I mentioned your beautiful hydrangea. I don’t know if you do the landscaping. Do you have other hobbies or do other fun things outside of jump rope?

Sarah Caldwell (11:50)
Honestly, jump rope is my biggest and most fun hobby. I’ve always been a gym rat. So I was the girl that was in all the group classes, whether it be Zumba or weightlifting or fight. I love fight classes. But when the gym closed, I was sort of displaced. And that’s when I picked up jump rope.

Dizzy Skips (12:02)
Yeah?

Sarah Caldwell (12:13)
I still continued when they opened the gyms, I brought jump rope to the gym. everybody loved that. Not everybody, some of the members were kind of like scared because as soon as you start releasing a piece of hard plastic, people kind of keep their distance. Right. But they were very entertained by that. And I continued to take classes. And then when I turned 65 and was able to get onto Medicare, they offer

Dizzy Skips (12:13)
Mm-hmm.

Nice.

Right, at 100 miles an hour. Right.

Sarah Caldwell (12:40)
the supplemental, and most of the people outside of the US may not understand it, but they, get a supplemental insurance. And part of my supplemental insurance is a free membership to Lifetime Fitness, which is about seven or eight miles from here. So I resigned from the gym that I’d been a member at for almost 30 years, so sad, and joined there just because it was free, you know? And so that’s where I’ve been jumping since last September.

Dizzy Skips (12:55)
wow.

Yeah, right.

Sarah Caldwell (13:04)
And it’s nice, people there are very young for the most part, although there’s the group of seniors that are only there from, you know, certain hours of the day, which is like 9.30 to 5.30. That’s when the senior group can go. And it’s pretty quiet. you know, everybody comes up and they want to know where I learned how to jump rope and how long I’d been jumping and do my knees hurt. How about my neck? How about my hips? It’s hysterical.

Dizzy Skips (13:05)
Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Hahaha

Sarah Caldwell (13:29)
But for the most part, I’m now a fixture there, so nobody really, you know, they wave at me and go like this.

Dizzy Skips (13:35)
All right.

That’s great. Are you

the only jumper at the gym?

Sarah Caldwell (13:41)
For most part, yes. There’s one other gentleman there that does Crossrope and he does some of the speed ropes, but nobody else is spinning the rope. Nobody’s bending it. Nobody’s, so it’s no. So they’re fascinated by, most of the time they’ll come up to me and talk about their children who are starting to jump rope. So all of my jump ropes that are like,

Dizzy Skips (13:43)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yep.

Right, right. Nobody’s dancing with it like you.

Sarah Caldwell (14:04)
have seen better days. I give to them to take home to their kids and resize it for them because yeah, it’s, you know, sometimes they’re worn out. Now I know you’re a recycler. So you are, and you buy two ropes at a time that you love, which I’m going to do from now on. That is brilliant. ⁓ But somebody, I don’t know who it was recently, like two podcasts ago, they replaced the beads that get worn out at the bottom.

Dizzy Skips (14:05)
Yeah.

That’s nice.

That’s it.

Right, it was Sarah.

Sarah Caldwell (14:29)
And you said Sarah,

OK, loved it. Jumping. Is it skipping with Sarah? Is that the right? Stronger with Sare. OK, so I thought that’s brilliant. I’m going to do that, except I don’t have the patience. ⁓ I think you said I don’t think I could sit there and reweave it all. I don’t think I could do that either, but I save every bead I remove. So in.

Dizzy Skips (14:37)
Yes, @strongerwithsare

Hahaha

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (14:58)
In theory, I think that’s a possibility to be more conscious of recycling some of my older ropes. I don’t know.

Dizzy Skips (15:04)
Yeah, yeah, I got, I mean, honestly, I find it fun to do rope surgery. And it’s, to me, it’s not so much like the taking the beads off the rope and putting them back on. There’s like two things. One is when you add or remove beads from the rope, you you’re adding or removing length. So you have to be careful not to add too many beads back and stuff like that. So I know how many beads that I need, but the…

Sarah Caldwell (15:05)
Seems labor intensive.

Dizzy Skips (15:28)
The issue that I have is that because I’m jumping on concrete or limestone or stuff so much, I don’t jump on a jump rope mat. The beads at the bottom just get worn away to almost nothing. And I took some pictures and actually sent them to Sarah because I had the ropes I’ve been jumping with most, have one inch beads. And by the time I actually replace beads down at the bottom,

Sarah Caldwell (15:32)
Yep. Yes.

Dizzy Skips (15:50)
they’re super thin and sometimes they like fuse together because the edges are no longer round. they, so yeah. So I take out, I think I took out 16 or 20 beads on one of the ropes last week and, and replaced it. And, the rope was a couple inches longer or I had a couple more inches of bead on there because the rope wasn’t any longer, but the beads made it a little bit longer. But yeah, it’s, it’s amazing.

Sarah Caldwell (15:57)
Wow.

Really?

Doesn’t it?

It gives me an appreciation for like the jump rope Chris and anybody, Dope Ropes, anybody that’s making these beaded ropes because like their color ways are so cool. And I, to replicate that, like I think I have the extra beads to be able to do that. But by the time I get all of them off and I go to put on the few that I have to replace, which is how many do you replace? Like 16?

Dizzy Skips (16:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (16:42)
At the bottom? Okay.

Dizzy Skips (16:42)
Yeah, 16, 20, something like that, depending upon

how the rope hits or how long the rope is and how much of it actually comes in contact with the ground.

Sarah Caldwell (16:49)
Okay, yeah, so then it looks different. The colorway is a little different. I don’t know. So I try not to mess with other people’s wonderful art, which becomes my rope.

Dizzy Skips (16:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, what I ended up doing on that rope was taking off one of the handles, pulling out, I think I had like, you know, 30 beads or something on the end that were just fine, took those off and then just emptied all of the deteriorated beads and then put the original beads back on and then added like 10 fresh beads to the, at the top and then did it on the other side as well. And that way,

Sarah Caldwell (17:06)
⁓

Okay.

The top, okay. Okay.

Dizzy Skips (17:24)
they stay a little whiter and the ones down at the bottom were already discolored from jumping on concrete and stuff. So it worked out pretty well and I got my baby back and I’m sure I’ll be doing rope surgery on her again in a couple months.

Sarah Caldwell (17:38)
I like that idea though. That’s how you are getting, that’s much more efficient than I would have been. would have, but I’m curious how many beads are on your rope?

Dizzy Skips (17:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

on a, with one inch beads, there are 84.

Sarah Caldwell (17:49)
Okay, all right. I have 76. You’re taller than I am. Yeah. So it makes it easy. Like a lot of people say changing out their ropes takes them forever. It doesn’t take me very long because I just count out the number of beads I need.

Dizzy Skips (17:51)
Yeah, and

76.

Yeah, totally. Do you leave some gap between the handle and your beads? How much? How much gap?

Sarah Caldwell (18:05)
pretty quick. Yes, yes.

I’m gonna say a fist for like a fist on each side or, or, you know, maybe three. Well, yeah, at least three, there’s got to be, I think there’s about a six inch, like if you were to take it all down and see what rope remained, it’d be about five to six inches.

Dizzy Skips (18:14)
Hmm. Okay. Like at least a couple beads.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, wow. I usually have a little less of a gap than that.

Sarah Caldwell (18:29)
But I saw it,

yes, and I saw that at the Jump Rope Meetup, that Tracy, a lot of people have very little space. Nikki, Nikki has no space.

Dizzy Skips (18:39)
Yeah.

Yeah. The funny thing about Nikki is I’ve watched her online for so long and I think of her as just a jump rope monster. Like she can get these releases done and stuff and she’s just this little tiny thing and like in the morning she and Allison and Pam came and picked me up and I rode around in the car and she just got this little tiny voice and I think of her as a jump rope monster so I expect her to go,

Sarah Caldwell (18:43)
So I think that’s interesting.

And

she’s just teeny weeny.

Dizzy Skips (19:11)
I know, but she is a

jump rope monster. She is awesome.

Sarah Caldwell (19:15)
She is. And she moves so lightly. You know what I mean? She turns. She cracks me up. I’ve been following her for a long time. She used to do jokes. Do remember when she’d put silly jokes out there? That was pretty fun. Yeah. And I love when she does her countdown to vacation. I mean, I just, people crack me up online. I’m so entertained. So entertained.

Dizzy Skips (19:17)
Yeah.

I’ve seen a few, but no.

Yeah.

Yeah, Yeah.

One of things she did at the meetup that made me super happy was she’s like, hey, let’s all jump like somebody else. And she’s here, I’m going to do Dizzy. And she was she started jumping and trying to like mimic the way that I jump, which was hilarious to me.

Sarah Caldwell (19:50)
Where was I? That would have been so funny. That would have been so funny.

Dizzy Skips (19:53)
We were, it

was just on the beach there, but yeah, she’s like, we should all jump like somebody else. She was trying to flow like Dizzy. Yeah. Wasn’t it? How many meetups have you been to Sarah? That was really okay. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (19:58)
That was the most fun, most fun. Yes. That was it. That was my first one. Yeah. Yeah. I was a newbie like you. So I

was like, I didn’t know what to bring . And then when you posted your list, I was so grateful because I would never have thought about, like I’m a mom and a grandmom, so I should be thinking about all kinds of things. But I was just thinking about like, well, what do I want to wear? How do I want to do my hair?

Dizzy Skips (20:20)
You

Sarah Caldwell (20:25)
So I was glad you put the list up. Yeah, so no, that was my first. Now, if you consider going to a Get Roped class with Rachel Jablow, then I’ve been to, I think, five or six of her classes where there’s maybe three to five people. ⁓ So maybe that’s considered a meetup. If that’s a meetup, then this was not my first. But a meetup to me is when

Dizzy Skips (20:25)
Yeah, I thought of that stuff too. The hair not so much, but yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah,

that’s more of a workshop or a class, right?

Sarah Caldwell (20:53)
People kind of converge.

Yes, yeah. And they’re wonderful. Believe me, they’re so much fun to come to. And I did know a couple people at the meetup from her class. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (21:05)
Cool. Who

else did you know already?

Sarah Caldwell (21:07)
Steve, do you remember Steve sort of had that brand new camera? It was so cool, it did 360. So he’s adorable and he lives in a town not too far from me. So he and I met at her classes and because we’re in the same, roughly in the same generation, he’s younger than I am, but you know, he’s so much fun to talk to. And then I ran into him in the parking garage. He pulled in on his BMW motorcycle. I was like, who’s this?

Dizzy Skips (21:09)
Yep.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

nice.

Sarah Caldwell (21:35)
I looked at him like, who’s this guy? And then immediately knew who he was, but I thought it was so cool. And he started unloading and changing and whatever. It was so much fun. He’s a great guy. He hasn’t been jumping. I think he takes lesson from Rachel. I think that’s how they know each other. And then DJ, who’s hysterical, that’s Rachel’s best friend. She comes to the classes too. Hilarious, hilarious, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (21:40)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

She’s hilarious. Cool. Yeah,

she was a lot of fun.

Sarah Caldwell (22:02)
So

she’s a ball of energy. usually rolls in. And then the first time I ever met Janie in person was at a Get Roped class. And Janie wrote her, she got there on her roller blades and she was freaking adorable. So that was super fun. love, mean, so it’s for me, I’m like the old gal, but I love it. They’re so inclusive and I got to meet Rachel’s mom who’s

Dizzy Skips (22:09)
Mm-hmm.

cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (22:30)
She’s adorable as can be. She’s just very fit. She sort of came to our class and hung out and then we visited. So, you you meet so many wonderful people. Yeah, it was fun.

Dizzy Skips (22:37)
Nice.

Yeah. So speaking of the meetup, what did you learn at the meetup?

Sarah Caldwell (22:43)
Well, I got involved in a couple like group jumps, which one was Rachel’s, which I practiced before I got there. So I yeah, I felt pretty comfortable. I wasn’t fantastic at it, but it was, I was so distracted by everybody on the cement beach. ⁓ But then Davy started this really cool combo down by the water, which involved

Dizzy Skips (22:52)
The meetup combo. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (23:08)
switch crosses, and then he had this really neat athletic kickback. And I was like, I love that. Yeah, I don’t look as awesome doing it, but I’m going to continue to work on it because I think it’s something that we’re going to see a lot more of. think the direction change of the rope is a cool thing to add to any workout. Now, I wouldn’t recommend you doing that on your cement step there because

Dizzy Skips (23:13)
The kickback is so awesome, isn’t it?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

the limestone block.

Sarah Caldwell (23:34)
for the concrete, yeah,

I think that that would be, although maybe you have the balance to do it, but I think the kickback is a great skill to learn. And I hope other people will try it too. It’s better than just a regular stall for me. I like it.

Dizzy Skips (23:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, it looks so cool. And actually I’m talking to Davy a little bit later today for the next week’s podcast. Yeah. So I will dig into the kickback.

Sarah Caldwell (23:53)
Are you?

Okay, I…

Yeah, he’s a really interesting man. didn’t… I wanted to find out a little bit more about him because he doesn’t live that far from me. But I thought his sister, who Margarita came, and she hung out, do you remember, with like everybody. And she was like the epitome of the greatest sister to ever have because she could not stop talking about how much she loved her brother.

Dizzy Skips (24:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

That’s so awesome.

Sarah Caldwell (24:23)
I was like, this chick is so cool. To come and spend a hot afternoon watching everybody you don’t know jump rope. She did try it too, right? So you get a credit for that. I thought that was so, she is. She is. And I love the Double Dutch. That was super fun. Not good at it, but I think I can get better at it.

Dizzy Skips (24:27)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah, she was really cool.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (24:47)
And I think that’s things we did when we were young and I just haven’t done it forever. that Laura brought those cool long ropes. That was great. That was a highlight for me. And then spending time, you know, getting up.

Dizzy Skips (24:47)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, the Double Dutch was cool.

I wish I would have got more video of it. I like I got in and I jumped for a little bit. I have no video of me in the Double Dutch ropes. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (25:06)
Me neither. No, I don’t.

I don’t think I was highly successful at it. I remember getting in jumping maybe three times, four times and getting out without getting hit. And I thought that was game changer. But then I was I was really interested in doing more. But I thought that was a blast. I loved when people from, you know, just the side came in and just wanted to jump and they were so good. don’t know. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (25:13)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Did there was that couple that was like, I think they were wearing

brown or they were almost matching and they watched for a little bit and then just walked down and got right in the middle and didn’t, didn’t even like say anything. They just jumped in and I was like, this is awesome. Yeah, they were.

Sarah Caldwell (25:35)
Yes.

And they were so good. And here

we are struggling to get in. I think there needs, you know what’s really interesting about it is there is an association with Double Dutch that goes back maybe a couple centuries in Chicago, believe it or not. I don’t know, a couple centuries, but it’s a very old sport that I believe that was brought over from.

Dizzy Skips (25:48)
I know.

really?

Sarah Caldwell (26:08)
I have to look at it more, but I found it fascinating that there was this special club decades upon decades and decades ago in Chicago that did Double Dutch. I thought that would have been fun to know that ahead of time. So anyways, that was fascinating.

Dizzy Skips (26:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Tracy’s episode, she was talking about like when she was younger and part of a jump rope team, they would do the triangle, which was like Double Dutch with three people where they’d get three ropes going. I know. And then you could go from one rope to another rope, to another rope. That sounds like it would be super fun to try.

Sarah Caldwell (26:32)
I wanna know that. Yeah.

So do you have the, I sort of envisioned it in my mind and I didn’t research it, but it looked like it could be involve a lot more people. And then you take turns turning the rope, right?

Dizzy Skips (26:49)
Right.

Yeah, you have three turners each holding on to a handle of one rope turning. So like if I had someone over here, I’d be turning one rope here and you could jump into that rope, but then you could switch over to the rope, you know, that was another side of the triangle. Yeah, it sounds super fun.

Sarah Caldwell (26:53)
Okay.

Yep.

We should do that.

Yeah, and then there was one other that she talked about where they go through and I think I’ve seen that at other meetups where you stand in a line of people and everybody jumped. What’s that? I can’t remember what she said. That was.

Dizzy Skips (27:11)
Yes.

Yes.

what is that called? Yeah, so one person gets the rope going and then there’s a line of people and they move down the line of people and as the rope comes over that person jumps and then they move to the next person that person jumps. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (27:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, that would be fun.

I bet Jump Rope Coach Chris has done that at his meetups. I feel like that’s something he would do.

Dizzy Skips (27:33)
Yeah.

I think those games are super fun and it’s another way to jump together, you know, rather than just with your own rope, which is fun.

Sarah Caldwell (27:39)
Yes.

I think you told this story last week on the podcast with Tracy that you had brought a bunch of ropes and people actually borrowed them and tried to, you know, do their thing on the beach with you. And I think that’s so wonderful. I didn’t even think about that. I think I brought two ropes.

Dizzy Skips (27:57)
Yeah.

I, you know what, I had a bag of spares in the car that I never went and got, but I, I mean, in my own backpack, I think I had seven ropes, but I had a bag of another half dozen ropes in the car that I brought cause I planned to just give them away or trade them or something. like, once things got going, I was just so enthralled with the jumping and I was going from group to group and talking to different people. I got to the end of the day. was like, I left all the snacks in the car. left all the spare ropes in the car and whatever.

Sarah Caldwell (28:25)
you did?

Dizzy Skips (28:26)
Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (28:27)
And

I never met Nick before. So we walked down the beach. Steve, the gentleman I was telling you about that takes lessons from Rachel, we kept looking for you. We’re like, is that Dizzy? No, no, that’s not him. We’re looking all around. And Nick was sitting with like just out of view. And we, I didn’t know. I felt terrible when he finally figured out that we were part of the same community, then it was great.

Dizzy Skips (28:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (28:53)
But I felt terrible that here we are looking all around and not connecting with one of our own. But he was fascinating. I enjoyed that podcast. He gets up, I couldn’t do his hours. His hours are.

Dizzy Skips (28:54)
Yeah.

my gosh. Yeah. He’s such a cool guy. ⁓

my gosh. He gets up at like 12 45 in the morning and then is jumping by one 15 or one 30 and he’s like, yeah. And in, the news studio by what was it? Three 15 or three 30 like crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (29:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I couldn’t, I can’t imagine it, but

I have to, I haven’t watched his news show, so I have to make a point of doing that.

Dizzy Skips (29:25)
Yeah, I’ve seen a few clips and he’s quite the broadcaster. It’s amazing. So.

Sarah Caldwell (29:30)
Yep, I appreciated

everybody coming. That was so nice.

Dizzy Skips (29:33)
Yeah, yeah,

it was, it was so cool. there were a couple of ladies that came from Canada, like Nikki and Pam and yeah, yeah, it was great. I was telling Tracy, I don’t think I can wait a full year for another one of these Jump Rope meetups. Like that was just too special of a time. So we’re gonna have to get something together sooner. Yeah. So,

Sarah Caldwell (29:38)
Yeah. Yep.

I know.

Right, right, I agree with you.

And Jourdan came and…

Sorry.

Dizzy Skips (29:55)
my gosh,

she is amazing, yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (29:57)
And did you see her last? did a Lauren Jumps footwork. yesterday or the day before. And I mean, she’s she’s pretty pregnant right now and she had the speed down and yeah, I was so impressed. I was like you go girl. I love it.

Dizzy Skips (30:06)
Like, she’s like five months pregnant, isn’t she?

Me too. She’s hilarious. She talked about how many people comment like that they think she’s Lauren because, because of her skills and her hair and stuff. Like she gets mistaken for Lauren a lot, or they think she’s actually downloaded Lauren’s videos and then reposted them on her account. Like, no, like, no, she is a monster of jump rope. She is so good. And, and I’m so fascinated with …

Sarah Caldwell (30:22)
⁓ okay. Yeah.

Didn’t hear that.

Yes.

Dizzy Skips (30:38)
obviously I will never be in this situation where I’m five months pregnant and jump roping, but that’s gotta be a different feeling. I mean, right?

Sarah Caldwell (30:46)
Yeah. Right. Don’t

you think I do? And she’s so like her speed hasn’t changed at all. She has such a wonderful group of people that follow her. They’re very dedicated to her, her posts and she just looks fantastic from day one. I went back yesterday and went way back. You can’t tell she’s she’s still killing it.

Dizzy Skips (30:58)
Yeah.

No,

she’s super graceful. Yeah, she crushes it. So Sarah, how would you describe your jump rope happy place?

Sarah Caldwell (31:13)
Jump rope happy place. ⁓ I am, I love to learn anything that looks visually appealing to me. I’m spent probably my family would say, wow, you’ve spent a lot of time on Instagram, but I’ve always spent a lot of time on Instagram because I was so attracted to jumpers during COVID.

Dizzy Skips (31:15)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (31:37)
I never even opened up an Instagram account for myself until two years ago. So I jumped with a coach for well over a year until he was like, you need to do this for accountability sake. And I think you’ll be happy you do. But I spent a ton of time looking at like Rush Athletics and like I said, Jimmy Reynolds and Lauren Jumps and just Kathy Jumps and

Dizzy Skips (31:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (32:02)
so many wonderful inspirational jumpers out there that in my brain, I would think about them during the night, like how they did certain things during the night, and then I’d go try to figure it out during the day. So that’s what I think is a really great exercise for my 66 year old brain. I really do. having the, a visual learner, so it’s real easy for me to get on and see what everybody’s doing and then try to emulate it.

Dizzy Skips (32:05)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (32:30)
I seem to really focus on learning it on both sides. So my happy place is learning it and then learning it on my non-dominant side. And I really am a bit of a preacher about that with the jump rope groups that I’m with because I think being ambidextrous on your crosses or your toads or your mic releases or your EB go-gos, whatever it is, if you can do them on both sides,

Dizzy Skips (32:34)
Nice.

Wow.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (32:56)
that’s really good for both sides of your brain. And it’s really good for, if I needed to rely on a certain combo and I needed it to be left side driven, I can do that and have a, not the degree of confidence I do on my dominant side, but pretty high degree of confidence that I can make it happen on my left. And I’m trying to emulate that in more of my reels that it’s a…

Dizzy Skips (32:59)
Yeah, totally.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (33:20)
it’s worth the time to put in. So, you my happy place is knowing that I’m really giving my brain and body a great exercise when I’m out there. I do it a lot by myself with Honey. She’s generally my companion whenever I’m at home and she is, you know, quiet. My husband helps me with music because I feel like I’m not, like you pick the best music. I don’t.

Dizzy Skips (33:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (33:44)
No music, I would never had like a record player in college. I think I had a CD player in my Toyota Celica, my 81 Toyota Celica, but honestly, I need help with music. So I rely on my friends. I have a couple of really good friends that feed me music and say, hey, this would be great to have, to do a reel to, why don’t you give it a try? And, or they’ll say, hey, have you done anything to Stevie Ray Vaughn?

Dizzy Skips (34:00)
yeah

real with, yeah.

Nice! He’s my hero.

Sarah Caldwell (34:10)
like, yeah, I would, I, is he? Yeah. So I started

to listen because I’m pretty lame when it comes to really knowing what would be a good, you know, audio to pick for that. And I don’t like necessarily all the trending audio, although, you know, it’s fine and it gets probably more views. I don’t think I get a ton of views because I think I’m using some random music, but that’s okay. I, I’m not in it for the views. I’m in it more for like,

Dizzy Skips (34:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s not why you’re doing it, right?

Sarah Caldwell (34:38)
Am I satisfied with how I prepared for the for the day and how I you know if I’m not doing this, what am I doing? I have got grandkids that I love to spend time with, but besides that and enjoying my husband and my house, my dog, I don’t have a ton going on. I’m not a gardener. That’s not my responsibility to make sure those hydrangeas are blooming as beautifully as they are, but. I love to just.

Dizzy Skips (34:45)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Blooming. Yeah. And they are.

Sarah Caldwell (35:05)
go out and play with a rope. And I’m not jumping. I don’t jump every day anymore. I can’t do that. But I spin the rope. I’ll spin the rope every day and I’ll watch videos a lot to get a sense of what I’m gonna do. Go ahead.

Dizzy Skips (35:09)
Okay.

When you say you spin

the rope, are you doing rope flow stuff or just working on upper body stuff when you’re not jumping?

Sarah Caldwell (35:25)
Yes,

just releases that I don’t necessarily have to do anything else to. My Mamba, my mic releases, both sides, my EBs, anything that doesn’t necessarily involve me getting my heart rate up very high and certainly not a lot of jumping on hard surfaces. So ⁓ I probably do that three times a week now, maybe more, but three times a week.

Dizzy Skips (35:28)
RIP.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Right.

Sarah Caldwell (35:50)
hard cardio workout with jump rope two to three hours at the club or outside. And if I don’t like it, I’ll go back out again because I won’t be satisfied until I really feel like, I did that correctly. know, because especially if you’re remixing, I used to love to remix. I think that’s such a compliment to anybody you’re remixing.

Dizzy Skips (35:55)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (36:12)
Like I was blown away when Lise put that out that she had learned. You couldn’t have, it was like the best Christmas gift ever. Like that’s so flattering. But I love to remix.

Dizzy Skips (36:12)
I know.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (36:24)
with a jumper, it’s very hard to do. I was thinking about when you said you’re a happy place, several years ago, the Jump Rope Coach Chris started his Tricktionary Tuesdays. Do you remember those? They came, they’ve come back.

Dizzy Skips (36:37)
Mm-hmm. Yeah,

I mean, I wasn’t… Yeah, I’ve seen that.

Sarah Caldwell (36:42)
you were

you jumping then I don’t cause it when I don’t know when you first started.

Dizzy Skips (36:44)
No, I started

in March of last year where that’s when I created my Instagram account and started doing stuff. So that was a little before my time, but I’ve heard about Tricktionary Tuesday and I see some of the tricks come out of Tricktionary Tuesday and now I’m a member of Tricktionary as well. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (36:52)
Wow.

Oh, you are. I think

So he he has a very good friend called Lizette. She’s I think her moniker is @lizette.skipping And so she used to do a weekly challenge called Mic Mondays, and it always involved mic releases. And I was very much intimidated by both of those challenges. But I said to myself,

Dizzy Skips (37:06)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Sarah Caldwell (37:28)
If you don’t get yourself out there in the beginning of the week and start working on these, doesn’t mean you have to get it. Doesn’t mean you have to get it correct. Just means that you’re going to start thinking in a different perspective about how rope bending goes. Honestly, probably the best investment of time I’ve ever done. And I got plenty of them wrong. And I still…

Dizzy Skips (37:37)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (37:52)
will do one and I’ll get it wrong. But as I’m posting it, I’ll be thinking, okay, how does that work? And I’ll catch myself. So now I’ve moved on from being able to get most of them correct to recognizing when I’m not doing it correctly. And I think those are the best, like, for example, Jump for Joy, Peta started this group. I didn’t join it because I’m…

Dizzy Skips (37:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (38:15)
belonged to two other weekly commitments and now I’ve got my Tricktionary Tuesday. So I didn’t join it, but I loved watching them all. And I think what was great about it is that you knew that you needed to get out there and do it. And it really encouraged you because your friends were doing it. It was a peer pressure type of thing. And maybe there were plenty of times where you didn’t feel like doing it, but you did it. I sort of felt that way with

Dizzy Skips (38:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (38:43)
the Tricktionary Tuesday and the Mic Mondays. was kind of like, I don’t know, this is a big deal. This started my week. It’s going to take me hours. And it did. It took me hours. But the things you learn by doing what you don’t necessarily want to do.

Dizzy Skips (38:52)
Yeah.

Right.

Sarah Caldwell (38:58)
is remarkable for your building your skill set. And I love that about it. I love that about Coach Chris and Lizette for doing that. I really, if I were to look at my jump rope journey and be able to credit it to anybody in particular, I would certainly say them. Sue, @sixtyandme she was a huge influencer because

Dizzy Skips (39:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sarah Caldwell (39:22)
she prioritized those types of drills as well. she’s like goals for me. She does the craziest things. And for me as an aging adult, I think it’s important to really try to do things that make you as happy as you can be and keep you within the safe zone of not getting hurt. And I think I’m balancing that pretty well.

Dizzy Skips (39:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Right?

Sure.

Yeah, that’s

great. I really like your commitment to practicing things on both sides and also the the Tricktionary Tuesday or the Mic Monday challenges. I’ve got a an app on my phone that Seconds Pro app that I use as a timer and I set up some timers like I have one specific for

I call it rope wrangling. And so it’s basically a bunch of releases that I do. And I have a timer to do it on my dominant side, then my non-dominant side, and then do a backwards release dominant and non-dominant. And I’m doing that to make myself do it on my non-dominant side because it’s not necessarily as fun or graceful as it is on the dominant side. Not that I’m graceful at all, but you know, it doesn’t approach that. But what I’ve found is,

Sarah Caldwell (40:09)
Wow.

Dizzy Skips (40:26)
by doing it on the non-dominant side or by trying out a trick that I’ve never done before and having to slow it down and think through it.

my brain engages with the mechanics of what’s happening. And like you said, being able to self critique, like I was out on the dock the other night and I was trying to do releases and I had a few that just flew wild or smacked me upside the back of my head. And, and I just stop and think, okay, here’s what happened there. I was flailing the rope out here rather than a quick spin, you know, or, and, and just being able to have that self awareness after jumping a certain amount of time to say that’s, that’s what’s going on. And the way.

I can tell that’s what’s going on is when I try and do it on my non-dominant side, that’s when that motion gets exaggerated. That’s when I’m even goofier. And when I work it out on my non-dominant side to the point where I can pull it off, it’s not beautiful, but I can pull it off. Then when I go back to my dominant side, the mechanics are there and it’s so much easier.

Sarah Caldwell (41:20)
Yes, yes. It sort of feels like, and do you sit, do you watch your own videos? if, I don’t know how you record, I record just, typically I don’t record with the music playing unless I’m doing a remix, but so I’ll look at my videos, which will have no music or anything with them. And it’s just a great way to really analyze how your arm motion is working or if you’re doing the proper count or what have you.

Dizzy Skips (41:35)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Right.

Sarah Caldwell (41:46)
I love it. love it.

I’m sure my kids and everybody thinks my head is in my phone again. But it’s really me evaluating what I just worked on.

Dizzy Skips (41:53)
Right.

Weird. All right, let’s see here.

Sarah Caldwell (41:59)
think I can hear you.

Sarah Caldwell (41:59)
No, I’m not just trying to stroke you. It’s really as top-notch as… I had no idea. was like, my gosh, I’m getting a… It’s like how to prep, how to do this. It’s fantastic. For me, who’s, you know, I’m a boomer and we’re not like fantastically technology… Whoops, savvy. That was perfect. That was perfect. That was so perfect. That’s so Sarah.

Dizzy Skips (42:10)
That’s great. Yeah.

Right, ⁓ That’s funny as your phone falls over.

I’m gonna have to save that for the podcast.

Sarah Caldwell (42:27)
You should! That’s so funny. I just proved my point. See? That’s so funny.

Dizzy Skips (42:31)
That was hilarious.

Yeah. So we got disconnected for connectivity reasons and

Sarah Caldwell (42:38)
we’ve been talking about, just the discipline of learning to flow the rope on both sides. And I talked about how important the discipline of joining these weekly commitments to learn mic releases and to figure out where Coach Chris is getting all of his

Dizzy Skips (42:44)
Yeah.

Right.

Sarah Caldwell (42:58)
crazy moves there. mean, honestly, it’s so good for an aging brain for me. ⁓ It’s my Sudoku. It’s my crossword puzzle. It’s, you know, and now everybody knows on a Tuesday, they’re like, I know you’re going to be working on what Coach Chris just posted. And I’m like, yep, I got to do it. So it’s great.

Dizzy Skips (43:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s interesting.

Yeah, it’s interesting that you mentioned the aging brain because I think about this a lot. I think you and I are probably both older than, a good deal of the jumpers out there and.

And I was thinking about it earlier and years ago, I read this book by Stephen King called Duma Key. I don’t know if you’ve ever read it. It’s a great story, but the basis of the story is that there’s a guy who has a construction company in Minneapolis and he is in a terrible accident that gives him brain damage. And, and the whole book is about his recovery from this and he Duma Key is a place in Florida that he goes to spend some retreat time and learn to paint.

Sarah Caldwell (43:34)
Okay, I have it.

Dizzy Skips (43:52)
I recommended the book to my dad and he read it and we talked about it afterward. And one of the things that I found so horrifying in the book, you think of Stephen King as the master of horror, but the scariest thing to me were the scenes where this man who had undergone brain damage was trying to think of a word when talking to his wife. He was trying to say, you know, pull up a chair and sit down.

but he couldn’t think of the word chair and he would get so frustrated. He’s like, pull up the buddy, the pal, the, you know, and he just couldn’t think of the word. And I could feel that, you know, like I know what it feels like to walk into a room and go, wait, why did I walk in here? Or to try and find that word. And, and I would talk to my dad about that, who years later was diagnosed with dementia and was in that situation. And so when I talked to him about how he was feeling and stuff, I always had that in the back.

Sarah Caldwell (44:17)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (44:41)
like and so now part of my jump rope is I don’t ever want to be in that place. I want to keep that blood flowing through my head like like it’s a pipeline like I and so I think of jump rope and all of the things that I learn and all the little connections that are made trying to get my hands to grab that handle out of the air or to synchronize with my music while I’m skipping as things that are just

Sarah Caldwell (44:41)
Wow.

I agree.

Right.

Dizzy Skips (45:07)
my own Sudoku, my own crossword puzzle, you know. And I’m curious with you and aging how does jump rope help you with that?

Sarah Caldwell (45:09)
Right?

Well, I think I’m sorry to hear about your dad. It’s very ⁓ challenging. My father also passed away from dementia and Alzheimer’s, but word retrieval is very real to people and they’re sexagenarians. That’s when it starts where you’re trying to find the word. Like the chair is like, I don’t think I’m there yet, but I definitely walk into a room and try to think about

Dizzy Skips (45:17)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (45:41)
you know, what it is that I was in there looking for, or, you know, when I’m having a quick conversation and I want to deliver like either a request for somebody to help me or I’m, I’m find myself pointing to things. It’s really a weird feeling. So I recognize that I’m, you know, sort of on that, precipice of, you know, that’s going to become probably more prevalent. So what I think about and what I notice jump rope has had a positive

Dizzy Skips (45:55)
Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (46:08)
influence on me is terminology. I’m learning new terminology all the time with jump rope. It’s so cool, you know, and people rely on me a lot. I find in the community to say, tell me what this is called. I attribute that to again to coaching that I had because terminology is not something necessarily that the new jumpers are all learning where for me four years ago it was.

Dizzy Skips (46:13)
Right? Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Sarah Caldwell (46:36)
pretty part of my fundamental learning, you know what I mean? And it was really good. So I attribute that to helping me find the right words to describe what I’m doing if I’m sending a video to somebody to help teach them a certain skill that they wanna learn. It helps me a great deal. And to be more needed in that capacity is it’s so flattering to me. I was saying, when somebody remixes a reel,

Dizzy Skips (46:53)
Right.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (47:03)
That’s incredibly flattering. It’s flattering if somebody reaches out to you and says, hey, can you give me like some input on how to do this? And when you really have to like think it over in your brain and be able to demonstrate it or describe it to somebody, that’s using a part of my brain that I don’t know that I would necessarily be using right now. Right? The other aspect is, you know, like twitch muscles and what have you, you know, people talk about those a lot. I find myself being able to do things

Dizzy Skips (47:05)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (47:32)
that I’m pretty sure most 60, know, late 60s, not late 60s, but you know, my age can do. I can catch things on my left side as well as at my right side. If something’s falling, don’t sometimes don’t even have to look at it. I don’t have it in my line of vision. I somehow know where it is. I think it’s like, I feel like I shock myself sometimes when I’m like, isn’t that so?

Dizzy Skips (47:40)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you surprise yourself?

I do it too.

Sarah Caldwell (48:00)
It’s fascinating to me and I think I’m so cool. I’m like, I wish somebody had seen me do that. Like I caught a coffee cup the other day that would have smashed and I caught it by the handle. Like it was nothing, nothing. And so I do believe that, yeah, it was, yeah. And we do those things and I attribute that to being able to, ⁓ because I’ve released the rope so many times and it’s come back to me and I don’t look at it.

Dizzy Skips (48:02)
Yeah. Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, nothing, right. Yeah. You’re like, Sarah the superhero. ⁓

Sarah Caldwell (48:27)
There must be something going on in my brain that’s firing these muscles that I have. And I can’t, I have to believe that’s incredibly important right now. And so I want to keep doing this. And the only way to keep doing it is to stay injury free. And I’m sure you’ve talked to all your guests about what do you do to stay injury free? You know, do you stretch? you, what, know, like, what do you do before you start?

Dizzy Skips (48:41)
Totally.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (48:54)
getting up there on your little pedestal to dance. What do you do? Do you stretch your muscles? Do you take time?

Dizzy Skips (48:56)
Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, I mentioned I use that Seconds app on my phone as a timer. So I have the Fancy Feats app as well, Lauren’s app, and she’s got an intermediate warm up in there that I really like. And so and I did that for, you know, a year and a quarter or something without fail, like not without fail. Every once in a while I would go out and just freestyle, but.

Sarah Caldwell (49:06)
Just a look at that.

Okay.

Okay.

Dizzy Skips (49:24)
But at my age, I’ve got to warm up or I feel it. And it’s so important to me to be able to jump day after day that I don’t want to skip that because I know what it feels like to be injured. And on that point where it’s like, OK, I can tape up everything. I can take ibuprofen. I can use the Tiger Balm and I can get passable. But I want to go out and have fun and not hurt. I always have a stretch routine. And that Fancy Feats app sort of morphed into me creating my own timer for my

Sarah Caldwell (49:44)
Right. Right.

Dizzy Skips (49:54)
my warmup. And so I have, yeah, and I think there’s, I think there are 11 different things that I do from lunges and squats to ankle rotations, hip rotations, wrist rotations, arm circles, stuff like that. It’s basically all the stuff to get my joints moving and, and limber enough to get going. ⁓ what’s your, what’s your warmup look like Sarah?

Sarah Caldwell (49:54)
But you need, okay.

All right.

know what, I follow a warm up different at home than I do at the club because the club has quite an extensive area where you do stretching and they have machines that assist you in posterior stretching. Posterior stretching being really important because those are the big muscles. So. ⁓

Dizzy Skips (50:25)
Okay.

⁓ okay.

So when you say

posterior stretching, do you mean like glute kind of stuff or just stretching anything in your back?

Sarah Caldwell (50:38)
Yes, hamstrings.

Yes, anything, any of the posterior muscles in the back. And it’s a great elongation tool. And you can sort of see where you’re at in terms of the percentage of the stretch you’re getting. And I always want to be at a certain percentage. They also have these vibration machines that I’ve never seen before. And you can stand on them. And they create.

Dizzy Skips (50:48)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (51:03)
⁓ electrical vibrations through your body. so that’s the first thing I do is I get on that for three minutes on a very low range, maybe a three out of 10. And it just gets my metabolism going and it relaxes me. And it’s lovely.

Dizzy Skips (51:06)
⁓ Pulse? Yeah.

Okay.

Is it actually

pulsing your muscles kind of?

Sarah Caldwell (51:27)
Yes. Yes. Yes. ⁓ You can use it in any different yes.

Dizzy Skips (51:28)
It is so, so it tenses your muscles for you

Sarah Caldwell (51:33)
They also have a stretching chair it is fantastic because it also stretches out all of your upper body arms, your quads, your hamstrings. And you can do number fours, which are probably the best stretches you can do for your posterior muscles in your rear end that a lot of people get like a

Dizzy Skips (51:42)
Okay.

Sarah Caldwell (51:54)
an area where their nerves are being pinched back there. know a number of jumpers have experienced sciatica. Have you ever had sciatica? It’s very painful. doing a number four, yeah, you can help yourself by, it’s almost like you’re flossing your posterior muscles. It sounds funny, but you’re literally doing that. But this is taking your legs in a number four position and stretching your body forward and backwards. Fantastic. So I always do

Dizzy Skips (51:59)
Yep.

Yep. I’ve not, but I’ve heard of it.

Right.

Right.

So you cross one leg kind of over a knee, right, so that you you’re sitting kind of and then you stretch forward.

Sarah Caldwell (52:26)
Yes.

lowly back and forth and it’s called flossing. It’s as if the nerve endings, believe me, are like being in your lower back and through your glutes are being massaged. So that’s really important. So I do that. And then I do just a regular warm workout of high knees and different fundamental footwork.

Dizzy Skips (52:32)
Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (52:54)
you know, whether you’re doing skiers, which I, for whatever reason, I find extremely difficult for me to coordinate, you know, just double, double jumps, single jumps. And then I just warm my body up that way. But what I found, Dizzy, and I don’t know if you found this, I find that cooling down post-workout is probably the best thing that I’ve ever done. And one of the trainers at the club said, get back on the vibration machine, crank it up to a six.

Dizzy Skips (53:00)
Mm.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (53:20)
but only do it for short periods, like 30 seconds. He said, and start with your heel and vibrate it. And what it does is it takes the vibration all the way up through my lower body on one side and you do the same to the other side. It’s made the biggest difference. have no soreness in my hips where I used to feel like, gosh, that workout was pretty big time on my rear end and my hips. I don’t feel that at all anymore. So I think it’s been.

Dizzy Skips (53:33)
Okay.

Yeah, right.

Wow. That sounds cool.

Sarah Caldwell (53:47)
valuable. Yeah, it’s been good. And

I have to, yeah, I don’t really experience any soreness. And I don’t overdo my, I probably do overdo my workouts, but I try to minimize the times when I do that, because the healing process is the long process at my age. Your cells are not regenerating, you know, like they do in a young person’s body.

Dizzy Skips (54:06)
That’s fast,

So when you’re not in the gym,

how do you approximate that same kind of stretch or the, know, that same post workout kind

Sarah Caldwell (54:15)
I do floor.

I have a roller, I have a foam roller and I roll it out on the foam roller on my back and on my front

Dizzy Skips (54:20)
Yeah.

With the foam roller, like I’ve got one too that’s got these knobs on it and I put it on the floor and then I’ll put my legs on top of it and sort of roll myself back and forth. Do you do something like that or are you putting it on top and rolling?

Sarah Caldwell (54:31)
huh.

Yes.

No, just what you’re doing and do the number four. So you’re going to be bringing that up, your knees up. That is the best way to work out those muscles. We’re really using a lot of our lower back muscles and, and, know, our bottom, our glutes, you’re using it a lot. So anytime you can stretch that out and floss it is extremely good for you. There’s other ways to do it too, with heel taps and what have you, but, ⁓

Dizzy Skips (54:37)
Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (55:03)
I don’t spend hours stretching. I just make sure I always stretch. So, and right before bed too, I try to do a little bit of that just, you know, so you don’t get cramps during the night. Do you get cramps?

Dizzy Skips (55:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You know,

uh, every once in a while I do, uh, you know, I got the most insane cramps the day of the jump rope meetup as I was arriving there. Um, like I arrived, I parked and I walked out to the corner waiting for, um, Nikki and Allison and Pam to come pick me up. And I had a, I had a period where my hand spasmed and it was like a claw and I almost couldn’t undo it.

Sarah Caldwell (55:33)
Mm-hmm.

Dizzy Skips (55:39)
And it happened once more in the car. And I’ve had it happen a couple of times where I’ve been jumping and I’ve overdone it then I like do a stretch or like, or I’ll stand on my toes and then my, my calves will just sort of bind up.

but I think that’s more of like a nutrition thing and then kind of an overdoing it thing but The stretch that I do that sort of I think gets to similar muscles Or at least in the back is I’ll do a standing stretch with my feet together where I bend over and try and keep my back straight But bend over as far as I can

Sarah Caldwell (56:10)
Mm-hmm.

Dizzy Skips (56:13)
I’ll do that and then I’ll bend over about as far as I can and hold it for like 20 seconds and then come back up and then do it again. And then I’ll do some knee rotations where I bend my knees, put my hands on my knees and sort of rotate. And then I’ll straighten my legs again and do that, that bend over again. The other thing I’ll do when I do the knee rotations is I’ll press my hands into my knees as if I’m trying to force them straight. And then I’ll

use my legs to push out against my hands and that gives you a bigger stretch. So like if I try to touch the ground beforehand and I can you touch it but then I’ll do that knee rotations and then the resisted stretch with my knees then I can bend over and I can flatten my hands against the ground like so that one

Sarah Caldwell (56:59)
Okay, so you can.

Dizzy Skips (57:01)
So that one’s good.

Sarah Caldwell (57:01)
All right.

Dizzy Skips (57:02)
And then I’ll do the same thing, but in a standing split where I separate my legs. And then when I do that and I bend straight over, I will bend to one side, like say nine, ⁓ say 10 o’clock and two o’clock. So as I’m split, I’ll go over to about 10 o’clock and then hold it there for 20 seconds. And you can feel as you move your trunk from one side to the other, you can feel that stretch go from like up one leg and down the other.

So I found that before and after can be really helpful too. But I, you know, cool downs, I think are, I’ve talked to so many people who like, yeah, my warmup is like, just don’t, don’t jump rope as enthusiastically as I do when I’m going a hundred percent. Um, but they don’t necessarily do stretches. And I find cool downs are one of those things that it’s really easy to kind of overlook and say, Oh, I’m done for the day. I’m going to just walk off. But that extra.

Even two or three minutes of stretching can make a big difference for me.

Sarah Caldwell (57:59)
I think it keeps you healthy. I think it really does. I could 100 % say that the time that you take to get those muscles stabilized and stretched, sounds sort of funny, stabilizing and stretching, but you’re stretching and then you’re stabilizing. It’s such a great feeling. I think that these clubs really prioritize it for a reason. And I think it’s to…

Dizzy Skips (58:00)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (58:25)
mitigate injury. And that’s like, I want to mitigate injury. I don’t want to, you know, fall. I don’t want to have to have recovery time. And so many people online right now are having recovery time.

Dizzy Skips (58:26)
Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

I know. And it’s so miserable. Have you suffered any major injuries as a result of jumping rope or minor injuries that have taken you out for a while?

Sarah Caldwell (58:44)
No.

I had my biggest injury was on a motorcycle and I actually had an accident and it tore my rotator cuff 100%. So I had 100 % reconstructive surgery of my right shoulder in 2017. And my shoulder it’s so strong right now, it’s full recovery, but

Dizzy Skips (58:53)
⁓

⁓

Okay.

Sarah Caldwell (59:12)
it took probably a year. And then I didn’t start jumping until 2020. the jumping in 2020 absolutely helped rehabilitate it because it didn’t have anywhere near the strength that it had before I injured it. So I attribute jump rope to my upper body strength, no doubt.

Dizzy Skips (59:14)
Yeah.

Probably right. Yeah. Was your range of motion limited too? Yeah. Was your range

of motion limited as a result of that injury as well? Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (59:36)
Not anymore. not be

no, I feel like jump rope because of the rotations that I’m able to do and the repetitiveness of it has completely given me my range of motion back. I used to not be able to not to get, I couldn’t put a bra on and if I tried to put like, like clip it in the back, it wasn’t going to happen. Or if I tried to put like an exercise one on, I might get stuck.

Dizzy Skips (59:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

⁓ yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (1:00:04)
it doesn’t happen anymore. I mean, that’s sort of a side effect for ladies, but no, don’t have any, can take my arm and put it all the way up my back and lose my phone. There’s my chandelier? So no, feels fine. I thought that was gonna fall. I think it’s really important that we all kind of look at those. I think for young people, they don’t think about it.

Dizzy Skips (1:00:04)
Yeah. ⁓

Right.

Yeah. There’s your chandelier. Yeah. Yeah.

That’s great.

Sarah Caldwell (1:00:31)
And that’s, I don’t think I did either, but I do now.

Dizzy Skips (1:00:32)
Right. No, wouldn’t.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you you learn to appreciate what it means to be able to be so flexible that you can, you know, put your clothing on and off. Like I’ve been injured enough where taking off a shirt is agony. Like this shoulder, like, you know, or I get stuck with it half over my head or whatever. And so, yeah, once you get symmetrical and powerful enough that that stuff is no longer a concern. I don’t know. yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (1:00:42)
Yep.

Have you had any injuries? Have

Dizzy Skips (1:01:01)
yeah, yeah, from

Sarah Caldwell (1:01:01)
you? ⁓

Dizzy Skips (1:01:02)
overdoing it and especially early on, I’ve talked about that over and over again where, when I first got started, I…

Like I love music and I don’t have any trouble picking out music. put on a playlist and I will just rock and roll and, it will keep me going for longer than I should, you know? So part of my jump rope journey has been learning to know that part of the joy of jump rope is being able to do it again tomorrow. So rather than go for three and a half hours in a row today, okay, once I start feeling it, then back off a little bit or take a break for a half hour or whatever and go back.

Sarah Caldwell (1:01:26)
Okay. Yes.

Dizzy Skips (1:01:35)
So, so yeah, I’ve definitely had injuries I’ve, that have made me appreciate the stretching even more. And I, and you may have heard me talk about this, but in colder climates, like I jumped through the winter and I don’t mind jumping outside in the snow or whatever, but colder weather, that stretching is even more important because your muscles are going to fight that, right? There, the cold is going to try and constrict everything and you got to keep warm. And so there are times even in cold weather where

Sarah Caldwell (1:01:45)
Yes.

Dizzy Skips (1:02:01)
I will stop midway through a workout and restretch just to make sure that I don’t injure myself. Cause I have had times where I’ve been jumping for a half hour, take a little break, start jumping again and then feel something go in my calf. You know, like, ⁓ like a strand of muscle or something where it’s, now it’s too painful to jump at all. Okay. I gotta stop.

Sarah Caldwell (1:02:05)
Right.

Right. Well,

it’s good. think the maturity that we have also helps us make better decisions about that too. Where as a younger Sarah might have said, I’ll push through, everything’s going to be fine. Now I sort of respect those little nudges that are giving me a forewarning that I better slow it down or take it easy or whatever. It’s important. It’s important. I don’t want to miss out. I don’t want to miss out on my

Dizzy Skips (1:02:25)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Sarah Caldwell (1:02:48)
jump rope, my grandkids, doing things with friends, you know.

Dizzy Skips (1:02:50)
Right. Yeah.

And as, as the years go by and, you have those special things in your life, whether it’s jump rope or your family or whatever, you realize, I don’t have that much time left. I’m going to make the most of what I’ve got. Right. And so what, whether that’s preventing injury or embracing the dance or embracing your family or whatever, you got to make the most of it while we got it. Right. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (1:03:03)
Yeah.

I agree, I agree,

you’re so wise. That’s so good. No, it is, it’s really a mindset, I guess.

Dizzy Skips (1:03:16)
Yeah

Yeah, well, I am getting older and I appreciate the time I have. And after being injured taken out from being able to jump rope for months, where all I wanted to do was dance and jump rope, I appreciate it so much that now when I feel that twinge of that muscle saying you’ve done too much, I listen to it because tomorrow is important to me.

Sarah Caldwell (1:03:41)
Yep.

Yep. I agree. That’s okay. I’m 100 % with you on that, Dizzy.

Dizzy Skips (1:03:42)
Yeah.

Right on. So what’s next for you in Jump Rope, Sarah? Like, do you have a list of tricks to learn or ⁓ meetups to go to or what’s up?

Sarah Caldwell (1:03:55)
I always have files on my phone of I have them. I must do, you know, things that I start lining up that I’m going to follow through. My on my big list was footwork. I really I don’t do footwork like you do. You’re very comfortable doing all different, know, just jam into your music and doing footwork. To me, it’s something that I have to think about. So I joined a shuffle group.

Dizzy Skips (1:04:17)
Hmm.

Sarah Caldwell (1:04:20)
And we’ve been doing this now for over a year, once a month. It’s just a monthly meetup. Well, we don’t meet up, but we meet up online. And ⁓ we are challenged to learn a shuffle dance. That, to me, has been tremendous. And I’m not great at it. @jennyjustjump – She’s so good at it. mean, there are people that really rock it out. Yeah, she’s so good.

Dizzy Skips (1:04:20)
Right.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

I love watching her, yeah. She comes out

with her hands in her pockets and just shuffles her heart out.

Sarah Caldwell (1:04:45)
Isn’t she,

she’s like a shuffler. mean, she’s like on the dock doing it. ⁓ You know, everybody’s got their strengths when it comes to that. Like Ina has super fast speed and very accurate footwork, but we also have people that are relatively new to the group. And, you know, I say to them, this is not a competition, you guys. This is, this is a learning process and it’s great. So, so footwork is always sort of, it’s not my nemesis because I don’t hate it.

Dizzy Skips (1:04:47)
I know, I love her. I know.

Right.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (1:05:14)
but I just don’t feel like it says natural for me as throwing a rope. I feel like throwing the rope, I could do that all day, any day. ⁓ But working on the footwork is now working another, I mean, look at all the body parts you’re working. It blows my mind, right? Without tripping and falling, you’re working.

Dizzy Skips (1:05:17)
Sure. Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (1:05:32)
you know, so many different body parts. So that’s always on my list of things to do. And then just find new people that are learning it and trying to help them build their confidence, you know, and, and try new things and help them if I can. And just watching people develop. It’s to me, it’s very exciting. This whole community and you exemplify it because you bring people on that you think might have, you know, something to contribute to the community. They all do.

Dizzy Skips (1:05:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (1:06:02)
So I really, I just feel grateful to be a part of it. Never ever have I heard anything negative. My family cautioned me two years ago. They’re like, mom, you’re gonna get haters out there. Okay, introduce me to one. I have yet to see one. People could not be nicer. they’re…

Dizzy Skips (1:06:15)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah. It’s

like the jump rope community has built in, hater repellents built in, right? It’s just.

Sarah Caldwell (1:06:28)
Yes, it’s

like they’ve got security out there and they keep them away from, you know, dulling our light. You know what I mean? It was sort of cool. But my mom used to say to me, she goes, if you could be anything, if you could be any color, pick a color. I’d say, okay, I’m going to be the color yellow because it brings sunshine. So let’s try to bring that sunshine into as many people’s worlds as we can. And, you know, it might be a little sappy, but

Dizzy Skips (1:06:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

my goodness.

I don’t think so.

Sarah Caldwell (1:06:56)
she epitomized

sappy and she epitomized sunshine. And so I feel that way whenever I sign on and go to my reels and look at what everybody’s doing. It’s quite a wonderful community of people. I’m very honored to be, you know, part of it. And I hope I can be part of it for a long time, truthfully.

Dizzy Skips (1:07:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Totally. Yeah.

That’s so cool that your mom said that because, no lie, like when I look at your feed on Instagram, I see sunshine. You’ve got bright, happy ropes. You are a bright, happy person. You contribute so much to the community and you’re so supportive of me and everyone else out there that I think, you know, goal achieved. Like you are sunshine in

Sarah Caldwell (1:07:24)
Bye.

HIP

Dizzy Skips (1:07:36)
person form and it’s just a pleasure to watch you shine and jump rope. Yeah.

Sarah Caldwell (1:07:37)
Thank you. Thank you.

is listening from heaven. sure that makes her day. Thank you, Dizzy.

Dizzy Skips (1:07:46)
Well,

yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you because I mean, seriously, you contribute so much to the community and you are such a shining example of what Jump Rope can do for a person and does for a person and can do for the community.

Sarah Caldwell (1:08:00)
Yeah, it’s great. Thank you. This has been really fun. I really was looking forward to getting to know you more and I really enjoy your podcast. So keep up the good work. Appreciate it.

Dizzy Skips (1:08:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you. Yeah, I’m glad you

enjoy it. I think it’s so fun to just learn more about other people and it’s great that we’re really not that far apart so that like we have more Jump Rope Meetups in our future.

Sarah Caldwell (1:08:18)
Right, right.

I agree. I look forward to it. Thanks again. I really feel so welcome here.

Dizzy Skips (1:08:23)
Right on. Yeah, thank you.