Jump Rope Meetups, Fangirling & The Bubble of Joy

Dizzy Skips (00:00)
Sarah Marshall, I am so happy to have you back on the Jump Rope Podcast. Thank you for joining me. And I’m very excited to talk about meetups because as you know, I’m headed to the Chicago meetup this weekend. It’s gonna be my first Jump Rope meetup. And I know earlier in the month, July 5th, there was the meetup in London and you were one of the support staff for that

Sarah (00:17)
No, no, had nothing to do with it. I just turned up, it was great.

Dizzy Skips (00:20)
Really? I thought you were support staff.

Sarah (00:22)
No, no, no,

no, no, that was Laura, Peta and Chris. All of those guys took care of that. I just turned up and looked happy.

Dizzy Skips (00:28)
Yeah.

Nice.

So this is episode 38 and you were last on episode 15. And I know it’s been a while. ⁓ But as I think I mentioned before, the funny thing about that episode is it’s still one of the longest episodes that I’ve done. Definitely the longest with one other person because we were so chatty

Sarah (00:34)
my god

has been one.

Dizzy Skips (00:50)
And I can see when I transcribe each episode, the total number of words that are said during each episode. And most of them are like 12,000, 10,000, know, 13,000 words. You and I were 25249 words. So we got our chat on, that’s for sure. Right. I know, I know.

Sarah (01:04)
Nice. That’s a light conversation for me. Wait until we meet, we won’t be able to shut up.

Dizzy Skips (01:13)
Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that came up during that episode, which has stuck with me, and I think you’ve heard it out of me over and over again, is the jump rope bubble. And I wondered if I could bug you upfront to just restate what the jump rope bubble is or what the jump rope bubble means to you.

Sarah (01:30)
Well, I kind of just always felt like that. So my jump rope, what I call it is my orb. So it’s like a, it is a bubble, but my orb and it’s basically nothing can get, penetrate it. Nothing can get inside it. It’s literally me, the air, the rope, the music. And I love it. I love that expression because it’s exactly how I feel. No matter what day I’m having, you put me inside that rope and get me some rotations. Admittedly at the moment I’m not jumping.

Dizzy Skips (01:37)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sarah (01:57)
get some rotations, whether a mic release or a mamba or anything, even at the moment, my mood just goes and it changes. So, and I have heard it repeatedly on the podcast, so I love that you’re carrying it forward and I love that you spreading the word a bit because it is, it’s one of those things that just, it spreads joy. Joy. I love that the bubble is something that people have taken on the term of.

Dizzy Skips (02:05)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Sarah (02:21)
It’s just a force field. It’s all it is. Force field. Because it moves so fast, anyone tries to get in it, they’re going to get hurt. They will get hurt. But nothing can penetrate it. And that’s the whole thing. No negative thoughts, no nothing. Yeah, you can get frustrated. But that’s frustration at yourself. There’s nothing else that’s going to enter it. yeah. It’s moving that fast, especially yours. Moves that fast, there’s nothing coming in.

Dizzy Skips (02:24)
It is. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

Sure.

Yeah,

it’s like in meditation, when you learn deep breathing and when that starts working for you and you can feel your body calming and stuff like that, it’s a similar effect for me. And you just did such a fantastic job of encapsulating that thought that…

the force field, the bubble, the orb, it’s all the same. Once I get it going, I’m in there and it’s like it clears my mind and I focus. And the music is integral for me. I know some people don’t jump with music, but it’s all one package, yeah.

Sarah (03:07)
Yeah.

or not. Yeah, I have.

And we said this last time, I think you have to find the right tune. Something, there’s something that clicks and you go, oh yeah, that one’s getting, that’s getting repeated. And I get stuck, I guess it’s part of a neurodivergent thing or whatever, but I just get stuck on a track. Last night, the reel that I put up, I just kept skipping it back on my phone, on my watch, just to keep going to the same bit. And I was like, I’m getting it, I’m getting it. Frustration, but I was happy.

Dizzy Skips (03:24)
Sure.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And I get stuck on tracks too, as you know, and I, was one night last week where I had had a rough day for whatever reason. And I just had Jay Z in my head. I was like, I’m going to go bang it out to Jay Z. And I had done the song three times in the last week or whatever, but didn’t matter. Like that’s what I needed. And that put me in the bubble. Hell yeah, it was.

Sarah (04:02)
Yes.

Was it “Dirt Off My Shoulder” by any chance? Yeah.

It’s amazing, that’s why. Every time you post a reel with that, I’m like, ooh, I love this song. I’m like, yeah, yeah, it’s a good song. Definitely. ⁓

Dizzy Skips (04:14)
Yeah. Yeah, it is a good song. It’s fun to jump to.

So you weren’t official support staff, but I saw you helping people and meeting people at the…

Sarah (04:26)
Yeah, well the

thing was that I wasn’t support staff but in the end I couldn’t jump. So I tried to jump, I’ve been signed off technically, I’m not allowed to jump for quite a while until my foot recovers and I kind of went down, I was like this is going to be my rodeo out type thing, I’m going to go hard. I couldn’t even jump, I couldn’t even jump. I tried and I did a few bits, who did I do bits with?

Dizzy Skips (04:44)
Yeah.

Sarah (04:50)
I couldn’t get anything recorded. So I ended up just kind of going around recording people. So I ended up and I haven’t actually done a reel still yet, if you haven’t noticed. I did a load of stories of pictures, but I haven’t done a reel yet because I’m trying to get the right thing. And actually this is going to be perfect for me for when this comes out. I will actually do the, I’ll release the reel then. So it’d be kind of in collaboration. So, you know, talking about the meetup and things. I actually ended up.

Dizzy Skips (04:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (05:14)
So I did one of the, not challenges, but the meetup combo and ⁓ I could not get it. I got it. But I kept, I can’t even remember what the move was, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t swing. I couldn’t do the swing open. So I was swing crossing. I was doing it every time. Swing cross, swing cross. Everyone around me was doing swing open, swing open. I just kept swinging cross. I was like, I don’t even, I’m at the back. It’s fine. So I kept doing that. And then.

Dizzy Skips (05:18)
Mm-hmm.

Really.

Mm. Mm.

Yeah, you get them.

Sarah (05:42)
And then it hurt my foot so much because I’ve been in London for two days already and we’ve done so much walking about 20,000 steps both days. And yeah, I was late to the meetup. I don’t know if you know, I got stuck in London Pride. So the Pride festival. So we were walking down for anyone that knows London, we was walking down from Hamleys. We took Ada, my little girl, down to Hamleys in the morning. And then we walked up to Hyde Park.

Dizzy Skips (05:46)
⁓

Mmm.

⁓ wow.

Sarah (06:08)
Little bit of into it as that’s the main drag where Pride was going down and it started at Hyde Park Corner. So as we got closer to Hyde Park Corner, that was it. 12 o’clock Pride’s coming down. I saw Lana Del Rey. I saw like loads of American stars. I was like, what the heck? And then it started chucking it down. So this is like 10 past 12.

So I just send a video in the group like for the London Meetup group on Instagram like I’m stuck in Pride but we’re a great time.

Dizzy Skips (06:38)
Hahaha!

Sarah (06:39)
Like everyone was wondering where I was and I wasn’t there, I couldn’t get there. So I got there about, we all got there about half, 12 maybe, quarter one. It took us a while. It took us a while to get through it all. It was major traffic, it was so funny. I was like, this isn’t great. So I missed. I don’t think it happens normally, but because there was so many people there, they had a big circle of introducing themselves. So I missed all of that. Didn’t know who anyone was.

Dizzy Skips (06:46)
Okay, yeah.

⁓ okay.

Yeah.

Sarah (07:03)
So yeah, that’s how that started anyway. But yeah, so I ended up being not support, but I was going around and filming people and holding people’s cameras for them. And some of the girls were doing a jump rope dance thing. And I ended up doing like some fancy video. I haven’t still seen that video come out actually. Amy, I’m going to come to you for that actually. She watches this. Yeah, I was doing some fancy video in thing for the girls dancing, which was dead cute. So yeah, it was actually, was still a great day.

Dizzy Skips (07:10)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (07:31)
Even I couldn’t do much. It was still really nice. And I got Peta doing some mic releases. And I still got the video for that. Yeah, yeah, I’ve got one. And she was like, ooh.

Dizzy Skips (07:33)
Yeah.

Really? Nice.

Of course she was. That’s exactly what she does with the kick at the end, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah (07:44)
⁓ the amount of kicks, yeah, yeah. So

I bits but yeah I ended up kind of just looking after people and making sure everyone was alright and ended up helping Maria hand out cupcakes and things because she baked like four dozen cupcakes. I’m not kidding, they were amazing as well. I’ve never done a London meetup, like a Hyde Park meetup, that was my first one so that was yeah yeah yeah. No I’ve done loads around different places.

Dizzy Skips (08:00)
Wow. Wow. Wow.

really?

Sarah (08:12)
and no one could believe that I hadn’t been there. So the people who live in London were like, you’ve been here with a junk rope before. And I was like, yeah, they’re Chris’s workshops. And they were like, and they couldn’t remember. They couldn’t remember. And I was like, no, I’m just everywhere.

Dizzy Skips (08:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

That’s funny. It’s funny that you mentioned PETA and the releases because, you know, I recently redesigned the whole Jump Rope Podcast website. And as part of that, I went back through all of the episodes and redid notes and stuff like that and reread transcripts and rewrote a bunch of shit. And one of PETA’s comments was like,

She in her episode, she talked about like trying to learn the mic release and how frustrating it was and how she just didn’t have patience for that. She was just going to go flow. And so it’s great that you got her into the releases.

Sarah (08:53)
I literally marched her off to a piece of grass where no one else was and then I started doing it and helping her and then Eilidh came over and Eilidh gave us some tips as well so we were both there trying to help her and she landed a few and they were really good. I think a rope’s just a little bit too long because she’s four foot… well four foot nothing. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (09:03)
Nice.

Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah. Eleven. Yeah.

Sarah (09:16)
I picked her up as well, which is quite funny. yeah, I think her rope’s a little bit, see the rope’s too long or she, there’s loads of bits, we’ll talk to her about it. We need to help her with them. But yeah, it was good that she did some in front of me. was really proud of her. She didn’t stop either. She didn’t stop. I was very proud of her.

Dizzy Skips (09:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

That’s awesome.

So how many people were there? I think Chris mentioned he thought there were 68 or something like that.

Sarah (09:42)
Yeah, I don’t know. I didn’t see the final count and because there were people coming and going all day, so obviously you don’t have to stay there for the four hours. I didn’t get there for the four hours. We left around five past four, but a lot of people had left before that and then people had come. Some people had left before the photos as well, so I think on the photos were counted around 58, but there was definitely more than that. There was 100 % more than that.

Dizzy Skips (09:43)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, sure.

Sarah (10:07)
But obviously that was only the people in the photos as well. Some people didn’t want them. So I don’t know if anyone actually did an official head count. So yeah, it was way, I think it was way over 60. Count the people who was the support, like as in the families that were there as well. Cause Laura’s husband, Steve, Mr. Steve, and her friend and her husband were there all day. They were literally stood there all day. I was like, this is amazing. They were just stood there in amazement watching it all. They were so lovely.

Dizzy Skips (10:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Okay.

So how many…

Right, Mr. Steve?

Cool.

Sarah (10:34)
Yeah, and lots of people had support people like people with them. So if you count them, yeah, he was into the 70s, 80s, easy. Yeah, cool.

Dizzy Skips (10:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s so cool.

So how many meetups do you think you’ve done?

Sarah (10:44)
I think only in the last three years… Oh, actually, Stacey, Stacey Skips has just posted a memory from my first meetup, which was three years ago today. Oh, it’s my… Yeah, it’s my meetup anniversary. How weird is that? That didn’t even register. So, yeah, three years. Yeah! Three years ago today was my first ever meetup and we did like a little one in Nottingham, just on the outskirts, and Eilidh came down…

Dizzy Skips (10:55)
Wow.

Happy Meetupversary!

Sarah (11:11)
And some people came up from London. There was only maybe six or seven of us or eight or something like that. But it was brilliant. It was like, it was great. So I think I’ve done in total maybe six or seven. I don’t go to that many. But now I want to, even if I can’t jump, I’m still going to go because you learn so much and you get to meet some amazing people. And it was nice, this one in London, because I got to reconnect with those people I’ve not seen in ages. So going.

Dizzy Skips (11:11)
Nice.

Yeah.

right.

Yeah.

Sarah (11:37)
seeing people that I’ve seen at the workshops and you know, met Jenny, Jennylicious and all those types of things. And yeah, it was nice to reconnect with people. Even though you talk over the internet, it’s not the same, is it? And meeting people for the first time. So yeah, so I think it’s six or seven.

Dizzy Skips (11:47)
No ⁓

Okay, so

were you giddy with excitement before going to any of these meetups? I feel like I’m 14 and about to drive a car for the first time. I’m so excited to go to a meetup.

Sarah (12:02)
Alright, let me

be real here. So with every meetup, I get sick with anxiety. I’m really excited at the same time. But I get major imposter syndrome when I’m there. And that’s probably something I’ve never said out loud before. I may have said it to my husband. But I get major like, I’m like, oh my god, I’m not as good as these people. And so I kind of just maybe throw a mic. And I’m like, yes. Okay, what else can I do?

Dizzy Skips (12:09)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

right.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (12:29)
I don’t do anything, it’s a really weird thing. Obviously I do meet up combos and like the Birmingham one we did the Jump for Joy 100 day celebration combo together. As frustrating as that thing was, that was about 80 takes. Hence why I didn’t do the one at Hyde Park because I knew it would have broken me. But they did the 100 day jump one there as well and that was really nice to see because there was so many people with the Jump for Joy t-shirts on.

Dizzy Skips (12:42)
haha

Yeah.

Sarah (12:55)
But yeah, I get really excited, really anxious. And then when I get there, I’m like…

Dizzy Skips (12:55)
Nice.

you

Sarah (13:01)
I literally just kind of hide in a corner. It’s really weird. It’s like, it’s almost like I’ve become Aaron. It’s like I’ve become an introvert. I do want to go around and see everyone, but sometimes I just have to take a step back and just kind of watch people and go, whoa. You know, like seeing them in a video is completely different to seeing them in real life. And there was some people there that I’d never met before as well. And I’m not kidding. I was gulping. I was like,

Dizzy Skips (13:04)
Really?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

Sarah (13:26)
But some of the skills I could see, it was just mad. was, yeah, but I was like, anxiety, excitedness, I’d say I’d call it. I’m like, got the giggies and feel a bit like adrenaline shaky, that kind of thing. Almost like I took a pre-workout. ⁓ Buzzing a bit.

Dizzy Skips (13:28)
Sure.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. That’s funny.

I feel so many of the same things like, and, uh, like the imposter syndrome, even the other day I was out skipping and I, I’ve been thinking about this meetup constantly and I was thinking there’s so many people who can do like do things that I can’t do, you know, or like, like right. Yeah, I know.

Sarah (14:01)
Yeah but you just ask them. You just ask them and they’ll happily show you that’s the greatest thing. Is that fear?

Dizzy Skips (14:08)
I had to tell myself that though, like, you know,

Sarah (14:09)
Do I it? Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (14:11)
if we’re doing a combo and they want to end with a snappy foot catch or whatever, I may miss it. And, but you know what? That’s okay. These people know me, they’ve seen me, they know what I do. And if they pay attention at all, they pay attention for what I do and that’s okay.

Sarah (14:16)
⁓ that was warming.

I don’t know how many go to Chicago, so I’ll ask you that in a minute. But like, the funniest thing is, so people kind of break off into little groups and they grab someone to do a combo. So this area that we was in, Sabrina Carpenter I think was doing a gig. So it was all like boarded off the Hyde Park British Summer Time Festival or whatever it is. So there’s a big American star doing a big gig over to the right hand side. So we had this area and people just kind of flood out.

Dizzy Skips (14:32)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (14:52)
massively like go like far out and all you can see is them just drilling and drilling the combo that they’re doing together and it’s so funny to see it’s like so many people you just keep it going that was like the soundtrack it was so funny i was like there’s a lot going on here it was

Dizzy Skips (15:06)
Yeah

That is a lot. I’m afraid my soundtrack

might be rated R though. Like, I have to watch my tongue.

Sarah (15:22)
⁓ yeah.

Well if there’s kids there maybe not but yeah you’ll be able to hold it but if there’s kids there yeah it’s quite funny. But the also thing that you’ll probably notice is people just coming up and asking so people who’s never picked up a jump rope in their life that is the thing I really enjoy about jump rope meetups because if you’re out in the open people can come just ask you and go have you got a spare rope? You know what give them and see what they do because some of them turn out absolute magic and you’re like

Dizzy Skips (15:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah (15:49)
You need to buy one. You need to buy one now. Chris has it all the time where he has people come up to him and talk about his ropes and of course Chris obviously loves talking about it and promoting the business which is great. And I just think that’s really nice that people are watching and go, you know how we did when we first saw it on the internet or wherever we saw it? We’d go, oh my God, what’s this? Oh my God, okay, let’s, how do they do that? Okay, all right, let’s have a look a bit more.

Dizzy Skips (15:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

All

Sarah (16:15)
So you dig deeper, don’t you? They don’t get a chance to do that. They just watch the skills that people are doing and then they go, all right, let’s go and ask. And then they ask, pick up a rope and see if they can do it. It’s really nice, especially kids. Kids are really good ones at doing it. The parents bring the kids up and the kids try it as well. So I hope you get a place through that because that’s a little bit of, you know, it’s like explorative joy. You kind of just see the spark and you go, oh, they’ve got it. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (16:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to feed that. Yeah, yeah.

I know I’m already planning to bring like a half a dozen. I’ve got so many ropes, but I’m going to bring a bunch that I don’t use on a regular basis. So if people come out, I can say, Hey, I got one for you.

Sarah (16:51)
That’s what I was going to say. also, because obviously sometimes you jump on mats, you jump on obviously limestone thingies. I was going to ask you which ones you’re taking because I would say don’t take your favorites. And I would actually key that because you will batter them up. The amount that you are jumping, mean, take one favorite at least, one that you know that’s the perfect size, but generally, so this is my outdoor rope now.

Dizzy Skips (16:57)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

⁓

Yeah.

Sarah (17:18)
Look at the colour of that white. That is not white. That is black. this is, I mean, the beads are battered. They’re thin as anything. But I use this for outdoors. So, you know, like if I’m going for a walk with my husband and daughter, I’ll take this one and just wrap it up and chuck it in my pocket so then I can just pull it out wherever I want to jump or do a mic release and record it, you know, something on a high on a hill type thing. Yeah, so I’d say take maybe one or two of your favourites. I know you’ve got thousands, so you’re all right.

Dizzy Skips (17:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Sarah (17:44)
But yeah, then take some spare as well that you don’t mind really making like messing up type stuff because they will get obliterated. Go on.

Dizzy Skips (17:50)
Do you know what I do?

Yeah. What I do is I order duplicates. like I’ve got a rainbow rope that I named rain that I jump with, but this is my spare. This one I have not used yet because I beat the living hell out of my ropes. Cause I’m jumping on concrete. I’m jumping on pavement and stuff like that. So I have ropes where I’ve had to replace the 12 beads at the bottom of the rope repeatedly because they wear away to nothing.

Sarah (18:08)
Yeah.

You know the way to do that though, don’t you? You just swap the beads around.

Dizzy Skips (18:17)
Do you know it?

Yes, I mean like adding.

Sarah (18:22)
Yeah. No,

no, no, no, you don’t add. So you take the end beads off, you know, the ones that don’t hit the floor. So all of these are pristine next to the handles. All of these are pristine. And you swap them over and put them in the middle and them on the outside. And then you’ve got double the amount. So then you can beat the nice pristine ones up until all of them are ruined and then just replace.

Dizzy Skips (18:29)
Right?

Yep.

Yeah, yeah, I could try that. I think the problem is that by the time I do rope surgery, my little vertebrae are so deteriorated that, you know, moving them to the top of the rope is not really a fun option because, right, like I’ve had, I’ve had those ropes where I start out and I’ve got this much gap between the rope and the beads.

Sarah (18:52)
you

It’s not going to help you. They’ll still do as as paper.

Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (19:05)
And because the beads at the bottom have deteriorated, that gap gets longer and longer because all my beads are getting shorter.

Sarah (19:11)
didn’t even know that was possible! Don’t you have two inch beads as well?

Dizzy Skips (19:14)
On a lot of them, but honestly, I’ve been jumping a lot more with one inch bead ropes. Like I got one from Coach Chris and then I’ve got a bunch of these from Urope and they’re one inch and I really like them. They’ve got the thicker cables so that they’re ⁓ got a little more heft to them. Yeah.

Sarah (19:22)
Brilliant.

Yeah, yeah, second cord. Yeah,

yeah, no, that’s brilliant. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously take which, well, if you’ve got spares and you’ve got plenty of them, you say you’re fine. Take your older ones. Take your older ones. Keep your pristine ones for the new stuff. The problem is as well, I always worry that I’m going to lose my rope. That’s a bit crazy, but I’m quite up, like I love my ropes. Like some of these are really old.

Dizzy Skips (19:37)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (19:53)
I’ve got one from the first workshop that I did with Chris in 2021. And it was a free rope that you got with the package when you first did it. And that has never touched concrete. That thing is beautiful. And he still looks at it and goes, how? And I’m like, because I’ve jumped with it so much on laminate, but it is pristine, white and red.

Dizzy Skips (19:53)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, right.

Sarah (20:17)
I’m like, that bad boy’s not going on concrete. It does not go on concrete, there’s no way. So yeah, you know what it’s like when you’ve got, but if you beat them to a pulp, then you’re fine. You’ll be all right.

Dizzy Skips (20:17)
Nice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I have mats. I have jump rope mats. I just have a hard time staying on the mat. I like to travel so much, you know, like I’m either on a limestone bench. You couldn’t tell.

Sarah (20:33)
Yeah.

can’t tell.

couldn’t tell

that. Didn’t know that, Diz.

Dizzy Skips (20:43)
Yeah. Yeah, I got a

lot of flack for it over the winter where I would go to the park and I’d lay down the mat and I would do my warmups on the mat and then I would start filming and then I’d start jumping and I would last a second and a half on the mat before I was off doing something else. People are like, why do you even bring that thing?

Sarah (20:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, currently at the moment while I’m in…

Hiatus? I hate is whatever you call it. I’m basically not jumping. I’m rebuilding my outdoor area at the top. We haven’t done it yet. I bought a thick horse stall mat, you know like Kathy has. So it took me ages to find one under a certain amount of money because they are ridiculously expensive here. But I’ve got one and it’s laid out on the, I’ve took all the slabs out. So I slapped my area with concrete, concrete slabs, but the slabs move. You know, the amount of time that they’ve had out there. So they’ve been out there.

Dizzy Skips (21:13)
Yeah.

Sarah (21:32)
since 2022, what year are we at? Yeah, 2022. That’s when I built it. And they’ve just kind of slightly moved in the soil. So we’ve stripped them all out, put the horse storm mat down. And that bad boy is quite good to jump on actually. It’s really thick and bouncy. So we just need to dig out, dig down, and then make it perfect for when I make my comeback. Comeback properly.

Dizzy Skips (21:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Doesn’t Aaron

have a mat like that too? I feel like Aaron mentioned having a mat, something like that. I’ve given it. Okay. Yeah. I know I’ve given him a hard time for jumping in bare feet and he uses those Aqua socks or the toe socks. You know what I mean? Which feels.

Sarah (21:57)
I don’t think this is a horse stall mat I don’t know. It doesn’t look very thick. I think he’s just got a…

No wonder he breaks his toes when he goes to meet up.

Dizzy Skips (22:13)
Yeah.

Sarah (22:13)
He broke

all of his, I think he broke all of his toes at the last one at the Dope Ropes. I don’t know if he broke all of his toes, but he broke most of his toes at the Dope Ropes meetup. That’s what he told me. I don’t know if that’s actually common knowledge, but he did. He’s broke his toes. I’m going to say that. Aaron, you’re a fool. Love you, but you’re a fool. Yeah, I’ve always jumped on mats out there, but when the slabs move and that’s how I sprained my ankle last year.

Dizzy Skips (22:22)
How do you even? How do you?

Sarah (22:38)
I’m not doing it again. I want it all level. I want it all pretty. And it’ll be just a bit easier. Ada jumps on it now as well. So it’s quite good for her. So while she’s still learning. Yeah, it’s good. Good, good, good. What I was going to say, do you know who’s going to the Chicago meetup? Because I’ve seen a few.

Dizzy Skips (22:38)
Mm.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah, I mean, I know several people who are going. I’m sure I don’t know the whole list, but yeah, I get to meet Laura, like Laura was at the meetup. Miss Nikki Skips, release queen is gonna be there. Yeah, and Janie, Janie on the jump. She’s of course from Chicago. Yeah, ⁓ so I get to jump with Janie and then jump in the lake, so that should be fun.

Sarah (23:04)
Yeah.

⁓ no, are you? you changing? Amazing.

Is that where it’s being held? Like where she-

Dizzy Skips (23:18)
Yeah, yeah, basically where she films her videos in front of Lake Michigan, it’s being held really close to there.

Sarah (23:23)
Yeah.

my God, that’s so cool. How far away are you from Chicago?

Dizzy Skips (23:27)
I know, I’m so excited.

It is about five and a half hour drive from me. So, yeah, I’m planning to leave on Friday. I’m dropping the dog off at the boarding place at 10 a.m. and then I’m gonna make a few stops and head out of town. So I plan to get down there around five, four, something like that and then see if anybody wants to meet up and have dinner or jump or something like that. And then.

Sarah (23:33)
Right, okay, obviously staying over.

Dizzy Skips (23:54)
I think the meetup is supposed to start at noon on Saturday and I already posted to the Chicago meetup group saying, I’m not gonna be able to last that long. Like I’m gonna be jumping out of my skin by that time. So I’m planning to be down there at 10 if anybody wants to join me for warmups or coffee or whatever. So.

Sarah (24:08)
Oh,

that’s what happened to ours as well at London. So some of us met in the evening of the Friday. So I got to meet Pam, Laura, Jenny Jumps. God, she turned up, I could have squealed. I literally picked her up over the bar almost. I was like, oh my gosh, I’m here! And loads of so many people, it was brilliant. And then Eddie, I think Eddie Jumps turned up on Saturday morning and went for a coffee.

Dizzy Skips (24:24)
I know, I was so proud of her.

Yep.

Sarah (24:34)
in a Serpentine bar which we were jumping next to. So he turned up for a coffee and think a few met early about maybe half 10. So yeah, you’re exactly the same as us. You just kind of do and people turn up and things, which is really nice. And people just kind of hang around too as well afterwards, like no one just kind of departs if that makes it. It’s like, okay, bye and everyone goes. It’s like people could go at their own pace and things. Yeah, it’s so fun. You’re gonna love it. You get to meet Pam as well. my God. If she isn’t…

Dizzy Skips (24:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

I know, I’m looking

forward to that.

Sarah (25:02)
If she

isn’t a little bottle of maple syrup herself, like she is the sweetest. She bought me a bottle of that and I’ve just told her. I sent her some pictures, I was like, this is amazing. We don’t have maple syrup like that over here. We have it with so much sugar in it, it’s disgusting. They’re like, real Canadian maple syrup? I’m like, that is not Canadian at all.

Dizzy Skips (25:05)
Ha ha ha!

Yeah.

Yeah, no. Yeah.

Right, no. Canadians do real maple syrup.

Sarah (25:26)
Yeah, it was, yeah, you’re either gonna be a bit like me where you fangirl a little bit, which I think you will be because we’re very similar, where you kind of just go, and then that’s it, you just kind of go all over the place. I’m very much like that at meetups. I kind of always feel like I’m with famous people. I think that’s why I have a bit of imposter syndrome. I’m like, my God, can I take a picture with you? With Fabian, Coach Fabian.

Dizzy Skips (25:43)
Yeah!

Yeah.

I know, right?

Yeah.

Sarah (25:52)
my god, it took me two hours to ask him for a picture.

Dizzy Skips (25:56)
Yeah.

Sarah (25:56)
Can I have a picture please?

It was almost like I’m asking for more porridge. Do you know what I mean?

Dizzy Skips (26:01)
Right.

Please, sir, could I have some more?

Sarah (26:04)
I have some more! Honestly. ⁓ and I need to tell you something. The video that you sent me about that we need to do a podcast, I did show them at the table.

Dizzy Skips (26:05)
Yeah, no, I totally feel that way.

Mm-hmm.

I’m not sure which one you mean.

Sarah (26:19)
The one that you sent me about that we need to do a podcast about the meetup. I showed Peta at the table. She was like, I love that boy.

Dizzy Skips (26:24)
yeah?

That’s nice. It’s nice to be called boy too.

Sarah (26:32)
Well, she might not have said boy, I might have been, as I can’t remember what she said exactly, but yeah. She was a few margaritas down, so you know.

Dizzy Skips (26:35)
I want to remember it that way.

Nice.

Yeah, I totally feel the same thing. In fact, I even said in the little Chicago meetup group, like, I feel like I’m fangirling already because all of these people that I’ve been watching for the last year and a half on Instagram are celebrities to me. Like you are a celebrity to me. And so when I go, I mean, I know now I feel like more friends with a lot of these people, but.

Sarah (26:49)
Thanks, you’re welcome.

Dizzy Skips (27:02)
to walk into a place where all of a sudden this person that I’ve been watching videos of and appreciating their skills and their spirit and their humor for the last year and a half, I get to see them in person and maybe even get a hug. That’s amazing.

Sarah (27:13)
Yeah,

yeah, that’s where I kind of go in an introvert because I’m like,

Dizzy Skips (27:17)
I know, right? Like, what do I say? don’t… Yeah.

Sarah (27:18)
And I’m like, yeah, it’s

so funny, isn’t it? And the thing is, I’m the same with famous people. I don’t dare go up to them. I’m like, no, they don’t want this. They don’t want people hammering. And like most of them, they’re they’re asking for pictures. like, yeah, but that’s them. That’s not me. I’m more humble. And then I kind of just creep up afterwards going.

Dizzy Skips (27:29)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know what you mean. And I’ve had a few incidents with famous people where I just said, F it. And I just walked right up and said, hey, you know, that album you put out got me through last Christmas. Thank you. And and they appreciated it. You know, to me, it was like I was sweating all over and so nervous. But but yeah, it turns out it doesn’t matter how famous you are. People like to hear compliments. They like to hear they’re appreciated. Right.

Sarah (27:54)
Yeah, that would do it.

yeah.

Yeah.

You know what? I think we’ve spoke about it before as well about how humble people are in the jump rope community. There’s no egos. And that’s what I love about it. All of us are the same type of person. And that’s what I love more about just bringing us all together and you all just feel like you’ve known each other for years. And it’s mad. Like we sat down at the table for the food. There was 12 of us. I swear to God, it was like I knew them all and I’ve been there before.

Dizzy Skips (28:10)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (28:31)
We were like all old souls. And I was like, this is amazing. And then at the jump rope meet up and we was, know, people were taking time for each other and, you know, explaining things. It was just, yeah, it’s just nice. It’s just nice that you’re all, it’s weird that we’re all from different walks of life, but we’re all cut from the same cloth. It’s so strange. We’ve all got the same problem. It’s so weird.

Dizzy Skips (28:31)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, it’s

interesting. I wonder if it’s not a similar feeling like if I were an American in Afghanistan and I don’t speak the native language if I were to meet other English speakers there, all of a sudden we have this common language. We have some common background and stuff. And I feel like in the jump rope community, we don’t have to explain to each other why adults jump rope, right? Like we know we do it to get in the bubble. We know it helps our health.

Sarah (29:08)
Yes, they are.

Dizzy Skips (29:19)
It helps our fitness, helps us mentally. Yeah. And so there’s this whole unwritten language that we all have in common that brings us together without having to go over all that stuff. Where if I have to explain it to a civilian, there’s a lot more… Right, yeah.

Sarah (29:19)
of mine.

Yeah, you’ve got no chance, have you? And people

look at you like you’re crazy. You’re like, yeah, I am. crazy for jump rope. That’s it. That’s all it is. That’s all it is. I saw the other day, is it Trisha? Rise and Joy? @riseandshineinjoy so her T-shirts, I jump rope to keep out the crazy, made me howl. Absolutely made me howl.

Dizzy Skips (29:42)
Right.

Rise and shine, enjoy, Trisha.

That’s awesome.

Sarah (29:56)
I was like, oh my god,

Dizzy Skips (29:57)
Yeah.

Sarah (29:57)
I need to get one of those from America. I don’t know how I’ll get one, but it just made me giggle so much. I was like, actually, yeah, I think I do. Actually, I think I’m crazy with a jump rope. I’m crazier without one. Yeah, yeah, happy. Yeah, it depends. Last night, I did shout “F it” very loud, really loud in the gym. Two girls were stretching after our class. had aerobics.

Dizzy Skips (30:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, but happy crazy with the jump rope and that’s important. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (30:21)
and they were stretching and they always stay there and I’m like, can I jump? I, am I right to jump? And I was asked, they’re like, will you stop asking? I’m like, I’m just, I have to ask. So I’m there spinning the rope out. Someone else came in on the spin bikes and I don’t think I’d ever seen her before in the gym. So was like, she doesn’t know what I’m about to do. Mamba 360 around her face. I was like, I’m sorry. I just kept drilling this one little bit. I was like, I’ve got a little routine in my head. was like, we’ve just got to keep doing it.

Dizzy Skips (30:38)
Hahaha

Sarah (30:45)
And then I think I said one more try Sarah and it was I’d been there 15 minutes doing this again so f’d off and then it dropped again as I was doing a catch from 180 release I was like f*** it, the loudest my voice and I’ve got my headphones on and I’m like sorry, picked up a rope and walked.

Dizzy Skips (30:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I have done that so many times. Just like being in the park with the noise canceling headphones on and I think I’m alone and then I shout out some swear. Yeah, I’ve done that. I had it happen once where I was jumping next to this bush or it was like there’s this big line of bushes that separate this mountain biking area from this other meadow. And I’m jumping on a limestone bench in the meadow and.

Sarah (31:06)
I’m so hungry.

You told me the bleeps that you did. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (31:28)
just having a good time and I messed up and I said some choice, you know, pirate words and then a man and his son like emerged from around the bush and I, I’m sorry.

Sarah (31:33)
Yeah.

You can’t help other people hearing it, but yeah, that’s pretty funny that it was a kid. Oopsie. I

Dizzy Skips (31:42)
Yeah.

I know.

and it’s a small enough town here that now there have been plenty of people that have seen me jump around town. And I went to the Pride Festival here in Red Wing last month and I was just walking around. I had a couple of people say, you’re the jump rope guy. was like, I am the jump rope guy.

And some other lady was like, yeah, I know some lady who jumps rope and she’s at the YMCA. And I was like, really? And she said, yeah. And I see some other guy down by the river jumping. And I was like, guilty as charged. That’s me.

Sarah (32:13)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, nice. Do you have anyone in your town that jump ropes that you know of? I’m guessing no one.

Dizzy Skips (32:20)
I’ve heard of this one lady who jumped rope at the YMCA, but I have not met her yet, so.

Sarah (32:25)
Boy

I’d be going down there and going to find out dude.

Dizzy Skips (32:28)
Yeah, yeah, I probably should do that. Although I was, one night I was thinking about it and wondering like, how creepy would it be for a woman if a guy walks in and says, hey, I’ve heard you’re the only other jump roper in town, you jump with me?

Sarah (32:40)
Yeah, fair point. That could be a bit weird. Yeah, maybe not.

Dizzy Skips (32:44)
No, I’ll have to just like buy a

temporary membership and then accidentally stumble across her while I’m jumping in the gym.

Sarah (32:52)
Yeah, maybe that, maybe that. So YMCA is a gym? okay, cool. There’s different meaning over here, so that’s different. It might be a gym here. Is it like a community centre, a YMCA? It’s classed as like, not a homeless, but like a refuge? So that’s different. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (32:54)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

there are places where the YMCA is more like a hostel in a way. ⁓ And here, this is not a hostel, it’s more like a health club, but they have community events and stuff, so there’s other stuff that you can do around that. And they’ve got a swimming pool and whatever.

Sarah (33:15)
Yes, that’s it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

here. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe you need to just join for a bit and then go and find your jump rope buddy. And then you can start doing the wheel ropes because they’re dead fun. that’s another thing. So obviously you’ve never been to a jump rope meetup before. obviously the double dutch ropes might come out. Which will be good. ⁓ I’d love to be and can’t wait to see you in double dutch. You’re going to be crazy good. ⁓ And then you will be. just need to the problem is you need to slow down.

Dizzy Skips (33:34)
Yeah.

Right.

Yep, I know a few people are bringing double Dutch ropes and I’m excited to see that.

I don’t know about that.

Sarah (33:57)
Which I don’t know if you can. I’m a fast jumper and I like to jump fast. If I jump slow, I feel really laboured and really heavy. And then just me and Peta always have this conversation that we always hate jumping slow. Slow combo is so hard for us to do. It’s just it hurts the brain. But yeah, that and then wheel rope as well is dead fun. But hopefully, is there anyone that’s organising the like meet up? Not like a Chris, but is there anyone that’s organising?

Dizzy Skips (33:57)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Rachel, @getroped Rachel Jablow. Yeah. And I’ve heard people mentioning wheel rope too. So wheel rope is when you have two people stand next to each other, each holding a handle of one rope and you’re swinging two ropes at the same time, right?

Sarah (34:23)
⁓ good. Okay. So yeah, so we’ll have a bit of organisation.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you get in find very easily. It’s so fun. They’re so fun. Me and Sue, she’s not been on a podcast yet. She hasn’t, has she? my God, you need to get her on one. I want to go force her. She’d be amazing to talk to. She’s so the loveliest person. Yeah, so me and her did it at the workshop.

Dizzy Skips (34:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

No.

Alright, do it.

Sarah (34:56)
And I’m not kidding, if that woman is a taskmaster, we just drilled and drilled and drilled until we got it. I’m not kidding. I think we had 40 minutes doing the wheel ropes and we didn’t stop. I was melted. Even she was struggling, but I was melted after that. was like, I am done. I don’t know what you’ve done to me, but I am done. Yeah. And the wheel ropes, so fun. Like the twisting, turning into it is…

Dizzy Skips (35:00)
Hahaha

Hahaha

That’s great.

Yeah.

Yeah

Sarah (35:20)
You can do everything with a jump rope that you can do with wheel ropes and it makes no sense whatsoever, but somehow it works. It’s just brilliant. I really enjoy them. Me and Stacey on the other hand struggle for some reason. I don’t know why me and her can’t get it. We’ve tried multiple times when we’ve just met up, me and her, and I’m like, I don’t know why we can’t get it right. Lizette, so Chris’s partner Lizette, she’s like the master of wheel. She’s so good at it.

Dizzy Skips (35:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Huh. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (35:46)
And know

Dizzy Skips (35:46)
Cool.

Sarah (35:47)
Laura doing them quite a lot at the moment. I love watching the journey. So yeah, if people know how to do it, you’ll be fine. You’ll be able to follow easy. And that’s quite good for you because with a wheel, you kind of double bounce. So obviously that person’s jumping, you’re not. So you kind of like double bounce it. It’s really strange, but it’s very fun. Yeah, it’s fun.

Dizzy Skips (35:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

that sounds fun. So I’m curious when you were getting ready to go to a meetup or when you are packing for a meetup now, and maybe this is a little different when you’re jumping versus not jumping, but what sort of things go in your backpack? I’ve written a whole blog post on things to pack to go to a jump rope meetup. And I want to hear from someone who’s actually been to a jump rope meetup. Like

Sarah (36:26)
So plenty

of water. The worst thing is when you run out of water, but obviously you’re going into a city, so you’ll be fine. There’ll be plenty of places. So water is a big thing because I absolutely guzzle it by the gallons. Obviously, hopefully if you’ve got a toilet close, otherwise you’d be peeing in the lake. Good snacks. So stuff that you can quickly eat that isn’t heavy on your tummy. I take a speaker. So I take an outdoor waterproof speaker.

Dizzy Skips (36:40)
Fish do it.

Sarah (36:50)
They’re always quite handy. I didn’t actually get mine out in London, which is weird. A variety of ropes, and I say variety, I take a PVC, I take a flow rope, I take a few beaded, those kind of things. Sunscreen, obviously you’ve got to take that because you’ve got to look after your skin. A hat as well, sunglasses, all those types of things like you pack in for a holiday. I end up always taking far too much. Take a variety of…

Dizzy Skips (37:09)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (37:16)
handles as well. So if you’ve got long handles for something that you’re not used to trying. So if you do tricks that you’re not used to doing, take a long handled if you’ve got it so you can try and get it if you’re trying to master something with someone.

Dizzy Skips (37:19)
home.

Sarah (37:28)
I’m a bit of a mum because that’s just who I am. I’ve always been a mum before I became a mum. I kind of take enough snacks for other people too, even though there’s going to be loads of people. But I always like to share, even though generally if it’s in my house, I’ll go, Sarah doesn’t share food like Joey. But I like to take enough food that people, know, like if it was the family, obviously the family’s got food and I’ll take stuff for them. But if I was going to a meetup on my own.

kind of take a light mix of things for people to have. But obviously you just got to be careful of allergens and who you give it out to. Be a bit sensible. But yeah, that I’m trying to think of anything else. Spare change of clothes. If you get sweaty, I would highly recommend some spare, because if you get sweaty and then wet, and if you want to go out for a meal or a drink afterwards, that’s not nice. It’s not good.

Dizzy Skips (38:13)
Yeah, yeah,

I get sweaty and that is the understatement of the day. Like I feel like, yeah, Yeah, I’m planning several costume changes. Yeah, I was even joking and maybe it’s not so much of a joke that I might bring a bar of soap so that when Janie throws me in the lake, I can, you know, clean off a little bit and feel a little less disgusting at dinner.

Sarah (38:18)
He’s called the Queen of Sweat.

That sounds a good deal.

A little refresh, that’ll be nice.

Dizzy Skips (38:42)
Right.

Yeah. Big bottle of like cologne, just lay it on thick.

Sarah (38:46)
think Chris always brings like energy drinks. So he always, not energy drinks, but like electrolytes. like those blue kind of, I don’t know what they are, blue kind of drinks, they’re quite nice. He always brings them. I always see him drinking them and I’m like, what are they for? Cause I get really stiff calves. And I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, so that’s really handy as well. I’d say loads, but if there’s a shop nearby, I just go and pick up a load of stuff as you go in.

Dizzy Skips (38:49)
Yeah.

Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, I plan on bringing a cooler like stocked full of like, I’m a Diet Pepsi addict, I also like water, Gatorade stuff like that. I

Sarah (39:12)
But yeah, think that’s a good way to do it.

no.

⁓ nice.

What kind of temperature is it there at the moment? It’s really hot, right?

Dizzy Skips (39:25)
Yeah, it’s pretty warm. Like, I don’t know, I haven’t looked up Chicago today, but for the last few weeks, it’s been in the mid-80s Fahrenheit here. So, yeah, it’s warm enough that, like, in the house that I have upstairs, I have to have a fan going or else I’ll just sweat sitting here. Because the house is 118 years old and has no air conditioning, so.

Sarah (39:47)
Yeah, well ours isn’t that old but ours has no aircon either and we’re like that at the moment even though it’s not that warm at the moment it’s just muggy, it’s really close and there’s no like blue skies, it’s just cloudy, it’s awful.

Dizzy Skips (39:55)
Yeah.

You know, it’s interesting, going back to the feeling like you have imposter syndrome when you go to meetings or meetups like this, I have not suffered from that, but I have dealt with imposter syndrome for a lot of my adult professional life, including when I used to work for a medical company and I would have to go train doctors and nurses how to use diagnostic equipment. And I was in my

Sarah (40:17)
Wow.

Dizzy Skips (40:18)
20s and I would I would walk

Sarah (40:19)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (40:19)
into a hospital and have to talk to these super professional people and actually one time when I went to Ohio and I think I was at Cleveland Clinic one of the nurses said is this Doogie Howser and I wasn’t it made me laugh so hard because you know, I was like 27 and in suit and stuff trying to teach nurses how to use this diagnostic equipment Doogie Howser but

Sarah (40:41)
that’s awful.

Dizzy Skips (40:41)
But one of the tactics,

you now I’m a tech nerd. And so if I go to conferences or things like that, I tend to go into those things thinking everybody knows more than I do and that I, you know, barely deserve to be there, which is my own internal self-talk. And so my tendency is to want to be a wallflower. But one tactic that I’ve sort of developed to deal with that is…

Sarah (40:55)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (41:03)
realize there are other people like me that are doing the same thing and figure out what those behaviors are, like standing up against the wall or not making eye contact. And I pick on someone. I’ll find Sarah in the crowd and walk up and say, Hey, you’re Sarah, aren’t you? I love how you do releases. Can you show me something like that? And if I can ask questions, if I can start the conversation and make someone else talk, it relieves so much pressure from me. And it’s just that one crack of the ice that starts things going.

Sarah (41:19)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I’m exactly the same. I actually do exactly the same as well. So ⁓ I didn’t do it at the last one just because obviously I wasn’t able to participate as much as I wanted to. But there was one of the ladies was doing a flow rope. She had her headphones on. She was at the back, nowhere near us. And I just watched her and I was in amazement. And I thought, you know what, I need to go tell you how good you are type thing.

Dizzy Skips (41:34)
Yeah.

Right.

Sarah (41:52)
And so I did, and I know that she was just like in her own world. She didn’t know if anyone was watching, she didn’t even care. But I just had to go and tell her. And I was like, honestly, I didn’t know you flow roped. I’ve been at workshops with her before and things like that. She used to help Chris out, I think as a support crew. And I was like, you are phenomenal. You really owned that rope and that rope became part of you. And I’ve never seen it like that before.

Dizzy Skips (41:58)
Mm-hmm.

That’s so cool.

Sarah (42:17)
And so

I started to follow her and I was starting to get some moves off of her and everything. So it’s a weird thing because you kind of, you can go to a meetup and know people and say, you know what they can do, or you can go to a meetup and then see something that I’ve never seen them do before. And then I was like, I need to go tell you you’re awesome. And I also need to go and now follow and see what you do with the flow rope. So I’ve been learning some out the back of my garden and when I do get good enough to post it.

Dizzy Skips (42:31)
Right.

Sarah (42:44)
I’m going to post it and tag her and just say how inspired I was because honestly, I’ve seen people with flow ropes before and I’ve seen how good people are, but she became one with that rope and I was like, you need to be told. And I didn’t actually take my flow rope with me because we carried everything. We didn’t drive, we did the train and we carried. So we was there for three days. We had lots of stuff. didn’t take my flow rope because my flow rope’s f-ing heavy. I have a really, really thick one.

Dizzy Skips (42:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Sarah (43:10)
And so we didn’t take my flow rope. Otherwise, I grabbed it and gone with her and just said, can you show me some stuff? Like I would have literally gone up to her and just gone like, can you help me? Because I want to be able to come so fluid with it. So that’s the only regret I have from that meetup is that I didn’t take flow rope with me. I probably could have had one off of someone, but that kind of sparked into my head and just needs to go tell that woman now you’re amazing. Yeah. So it’s nice, especially so.

Dizzy Skips (43:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (43:36)
People that you know are slightly introverted. You know that you can kind of, if you’re having a bit of a moment where you go, okay, you can go up to that type of person because you know they’re gonna start talking, especially if you throw a compliment in there and that. It’s not for that reason, you know that you’re gonna compliment them anyway, because generally if they’re there, they’re gonna be awesome. But yeah, you never know, people might come up to you and ask about your amazing skipping too. More than likely they will.

Dizzy Skips (43:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (44:04)
your absolute free flow. They’re going to find a bench for you to do demonstrates on, aren’t they?

Dizzy Skips (44:10)
Yeah,

I’ll do my best. But yeah, one other thing I found is that in groups of introverts, sometimes all it takes is that one person to crack the ice to open everyone up. Like I’ve been at like meetups for developers where everybody sits and stares at their phone in a circle and you’re in a room with all these great minds who do amazing things online, but nobody talks. And, and I just decided, Hey, I’m not

too proud to look stupid, I’ll ask a question like, hey, who does this on their website or how do you deal with this? And then boom, one person goes and then it’s around the room and everybody’s talking and chatting. And so I feel like at least… ⁓

Sarah (44:38)
Yeah.

It just

takes that one person to come out. I know developers really well. I used to recruit for them. And I was always that person that used to get that tiny little spark out of them and go, right, talk to me about it. And they just go off like a rocket. And you go, yes, there’s the spark. There’s that personality. Go do that in the interview. Crack on. And then they just go like a turtle. Yeah. You just need someone to stick their head out a little bit further.

Dizzy Skips (44:48)
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Yeah, right on. That’s great.

Sarah (45:12)
with any introvert and just stick that head out. I will fully fully confess I’m an extrovert with the right people with different people that I don’t know I’m an introvert. I will say they’re quite happily be quiet. I’ll just take it. Take in the surroundings and I’d suggest that to anyone going to a meetup for the first time. I did that with Aaron. So when Aaron came to the meetup in Manchester last December, it was his first meetup and I went just just survey the area. You know, he’s a tech guy. You know that.

Dizzy Skips (45:25)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (45:40)
you have

that common ground with him and he yeah I was just like I’ll take care of you I’ll be the extrovert to your introvert and he won’t mind you saying this like I did tan in that I’ll be the extrovert to your introvert and I’ll look after you if you need me to get you out there I’ll get you out there but also I’ll make you come out of your shell and that bloke did not stop he was hummingbird in everywhere he was like a hummingbird he was like one minute’s there and then he was doing reels with other people I was like yes go on boy

Dizzy Skips (45:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (46:08)
And now, yeah,

that’s all he does now. It’s brilliant. And I love that he loves the meetups too. Yeah, it’s key for him.

Dizzy Skips (46:13)
Yeah, me too. I’ve seen so

many combos of him with other people and it’s, and they’re always hilarious because he’s always like twice the size of whoever he’s jumping with.

Sarah (46:23)
height of that bloke. I don’t know if him and Peta did one, I really hope they did because they were the opposite ends of the scales. I can’t remember seeing it. I think they had pictures, with the pictures that we had for the Jump for Joy group were hilarious. So the support group, so me, Aaron, Laura and Peta all together, we looked like band covers. I don’t know if you saw him, but they were hilarious. He was doing them from his height and then Peta did them from her height.

Dizzy Skips (46:24)
I

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

⁓ huh.

Sarah (46:47)
It was so funny. I was like, I actually think I’m in a surreal world here between Australia and America and Bloody Aaron the Giant.

Dizzy Skips (46:53)
Yeah, yeah.

I know,

he’s six foot seven and she’s four foot 11. I know even in some of the videos where he’s standing way off in the distance, he still is like the Tower of London. Yeah.

Sarah (47:06)
powers. Yeah

and he says his ropes aren’t long. His ropes are long when they whip you because you’re five six foot away from him and he’s still hitting you because he’s like my ropes aren’t long and I’m like you are six foot seven mate they are long tools.

Dizzy Skips (47:13)
Hahaha

Right.

Right, right. Yeah, that’s hilarious.

Sarah (47:22)
That happened at the Birmingham one, he whipped me so many times. I was like, I’m stopping standing in front of you dude. Because obviously he buzzes, he does this, he doesn’t jump in one spot, he’s like you. And he buzzes and he buzzes straight behind me and smacks me so many times. And then there was one time where our ropes got entwined. So there’s another thing with jump rope meetups, beware of the ropes. And I know that sounds silly, but because you’ve never been around anyone else jumping.

Dizzy Skips (47:34)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Sarah (47:50)
just beware of the ropes because you will get smacked. It will happen and it’s not nice. It’s alright being hit by your own rope, being hit by someone else’s. Brings it to you.

Dizzy Skips (47:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, at least

like when you’re hit by your own rope, you know, at least it’s a badge of honor. You know, it’s that thing that it’s that notch you get in your belt that takes you one step forward when someone else is clocking you with a rope. It’s just inconvenient, right? Just a pain.

Sarah (48:10)
Yeah, to not do that again is right.

Yeah, yeah,

it’s not nice, it’s not pleasant. You kind of just go, ⁓ thanks, and then kind of cry off in the corner for a little bit while you’ve got a severe whip. Yeah, it’s fine, don’t worry. Yeah, it’s pretty bad.

Dizzy Skips (48:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, my gosh.

I was jumping at the beach the other night and I did, I turned around and I was doing a reverse cross and I’ve done a bunch of them and I can pull them off but this, for whatever reason, wind or arm length or whatever, I smacked myself in the mouth so hard with the beads that I drew blood and I was like, this is awesome. I know, right?

Sarah (48:37)
Yeah.

That is a badge of honour. That is like, seriously.

Dizzy Skips (48:56)
wiping

the blood off and let’s get jumping.

Sarah (48:59)
my

god! Did you hit any teeth or anything? Or was it just mouth?

Dizzy Skips (49:03)
No,

it was my lip up against my teeth, you know, was right smack in the kisser. I know, it was great.

Sarah (49:06)
Oh, did we?

Do you see the one I put up last night? You might not have seen it. I put it up last night and I mambaed 360 and caught the rope in my mouth. Like I literally caught it and it went, uh, ah, I started to walk forward like this. I was like, that’s not great. That was another one before I gave up completely. But yeah, I whipped it around from a mamba 360 and then somehow whipped it back up and just caught it straight across my mouth.

Dizzy Skips (49:35)
We’ll call that the Sarah. That’s the Sarah release. Yeah, you need to patent that stuff and see if you can repeat it.

Sarah (49:35)
I like, I don’t even know how you do that.

But this is what Aaron

just said. Aaron was like, I’ve wanted someone to catch it in their mouth. And I was like, yeah, all right. I’ll keep aiming for that, then, shall I? there’s nothing like good old whips in the face. Nothing better.

Dizzy Skips (49:53)
Yeah,

the marks of progress, right? Like the welts. ⁓

Sarah (49:57)
Yeah, bar

the butt ones where you see all the beads, you see the literal individual not on yours because yours aren’t hard enough anyway to whip you anymore. Yours are like paper. Yeah, thin enough.

Dizzy Skips (50:09)
Yeah, I mean I I still

get some you know what I I found is on some of my ropes I did not have enough space in between the end of the handle in the first bead and so when I got into doing wraps a lot like wrist wraps and things I would get my skin caught in between the Two of the beads as I was wrapping around and just get that little monkey bite. You know that pinch That’s smarts

Sarah (50:27)
Yeah,

like an animal pinch. Oh yeah, right. No, I don’t think… Still, everyone says about the space. I have no space. I literally have a bean. And that’s how I’ve always been. If I have two laks, it’s mad. So at the Birmingham meetup, Katie sort of jumps. that Katie? The mad one with releases. She’s amazing. So she ties.

Dizzy Skips (50:32)
Yeah, like a little monkey.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah (50:52)
and a knot here and then has a flat space and then the beads again and I’m like and a knot and then the beads and I was like that’s something so I’ve changed one of my ropes to it and you know what it works so good for releases I got the Tomahawk release and with that rope I’m gonna use it for the eclipse you know what I still haven’t tried it yet I need to try it where you release on one side spin and catch the rope in a cross Kevin

Dizzy Skips (50:54)
Interesting.

Really?

Sarah (51:18)
French jumper did it and then a load of other people have tried it as well. So yeah, well, I’m sure it wasn’t his creation. I don’t know if it was, but he was the one that I saw and I went, I need a tutorial now. And he was like, on it. Yeah, and that I’m going to try it with that one, even though I think I might get hit in the face quite a lot, but meh, it happens.

Dizzy Skips (51:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So how many skills

have you unlocked at Meetups? Like by being able to be near other jumpers who can show things to you.

Sarah (51:44)
So

at the Birmingham one I unlocked three and they were things that I never thought I’d be able to do. Four, if you count the EB release, because I did it immediately after. So I did it when I went back into the comfort of my own gym, where you kind of EB over, hold the handle with the one and then throw it back and then release it. So I caught that both sides. That was banging. Something that Scotty Jump did with Chris,

Dizzy Skips (52:04)
Yep.

Sarah (52:12)
Whereas, and I tried to do this last night actually, and I couldn’t remember what I did. So I was just throwing the rope anywhere. I kind of looked like a juggler. I was letting go this handle. No, that’s not it. Let go this handle. No, that’s not it. And I couldn’t even remember. So a wicked like wrap releasing through the leg. Katie also taught me the tomahawk and I did kind of get it, but it wasn’t as fast as hers. You know how hers looks absolutely immaculate. And I can’t remember what else the other thing was.

Dizzy Skips (52:22)
Yeah.

Sarah (52:38)
don’t know, it’s gone. But yeah, so mainly at jump ropes meetups, do, I get taught something generally by Eilidh. She takes my hand and teaches me something pretty cool. ⁓

Dizzy Skips (52:39)
Yeah, I-

how

to tie yourself into a pretzel. Yeah, she is so good at that.

Sarah (52:50)
Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much.

Yeah, I know she’s amazing. She is amazing. And she just doesn’t, she just still doesn’t realise it. I don’t think she massively has imposter syndrome and she won’t mind me saying that either, but she is amazing. She needs to know that. ⁓ But yeah, there’s, there’s lots of people that will quite happily teach you stuff. And I really like that as well. Cause we can see them helping you and it’s just mad, mad how much.

Dizzy Skips (53:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (53:15)
You get inspired and then go, how do you do that? And then you ask and then they show you happily. Let’s go for it. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (53:20)
Yeah.

Just the idea

of being in person like that and being able to get that coaching or that help, you know, that, I see why that tomahawk’s not working for you, because your arm’s way out here.

Sarah (53:31)
There is nothing better than getting that feedback. Because you can’t see it on a video. I mean, I try and help people through this Jump for Joy thing. I tried to help as much as I could. And a lot of people did unlock the mic release with my help, which is amazing. But doing it face to face, like with Peta, and me watching it going, hold up, that’s not right there. Like you’re hitting the ground. You’re deflecting off the ground while you’re throwing it. That’s why it’s not catching.

Dizzy Skips (53:34)
Yeah.

Sarah (53:57)
That’s why your handle is not coming back to your pocket. And that was it. And then Eilidh spotted it as well. She said exactly the same. was like, see, Coach says it, so I’m thoughtin’. If Coach approves it, then that’s fine. Anything I unlock, I always send to Eilidh and go, is this an unlock? And she’s like, yes. I’m like, good girl, thanks. I do, I always send it to her first. I’m like, coach, is this correct?

Dizzy Skips (53:57)
Yep.

Yeah.

Yes.

Eilidh approved.

Nice.

Sarah (54:21)
But yeah, the jump rope, I think you’re gonna be… I think you will get a little bit introverted because you’re fangirl, but I think you’ll be absolutely in your element. And I do think, if you know, you see… I think the thing I worry about is if I see people doing something, I don’t ask if I can join. Do it. Because you’ll regret it otherwise. You’ll go, why didn’t I ask them if I could join that combo or whatever?

Dizzy Skips (54:21)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah (54:47)
I always regret it afterwards and go, why didn’t I ask if I could be part of that or at least try? I think I did it with Sue and Peta at the London one and I just couldn’t land something and honest to God, the pain I was in, I just gave up and I went, look girls, I said, you just do it. I said, I haven’t got it again. So I kind of stepped back and then they did it. It was the one where they did the power kick and they did it themselves. And I was like, look, I’m glad I stepped away, but I’m glad I asked. You know, I asked to be part of it. So I was like, yeah, let’s do it.

Dizzy Skips (54:51)
Yeah.

Okay?

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah (55:15)
But just the pain, was in, I couldn’t jump anymore. I was done. I’m completely done. But yeah, if you see like two or three people or whatever doing something, ask to be part of it. Because that’ll be something that’ll be monumentous for you to do something like a combo with other people. It’ll be nice. Even if it’s a little one. Yeah. 100%. It’s your birthday tomorrow, isn’t it? Can I sing happy birthday? Actually, no, I won’t sing happy birthday to you. I’ll do it off the air. But yeah, are you excited for your birthday too?

Dizzy Skips (55:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, ma’am.

you

I am, yeah, I’m taking part of the day off and I’m gonna go jump rope in the morning and there’s a local theater in town that’s a restored, beautiful theater. It’s all built out of limestone, it’s gorgeous inside and they’re showing some old movies over the course of the summer. And so tomorrow night they’re showing The Goonies, which I saw when I was young on my birthday when I was like 13 or something. yeah, I’m gonna go see the …

Sarah (55:44)
Yay!

no.

my god, my husband

loves The Goonies, he absolutely adores that film. Yeah, it’s a brilliant film. that’s gonna be so good for you. Love it. Yeah, carb up as well. make sure you get plenty of food in you on Friday. I know you’re traveling, but make sure you get plenty of food. Carb up, carb up, carb up, carb up. Cause you probably won’t want to eat. You might have bit of breakfast in the morning, but you will be so busy jumping, most people forget to eat.

Dizzy Skips (56:07)
Yeah, well, I’m taking myself tomorrow night, so.

Yeah, yeah, and then leave on Friday morning for the meetup.

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah, I figured I would like stock up on Clif Bars or protein bars or have stuff like that with me because that’s I don’t really like to eat a lot if I jump anyway, you know, oftentimes I’m not eating dinner until like nine o’clock or 10 o’clock at night anyway, because I have to get my skipping in first.

Sarah (56:32)
Yeah.

No, I don’t want to.

Do you, how long do you normally skip for when you go out now? Like when you go out into the park, say tomorrow, how long do you normally skip?

Dizzy Skips (56:56)
It depends. I’ve gotten to the point where I am taking more breaks. I’m trying to be more respectful of my ankles. So I will usually go to like one spot and skip for somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half. And then I’ll go to the car and then I’ll drive somewhere else. That might be another location within the same park or I might go to a different city and then jump in a different spot.

But it depends on the day. a weekday, I’d say I probably jump two to three hours a day. And on weekends, on a weekend day, probably more like six, four to six.

Sarah (57:27)
haven’t frozen, I literally was in shock. Okay, you’ll be fine at the jump rope meetup. I was gonna say what’s your recovery plan, but you’ll be fine. No worries.

Dizzy Skips (57:29)
Yeah

Yeah,

yeah, I get a lot of time in and I feel fortunate to be able to make that time to use because I feel like it’s helped me progress and I’ve actually started formalizing.

Sarah (57:44)
yeah, compared to when we first started

talking, not like the podcast time, but like when we first started talking, your progression is mad on how confident you are with the rope now. It’s excellent. Like how free flowing you are and how the different type of strides that you have and the different styles and the different shuffles. Yeah, you’ve progressed massively and that’s obviously shown with the amount of time that you’ve done with it as well. So yeah, it’s nice to see.

Dizzy Skips (57:55)
Mm.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. I have so much fun with it and it’s, it’s hard when it is your happy place, you know, like when it is my bubble, when it is my force field, you know, it’s hard not to be there. Like there are so many times, like during the day where I’m at work where I’m like, yeah, I’ll deal with this customer and whatever, but I just can’t wait till five o’clock rolls around and I can feed the dog and get her pottied and then go out and jump for a bit, you know.

Sarah (58:12)
So long.

and

Yeah, it’s an addiction, but I’d rather have this addiction than anything else. Yeah, sure. I haven’t, I haven’t, I kind of spin the ropes, but I haven’t dedicated that much time since I’ve, I find it really hard not to jump. So as I put on the reel last night, I struggled to do a skill and not jump the rope. And I’m like, just want to jump it once. And I’m not completely allowed to.

Dizzy Skips (58:35)
Log that time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (58:57)
stop impact so that’s why I’ve continued my cardio classes. So actually more now I’m dedicating more time to the gym than I am my jump rope but I know that I haven’t lost it yet but the muscle memory is still there and I’m still trying to just spin it just keep spinning it and I’ll just spin instead of doing a trick or something like that and I am enjoying that kind of journey now but I am I’m itching it’s only been like four weeks and I’m itching to get back to it it’s not even been four weeks.

Dizzy Skips (59:06)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Yeah.

Sarah (59:24)
since I got the kind of hiatus. No, it must be just literally four weeks. Cause it was just before the jump rope meetup that I got told that if I keep jumping it will rupture. I’m like, okay, great. Thanks. But I’m not allowed to stop completely because then when I start again, it will die. It will go. My foot will go. So I’m, I’m at the point now where I think it’s going to be about another six, about five to six months before I can properly jump rope again.

Dizzy Skips (59:25)
Yeah.

Okay.

you

Sarah (59:50)
So I’ve got to put in a disaster recovery plan. Like you say, you’re kind to your ankles. I’ve got to be kind to my body. So I’m going to be now rooting down the whole wraps like Eilidh. Never. But that kind of thing. So get in a groove, do it to music, do it to timings, do it to songs, try and get down that route again. So that would be kind of part of my recovery as well as getting strong and hench.

Dizzy Skips (59:50)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

that’s been part of what I’ve been doing too. Like even the last week I’ve had a few days where I really tried not to jump, but when I put headphones on and put a rope in my hand, it’s really hard not to, but I’ve been working on a lot of rope flow stuff and like wrist wraps and changing direction and just working on flow. And so I’ve got a bunch of drills with that, but yeah, when the Jay-Z song kicks in, it’s hard not to get the feet moving.

Sarah (1:00:42)
Yeah, when that “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” kicks in. Yeah, there’s loads of, yeah. You know me and you are the same. I think that I really enjoy rope flow a lot more than I did and I appreciate it a lot more. Now my body’s getting stronger because the muscles you use and if you feel that muscle contracting like your core and whatever you’re doing when you’re flowing in your back and your lats, core.

Dizzy Skips (1:00:44)
Yeah.

Sarah (1:01:08)
Christ, it’s a good workout. Like, my goodness, mate, like really, really good workout. Especially if you keep drilling the same moves. That’s why I don’t really record much of it because most of the time I’m generally in the garden and I’m just flowing and flowing. I’ll be doing it the mornings when I’m hula hooping and those types of stuff. And it’s those types of things. And I think maybe take your flow rope with you when you go because you might as well. Yeah, you might as well because you never know who pulls out one of those and then.

Dizzy Skips (1:01:10)
It is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I’ll take one. Yeah.

Sarah (1:01:36)
You get a flow going on and get some inspiration for new moves as well. So yeah, that’s a good point. I don’t think I said flow rope.

Dizzy Skips (1:01:38)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I think flow rope too can just be beautiful. I mean, it is a good workout and stuff. Learning to handle the flow rope has helped my jump rope flow immensely. And so, yeah, and just…

Sarah (1:01:55)
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Dizzy Skips (1:02:00)
I think it’s really beautiful. can be a dance. I mean, it can be like martial arts. It can be a dance. It can be just really mechanical. But I just think it’s fun and beautiful and very dancey. And I have a ball with it.

Sarah (1:02:10)
Yeah, I started,

I was more mechanical and I liked the structured things and my husband showed me because he used to do martial arts and did like rope darts and things like that. So, you know, the really sharp darts at the end of ropes and throw them around. So he showed me some moves with that, not with the rope darts, we don’t have that anymore, but like with the flow rope. And I kind of became more, not rigid, but structured. Let’s call it structured flow. And then

Dizzy Skips (1:02:22)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Sarah (1:02:37)
I’ve now been dancing a lot more with it. God, jeez, I love it so much. Like that just freedom and the hips going and you’re of all myself there and with a flow rope and you’re like, where does this even come from? Yeah, I do like dancing with it. It’s definitely a, it’s a different, completely different thing that I never thought I’d like. But you know how you was on about earlier with the meditation? I’ve started yoga now.

Dizzy Skips (1:02:50)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (1:03:03)
When I’m in yoga, I’m still struggling to get in that mind frame where I’ve shut that bad boy off because it just won’t. But I am getting into the breathing and getting into the movements and things fine. But with flow rope, I kind of feel it’s not an orb, it’s almost like a shield. Does that make sense? Because generally you’re always on one side, it’s never really going under you. So you’re not creating that, you’re not creating that full field around. So when it’s like, when it’s going around you,

Dizzy Skips (1:03:12)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Right.

Yeah.

Sarah (1:03:30)
and going behind, I kind of like, I feel like I’m throwing a shield round. I know that might sound a bit crazy, but I do, feel like it’s like a really thick, cause mine’s really thick, feel like a really thick piece of armor that I’m going around with. And I’m like, oh my God, this feels really strong. And I just love it. It’s just, I never expected myself to love it, but I do feel in like a, point I was getting to, I feel like I’m in a meditated state with a flow rope. We’re a jump rope, it’s manic, it’s maniac. And I’m like, yeah, go!

Dizzy Skips (1:03:34)
Yeah. No, it makes perfect sense.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (1:03:58)
Whatever

music I’ve got going on, it’s fast paced and I’m generally going like 10 to a dozen. But with a flow rope, I feel like a meditation bar when you smack yourself because that canes. It’s the worst hits, worst hits. But yeah, when I’m with a flow, it’s just like a shield. And I’m in like, I’m not in a bubble. I’m in completely in a meditated state and I can actually switch the brain off. And I don’t know why. It’s weird.

Dizzy Skips (1:04:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (1:04:24)
weird

little thing that

Dizzy Skips (1:04:26)
I know for me part of it, and I feel the same thing, for me part of it is that I still listen to music. So that’s keeping some rhythm going. And I am…

Sarah (1:04:31)
Yeah, yeah, me too.

Dizzy Skips (1:04:38)
oftentimes timing with music, right? So if I’m listening to Dirt Off Your Shoulder, there’s a beat there and I’m having the rope hit on the beat or the half beat or something like that. And so that’s the extent of my thinking really is I’m moving, I’m moving with the beat, I’m changing directions, I’m wrapping, whatever.

Sarah (1:04:40)
look there.

Yeah, in the song’s images.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you listen to that while you’re flow-roping? How? no. So my mood, this is probably why I go into a bit of a meditated state. I change it up. I go either Pearl Jam or something really melodic. Like seriously, I go proper grunge. ⁓ Yeah, Pearl Jam is one of my favorite ones. And sometimes I have a little bit of a cry. Flow-rope makes me cry a little bit.

Dizzy Skips (1:04:57)
Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Sarah (1:05:20)
And I don’t

Dizzy Skips (1:05:20)
sure.

Sarah (1:05:20)
know why it’s done that every time I’ve tried, like most times I’ve tried it. I think I told you the last time I was on, went and I almost to break down. I can’t remember what song I was listening to, but it was so meaningful at that point. And I got so angry. I think it was a Linkin Park song for some reason. But yeah, again, was faster and heavier, but now I’ve started to, maybe it’s my old age.

Dizzy Skips (1:05:28)
Really?

Yeah.

Sarah (1:05:43)
Maybe I’ve started to calm down a bit, but yeah, I’ve started to go into like really grunge rocky type stuff into it. Pearl Jam Pearl Jam hits hard. Me listening to Jeremy and flowing to that is fast. But it gets some real good. It gets some good good anger out.

Dizzy Skips (1:05:49)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, a while, probably

a couple months ago I did, is it elderly woman in the counter by us or elderly woman in a small town by the counter? I forget what the name of that song is, but you know, which one I seem to recognize your face. Yeah, it’s, it’s a slower Pearl Jam song, but that’s a good flowy one. Yeah.

Sarah (1:06:12)
I I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I didn’t know it. Yeah, I was just trying to think.

Ah, nice. Yeah, it is. They are great to listen to, but I like that kind of flow, if that makes sense. That kind of flow. So I might have to try it to fast dance songs. Why haven’t I done that? don’t know.

Dizzy Skips (1:06:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

I think it’s fun to kind of mix it up. Sometimes it’s fun to put on something really slow and do it double time. You know, like if you’ve got something that’s got a really slow beat, you can get the rope going at twice the speed of the song or something like that. Do you know what I mean?

Sarah (1:06:35)
We’re on.

Hmm.

Yeah,

you’re more advanced than me. All right, fine, dizzy. Yeah, no, I’ll try it. I will try it. I promise I will 100 % try it. I generally always go to the same playlist though. That’s my problem. So I need to go out my comfort zone. Obviously, I’m on it. I’m on to Jay Z It might have to be Jay Z / Linkin Park. Yes, I do.

Dizzy Skips (1:06:50)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Do you use Spotify? Yeah.

Spotify has their AI DJ and I’ve been using the AI DJ quite a bit.

Sarah (1:07:10)
Well, I could, but the problem is that my daughter uses Spotify. We have a Spotify playlist for her, so I have Gabby’s Dollhouse and Bluey Songs. So if it de-drones that for me, I will flip.

Dizzy Skips (1:07:14)
⁓

Yeah, no.

No, you have to get the family plan where you get her or her own login so that her music choices don’t influence yours. But yeah.

Sarah (1:07:29)
Yeah, I will have a look at it. I think I’ve heard about it. I’ve heard good things about it. But yeah.

Dizzy Skips (1:07:34)
What’s

nice is that it sort of mines your catalog and it’ll play things that you listen to. Like it’ll say, Hey, you know, it also gives you fun facts. Like it told me, Hey, in April, you listened to 5,666 minutes of Spotify. I was like, what sort of crazy person does that? And when you consider that

Sarah (1:07:50)
It’s year’s worth of some

people.

Dizzy Skips (1:07:53)
Yeah, it always tells me like you’re in the top 1 % of Emily Brandt listeners or you you’ve listened to The Chainsmokers more than anyway, but it’s fun but it’ll it’ll playback songs that you already listened to and then find songs of similar genre and suggest them. So

Sarah (1:07:58)
Nice. Yay.

that are similar genre. Yeah, and I,

yeah, I have an eclectic mix of stuff though. But also the heaviest of metal, which I’m about to go to next week, I’m going back to my first metal festival since having my daughter. So I’m like, mama’s gonna let loose. I’m still not drinking, so that’s fine. I’m gonna drive everyone, but yeah, I am.

Dizzy Skips (1:08:19)
Yeah?

Sarah (1:08:25)
I’m driving everyone down and we’re there for the whole night and headlining, I know. And I just can’t wait. I can’t wait to be in a field with loads of sweaty people. It’s going to be amazing.

So depending how Chicago goes, do reckon you’re going to plan another one or is that too soon to tell?

Dizzy Skips (1:08:42)
yeah, no, I mean, I’m a convert already. Like I know I’m gonna love it. I know I’m gonna have the time of my life. So yeah, my goal, I wanna get to London next year and do at least a meetup in London. If I had my druthers, I would come to Europe for like a month because you guys have actually meetup after meetup after meetup in July and August and September. So yeah, I would love to come hang out and travel around but.

Sarah (1:09:02)
Yeah, constant. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (1:09:08)
Yeah, I don’t know what the next meetup is. I’ve heard rumors of potentially one in the New York area in a few months. if that happened, I would totally do that as well. But yeah.

Sarah (1:09:20)
Yeah,

I suppose it’s a lot easier to get to something into America than it is probably all the way over here, but I appreciate that you’re already planning it and thinking about it, so that’d be cool. And you know, I already told you I’d be the first signing up going to it. I don’t care what’s going on. I don’t care if there’s a family holiday. I’m like, you take the kid, I’m going to London.

Dizzy Skips (1:09:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s great

Sarah (1:09:39)
my husband

hears that and watch it on repeat and be like what? ⁓ But yeah, I 100 % will be there and I know plenty of other people will as well because I think everyone kind of looked at this London one. my god, there’s so many people that came from different walks of life in different countries. It was, I think it was 11 continents in the end? 11 continents? No, three continents, 11 countries. I’ve gone the wrong way around. No, there isn’t 11.

Dizzy Skips (1:09:43)
Yeah.

I know.

kind. There’s gonna say there aren’t 11 continents. Yeah.

Sarah (1:10:06)
Three continents, 11 countries, yeah, and however many people, mad, absolutely mad. And that’s what I loved about it as well because I hope I get to experience something like that again. I don’t know if it will be on that scale. If it will, it will be bigger and it will be amazing. But yeah, it was just so fun to do. And it was funny that the Australian gang were like, it’s cold here. And I’m like, this is hot. Get out of the country.

Dizzy Skips (1:10:07)
It’s amazing. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sarah (1:10:36)
This is warm for us! they couldn’t hack the humidity. So they said it’s too humid here and I’m like, you live in like 40 degree temperatures, what are you on about? But also, they have pools, so you know.

Dizzy Skips (1:10:38)
I know it’s their winter time now, right? And they come to your summer and say it’s cold.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sarah (1:10:54)
Yeah, so

I think it was dead fun, I hope I get to experience another one like that. I hope I get to jump at one like that, at least try and get some video footage with people, but I don’t really go for that. I do get chance to video with someone, then I’ll happily do it, but I’m just more happy just to go say, hey, how you doing, catch up and that type of stuff. I kind of take them as that. I’m not like a meetup veteran, but while I’m injured…

That’s all I can really do. And that’s really what I like. There’s one happening near me, which is really unfortunate this weekend. It’s like a last minute announcement that Chris has done. And I could get there within an hour, but we’re away, we’re camping. So Stacey was like, and you’re coming. was like,

Dizzy Skips (1:11:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mmm, yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (1:11:37)
I’m all the way north. I’m not gonna be here. But yeah, like in the summer it’s mad. They’re all over. I’d love to do Paris. I’d love to do Germany. I’d love to do them all. So at one point I’ll be able to, but it won’t be anytime soon. I’m like you. I’m just like, it’ll happen at some point, but not yet. Paris for me will be the next big one that I wanna do. I’d love to try that. I’d love to go. Yeah, Amsterdam. Yeah. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (1:11:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Amsterdam too. Gotta do Amsterdam.

Sarah (1:12:04)
plenty of them. They’re so fun.

Dizzy Skips (1:12:06)
Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for coming on to talk to me about meetups. I was already super hyped, but now I’m even more hyped and I’m going to have to report back to you. I’m going to take an extra power pack with me. I’m going to take an extra phone, lots of charge. So I plan on taking lots of video, maybe doing some little man on the street interviews.

Sarah (1:12:10)
Thank you for having me.

Yeah. ⁓ power pipe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That’d be wicked. Yes, I know, 100%. Yeah, that’d be brilliant, that will. Yeah, I can’t wait to see. just, even if you don’t get that much footage, I just want to hear about it. Just do like a video of you just talking about it afterwards. Everyone will watch it because they’ll be so happy that you’ve done one finally. And I can’t believe it’s going to be your first one. And I want a voice note from you, like in the morning, if you’re buzzing around like a hummingbird. But no, thank you for having me on.

Dizzy Skips (1:12:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, right. Yeah, I’ll probably post something during the day. Of course. Yeah, it’s always my pleasure to talk to you.

Sarah (1:12:55)
Yes, and hopefully again soon. All right, thank you.

Dizzy Skips (1:12:58)
Yes.