Jump Rope Saved His Life: Darren Johnson on Meetups & Mental Health

Darren (00:00)
Bum, bum, bum.

Dizzy Skips (00:01)
The intro music courtesy of Darren.

Darren (00:04)
I’m

only a little bit excited.

Dizzy Skips (00:09)
Yeah.

Darren Johnson, @onebadleg – thank you so much for joining me on the Jump Rope Podcast. I’m so excited to have you here.

Darren (00:17)
I’m excited to be here, mate. I’m absolutely buzzing. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (00:20)
Yeah, I

bet you’re buzzing because yesterday was the big jump rope meetup in London, right? And you were there. I saw pictures.

Darren (00:28)
Oh my goodness. So I’m going to try not to sound over excited, but I’m still really excited. It was so good. It was so good. I’ll tell you what, what I think what makes it for me is the fact that so many people travel from so far away to get people from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, these aren’t around the corner. Do you know when I was talking to Penny, who come in from Australia to think

Dizzy Skips (00:36)
Yeah.

I

Darren (00:55)
and that she she had to leave her house on Tuesday to come and jump rope with us on Saturday. You know, it just seems like what? The fact that she wanted to do it was just like this is mind blowing to me. yeah, was so good to meet everybody. Brilliant! It’s

Dizzy Skips (01:01)
I know, right?

I know.

Yeah,

It’s so fun to see pictures and last year I saw pictures of it and I was like, I know that person. I know that person. And this time I saw pictures like friends, all of them.

Darren (01:19)
⁓

Yeah, you know so many people now. We’ve all been chatting for so long doing this. It’s been great. It’s been absolutely…

Dizzy Skips (01:27)
Yeah, yeah, it was cool.

I actually got a message from Penny yesterday morning saying, hey, you know, I know you couldn’t be here, but ⁓ I wanted you to know that people were talking about the podcast and how, you know, it’s bringing people together. And I was like, that’s such a nice thing to hear. You know, I love that.

Darren (01:39)
Yeah.

I’m just

kidding. Well, we do jump rope. I was telling anyone that would listen yesterday, I’m on Dizzy’s podcast tomorrow.

Dizzy Skips (01:49)
⁓ Nice. Right. Cool.

Darren, you’re in England, correct?

Darren (01:58)
Yes, I am. mean, so the way it’s worked, I’m in a place called ⁓ Bedfordshire, which is my county. And then I’m in a place like what would be like a village called Bedford. So yeah, so yeah, it’s a nice little place.

Dizzy Skips (02:04)
Okay.

Okay.

And how far away is that from London?

Darren (02:14)
So from London, it’s for, to say, if we say London is about 45 minutes to maybe an hour away. ⁓ So it’s on the outskirts basically. So it’s nice and quiet. Like Hyde Park, for example, when we went to Hyde Park yesterday, that is roughly an hour and a half away from me. So, in a past job, I say, I have driven the length and breadth of the UK. So I’ve been, yeah, I’ve been all the way to Scotland and all the way down to Cornwall.

Dizzy Skips (02:20)
Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah?

Darren (02:42)
as in one point I did that all in one day once so yeah exactly and that was was work so an hour and a half for me on on the motorbike now because I’m on a motorbike rather than in a car is absolutely nothing it’s not it’s that’s around the corner

Dizzy Skips (02:42)
Wow.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s nice.

So what do you do for work?

Darren (03:02)
So I work for a company that deals with ⁓ its school systems, basically. So in the old days, I don’t know how it works in obviously in the States where you are. But, know, you’ve got obviously going to school and you take the school register and like your behavior and all that sort of thing. Any incidents you get into, I if you cut yourself or you get an achievement or anything like that, anything to do with the student being in the school, ⁓ like the staff.

Dizzy Skips (03:09)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (03:30)
it all used to be on pen and paper in books. So of course, now we’ve all computerized. So we’ve got different systems, obviously, you’ve always got like one, one major one, which is pretty much who I work for. And then you’ve got like other companies, so they’re all competing. So yes, that’s basically what I do. I work in the school services, as I said, on this, this, this program called Sims. And the team that I work for is the best way to describe what we do is

Dizzy Skips (03:33)
Sure. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (03:57)
If you were working in a school and you had a problem with things, you had an issue with it, or you wanted to, you you just suggested a change to it, that would then go through the channel through the developers, etc. The developers would then all that do all the backend stuff, make sure it all works. But then it comes through to my team, and then we test it as if we were a user in the school. So it’s all well and good that they’re changing that they’ve made, working, but when the user in the school presses button A,

Dizzy Skips (04:05)
Mm-hmm.

right?

Mm-hmm.

Darren (04:26)
it might all go pear shaped. So my team makes sure that all the changes they’ve made or all the additions they’ve done don’t break anything else. So we literally test all the new changes and then what we do what we call regression testing. So we test the old stuff as well to make sure nothing’s broken. Once we sign it off, then the company can release all the changes and like the new releases and new versions, etc. So yeah, I love it. love it. Yeah, it’s really good. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (04:28)
Right, right.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yeah.

Interesting. That’s cool. Yeah. Do

you do, I’m curious, I do development stuff as well. So do you do any like automated testing as part of this? Like when the developers release a new version, are there automated tests that are run? You mentioned like regression testing and we use visual regression testing in a lot of our stuff.

Darren (05:09)
Right. ⁓ Well, think the developers do more of the ⁓ that testing, whereas for us, it’s still quite manual. Yeah. So, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (05:15)
Mm-hmm.

And

then you just kind of feedback to them like, when, when I did X, Y happened and that’s not supposed to be that way.

Darren (05:24)
Exactly, exactly.

because it could be sometimes it’s literally they’ll make a change and it could be something really silly like on the screen on the next screen, it’s made where they’ve made the change. It’s made the text too big. But of course, they’re not going to see that from from their end. And they’re just making sure that that the change that they make is doing what it’s supposed to do. So, yeah, we’ve had instances where we have to then send it back to them and say, right, such as such has happened. Go on to this screen. And obviously, we send them screenshots.

Dizzy Skips (05:38)
Mm.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Darren (05:53)
and explain to them what’s happened, what’s broken, or what looks different, what they can fix. And then they just come back and obviously change it. And then we retest it again. As I said, it doesn’t go to Joe Public until my team has said, you can send it out. So yeah, but I love it. There’s six of us in my team and we’re kind of like a close group. ⁓ yeah, so it’s brilliant. They’re a great bunch.

Dizzy Skips (05:53)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, cool.

I’m curious, this is totally not jump rope related, how much does accessibility figure into your testing? Do you have accessibility specialists on your end that are testing from the perspective of what if someone had to use a screen reader or maybe they were blind or something like that?

Darren (06:18)
Yeah.

So we don’t actually test those sort of things. That’s all that’s incorporated in the software. So the accessibility is already there, but it’s not something that we actually test. I have to admit that. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (06:35)
Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay. Got it. Yeah.

I do some accessibility testing for website stuff and it’s so interesting. Like it’s so easy for me as a sighted user to take for granted the experience I have when I go to a website. But when you realize that there are people who, you know, have websites read to them by software and they learn how to use that software, it’s, and it can be really trippy to watch people use a screen reader software to use a website. Yeah.

Darren (06:56)
Yes.

No, no.

I’ve seen it before and yeah and it’s just

wow and even like the ones when you know for example that the control or delete button when it’s when it’s used to tell you what which buttons to press and ⁓ my goodness I never even never gave that any thought being just doing it myself yeah so yeah ⁓

Dizzy Skips (07:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. I

noticed though, as I get older and my eyes, you know, like someone told me like, Hey, when I turned 40, my eyes, like overnight started getting worse. And that was like exactly my experience too. Right. Like I was like bifocals. Yeah. I’m the guy who’s holding stuff way out here just to read it.

Darren (07:44)
⁓ see this for me happened in lockdown. I promise you, During lockdown, I would like to do my videos and I’m like, this with my phone. Is that? No, no, it’s not my eyes. I’m turning lights on. I’m making everything brighter. I’m like, no, no, it’s not me. It must be something with the phone. Yeah. Exactly. goodness.

Dizzy Skips (07:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Is that an I or an L? Wait, or N? Yeah. I’ve done that myself.

I didn’t look up, but we’ve been connected for probably about a year now. And one of the first things I remember about seeing your reels and loving about watching you jump is your flow. Like, first of all, you’re a footwork guy. Like I love your footwork.

and your flow just seemed so natural and easy and not forced, man. Like I’ve watched you and I was like, I want to flow like that guy, man. I want people to watch me and go smooth. And that’s what I think about when I see you skip, man, smooth.

Darren (08:39)
Well,

thank you. Do know what it is? And the funny thing is, people said, like you said this to me, and I was considered me as being like a lazy jumper. And the reason I say lazy jumper is because when I watch people do like triple unders and they’re doing these wraps and then they’re doing this and I’m like, and there’s me just taking my time. So I always call it my lazy boy style. That’s how I always describe it. It’s just a lazy boy. I only ever boxer skip.

Dizzy Skips (08:49)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Darren (09:09)
That’s fine. I tried the whole dancing with the music and I was like, no, this isn’t me. This is not me. I’m trying so hard to do it that in the end it stopped being fun. And that’s why I started to do like leg wraps and stuff like that. Cause I’ve got a lower back problem as well. So doing leg wraps, obviously it’s fine when you can do it, it’s brilliant. But obviously to do it, you’ve got to keep practicing these things and to keep practicing it. And eventually it’s just like, no, I’ll just stick to my, my,

Dizzy Skips (09:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Darren (09:39)
the start of that too.

Dizzy Skips (09:40)
Yeah, I know. I’ve talked to my friend Richard about this. Like that idea of, yeah, I want to learn that leg wrap or I want to learn that cool new trick, but I also just want to go flow. And sometimes the flow, you know, is just so worth it, you know.

Darren (09:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Just put on the music and just go with it. Yeah. Just go with it. But yeah, yeah, I love it. I actually love it.

Dizzy Skips (09:57)
Yeah, yeah.

So

when did you get started jumping, Darren?

Darren (10:03)
So we’re going back to, so I think it was roughly 2019. So yeah, towards the end of 2019. So I was at the gym, was, I was basically, I put on some weight and I was having back issues and stuff like that. So was one of those trying to lose weight. was trying to go to the, Rob, I don’t like the idea of just sitting on a diet or whatever. So I’ve always done sports. So weight was never a thing for me until

Dizzy Skips (10:09)
Okay.

And what got you started?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (10:32)
I have to admit, until I left school, weight was never an issue. I’m one of those people that can eat whatever they liked and never bothered, you know, because I was always running around, I was always moving. But then obviously you leave school, you then get into an office, you keep eating like you were at school, you know, but the body says, well, I don’t need to burn this off. I’m just going to hold on to that. And then before you know it, yeah, your knees are aching because you put on this weight, your stomach’s kind of hanging. You’re like, where did this come from? And it takes so much longer to get it off than it does to put it on.

Dizzy Skips (10:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Darren (11:02)
So yeah, was just, was at the gym and I just wanted, I didn’t really do much cardio. I was sitting there doing, you know, bench press and shoulder press, all these presses and pulling and weights basically. And then yeah, someone suggested obviously why don’t you take up the, you know, the skipping and then that was it. So skipping was literally once a week for me. It was just something else to do in the gym. That was really it. So.

Dizzy Skips (11:02)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Were there

other people in the gym that were skipping that suggested this to you?

Darren (11:30)
No, this was a colleague actually. So one of the guys in my team. So in my team that I work with this, what, there’s seven of us. Yeah. Five ladies and there’s two blokes. So, it was the other guy, he was like into the gym as well. Um, and he was, he got really got into his skipping. He was really going to skip it all up until he’s, he had problems with his sciatica. And then that’s when he kind of had to stop, which is a bit of a shame because he was doing really well. But, um, yeah, I borrowed his rope. I bought a rope actually.

Dizzy Skips (11:33)
Okay.

Mm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Darren (12:00)
I bought one from Amazon, the classic, the Thor on an Amazon. I could tell you without wanting to shout them out or whatever like that. I’m not being horrible to him, but it was one of those beast ropes, the wire one. And you don’t know, you just go, I need a rope. I needed to go fuck. So I bought this rope and yes, whipped myself and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, absolutely terrible. And then he bought one of Rushy’s ropes.

Dizzy Skips (12:02)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Darren (12:29)
So he lent me that and the difference was amazing. that was it. From when I borrowed that, yeah, yeah. From when I borrowed that rope, that was it, I was hooked. So as I said, I looked forward, even though it was still only once a week, I went out and bought one, but I was enjoying my skipping once a week as part of my gym work. So, and then obviously we got to lockdown and gyms were closed. Now what do we do? Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (12:33)
Yeah, like night and day, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. What

Was the Rushie rope? Was it a PVC one or a beaded rope? Yeah.

Darren (12:59)
PVC. I am

I do know what the funny thing was, I never really got into beaded ropes. So we were in in lockdown, and then I got into beaded ropes. But even still, so we’re talking that so we’ve gone to 2020 now. So even then, when I saw people with beaded ropes, and I just thought I’m not one for following gap gimmicks and fads and stuff like that. So I stuck with my PVC thinking that it’s nothing. And then I started seeing people doing I don’t know.

Dizzy Skips (13:10)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (13:29)
I think it was like turns and I think I saw the odd release. I was like, how on earth did they do that? So I started trying to learn it with the, the PVC. And then obviously throughout videos and someone suggested, you know, try the beaded. And then I was like, you know what, let me just, if I’m into this jump rope, let me try it. What’s it going to hurt? And I’ve not looked back, honestly, not look back. Coach Chris (@thejumpropecoachchris). So I bought one of his ropes. But I’m one of these people that I go crazy with it.

Dizzy Skips (13:47)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Yeah, they’re awesome.

Darren (13:58)
So and Chris, if you ever speak to Coach Chris, oh, you did speak to him before. So he would tell you, I bought one of his ropes and then I bought so many beads. I’ve still got them in my drawer in the in the bedroom. I’ve got enough beads for me to make about three ropes still. Do you know? It’s just like, yeah, and that’s it. I buy spare beads and then it was like, oh, so many colors. Actually, I could make another rope. So I think I had one rope for maybe

Dizzy Skips (14:02)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. You just bought spare beads?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Darren (14:26)
I don’t know, maybe two, three years. And I just kept changing the beads on it.

Dizzy Skips (14:31)
Yeah, just doing surgery.

Darren (14:32)
Yeah, that was it. The bead surgery . Plus that

was all part of it. That was all part of the fun as well. Yeah, I think there’s all these different colour ways to change it, you know. So yeah, yeah, good fun.

Dizzy Skips (14:38)
Yeah, yeah.

That’s so funny. I was, I was literally on his site on Thursday night and I put a few ropes in my basket and then I was like, beads. All right. Yeah. What colors am I going to get? And I’m just putting black beads, white beads, and you can even do custom ropes on Coach Chris’s site where you, can tell them what colors you want and they’ll assemble it for you. But yeah. When you bought the beaded rope, did you get the one with a thickened cord Yeah.

Darren (14:55)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s brilliant. Honestly, he’s absolutely brilliant. He’s such a cool guy.

No, the first

time I bought was the thinner one. Yeah. And then I was like, so then you start to get a collection going, don’t you? So you’re like, well, I need that one now. And I think it was only simply because he showed he advertised the thickened cord in a certain color way. And I like the color. So I bought that rope. But I never really gave it any thought as to whether I want the thinner cord or the thicker cord or whatever. Yeah. And so now it’s always been it’s always going to be the thicker cord.

Dizzy Skips (15:13)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But you noticed the difference, didn’t you? Yeah.

Darren (15:39)
Always. Yeah, definitely.

Dizzy Skips (15:39)
Yeah, 100%. 100%. Yeah, that feedback

is just tasty. I love it.

Darren (15:45)
Yeah,

well, this is the thing. I say to everybody now when I speak to anyone and they always like, what rope should I get? And I only ever suggest a beaded one. I always say to them, so look, try get the beaded one first, because you can do everything with the beaded. If you want to go fast, then you can get the thinner one. And then if you want a bit heavier, get the thicker cord, but then the PVC afterwards. So learn all the stuff with the beaded. It’s so much easier for a beginner and then go into PVC.

Dizzy Skips (15:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, I am totally with you. And I’ve kind of graduated to thinking like I’ve heard that for beginners, like if you’re a beginner, start with beaded But I mean, I’m I’m still kind of a beginner. mean, I’ve been at it for a little while, but I think beaded is just so great for learning regardless of your skill level. It’s like just that feedback and that and speed like you could go really fast with beaded. ⁓

Darren (16:16)
Mmm.

the ⁓

100 percent.

Dizzy Skips (16:44)
You know, and

my sort of feeling is like, if I can get fast and I can move my feet with a beaded rope, then when I, you know, go down to a PVC rope, then it’s kind of like floating. Like,

Darren (16:54)
Yeah. Yeah,

it really is. And then to take it even further, if you were to then get a weighted rope, ⁓ like the seven millimeter or something like that, which at first feels like what on am I doing with this? But once you the hang of that and you get used to using that, when you then go, like you said, go down either to a beaded rope or even to a PVC, it’s literally I’m throwing around this bit of spaghetti. What is going on?

Dizzy Skips (17:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know,

I know. Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. It’s so much fun. I did that the other day. I’ve got a half pound weighted rope and I was, I started skipping with that and then went down to a beaded rope like this. And then I bought the dice bundle from coach Chris, which is a thickened cord, beaded rope, and then a five mil PVC. And then I tried the five mil PVC and that just, I love the sound of that thing whipping around, man. Yeah. Yeah.

Darren (17:23)
Yeah, yeah,

flies, it just flies. It’s unbelievable.

And so now I use the I’m on Jump Theory. I love the Jump Theory rope. It’s heavier than then it’s probably the heaviest beaded rope. can only say it’s the heaviest beaded rope you’ll probably find. But it’s something to you if you get if you like it, stick with it and eventually you get used to it. So it doesn’t feel heavy to me now. But I’m so used to the weight of it that my releases were for my releases and stuff like that. When I then go back to the

Dizzy Skips (17:49)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Darren (18:16)
The Coach Chris rope, that’s so light and I have to get, it takes me a minute to get used to it because it’s so light compared to the other one. But yeah, no, those are the two. keep the Jump Theory I only ever use indoors or on my mat because I, simply because I can’t replace the beads. Whereas the Coach Chris one, I’ve got tons of beads and you know, it can take me pretty much, you know, a couple of days to get a new set of beads if I need it. And then yeah, away I go. yeah, that’s how I, those are the two that I use most of the time.

Dizzy Skips (18:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sure.

I’ve seen reels of you in the park jumping on a mat. Do you always jump on a mat? Yeah.

Darren (18:52)
Yeah, yeah, I

do now. Let’s us face I’m not a young guy. I’m not a young guy. My days have been able to do all these all this stuff and then you know, be fine. No, I don’t know if you saw my story before we started this. I’ve had to ice my knee down all morning. My left. Yeah, my left knee is decided after yesterday’s running around and I didn’t even jump that much yesterday. was too busy chatting to everybody. But on the odd jumps I did on the concrete.

Dizzy Skips (18:58)
You

Yeah.

Yeah.

Darren (19:21)
Yeah, my knee doesn’t like it. Yeah, it gives me a bit of a jib. So it feels fine. Now that I’ve it, it’s fine again. It just swells up. So yeah, once I’ve iced it, it’s fine.

Dizzy Skips (19:23)
You feel it.

Yeah.

Good, yeah.

Yeah, mine complain at me too. I had a motorcycle accident when I was younger and broke my left knee. so sometimes it’ll kind of swell up like a grapefruit or whatever.

you know, I jump enthusiastically, I’d say and I do dance to music while I’m jumping, right? And so there were some songs where I was really enthusiastic and I’m like slamming my heel down to the ground when I’m tapping my heel It was like the way I would connect with the floor. You know, if I focus on having light feet, if I try to float,

then I come out okay. And even if I’m enthusiastic, I can be light on my feet and enthusiastic and look like I’m slamming, but yeah, I would hit my heel and all that energy would just transfer up to my knee and I would go home and be like, I’m an old man.

Darren (20:00)
Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah,

stay on the toes, on the balls of your feet, that’s what you need. Heels should never touch the floor. Heels only touch the floor when you’re walking. That is it.

Dizzy Skips (20:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Or when

you’re tapping you could tap them, right? Like, but you don’t slam.

Darren (20:26)
Well, yeah, exactly,

you can do your heel taps and stuff.

Dizzy Skips (20:30)
Yeah. So I, speaking of gear and stuff, I was thinking about the jump rope meetup yesterday while I’m out, you know, jumping by myself, thinking about all you guys having fun together. And I was thinking, what would I pack to go to a jump rope meetup? Like what would I put in my backpack? You know, so what all did you pack to take with you?

Darren (20:41)
Thank

You know what my my as far as jumping goes, I literally took two ropes. I took a beaded rope and I took a PVC rope. ⁓ That was it. I then took my tripod that I’m on. The phone is on now, which I never even used. I didn’t even get it out. Obviously a towel, my sweat band that I’ve always wear my sweat band just because I hate the sweat running in my eyes and I don’t want my face every two seconds. ⁓ So, yes, so my headband.

Dizzy Skips (20:56)
Okay.

Okay. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Darren (21:19)
Obviously something to drink, bottle of water, a little sandwich and some crisps. Even though where we jumped there’s literally a cafe across from where we are. It’s all of like five yards. But who wants to spend extra money? So yeah, so that’s pretty much what was in my bag. ⁓ the only other thing I took was my roller skates.

Dizzy Skips (21:21)
Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Your roller skates? Yeah.

Darren (21:39)
Yeah, Yeah,

I’ve been skating and so I’m one of these action kids. So until next, we literally lived on the street. We didn’t know nothing about this indoors. Indoors was a punishment for us. Yeah. If we couldn’t go out, we were in trouble. was just like, man, I hate my life. I can’t go out. I can’t go outside. So yeah, so football, anything running around my push bike and then roller skating. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (21:44)
Nice. Yeah, man.

I know. Right, right. I know.

I know. I know.

Yeah.

Darren (22:08)
That was me. Since I was about 10 years old, I’ve been roller skating and I’m still doing it.

Dizzy Skips (22:08)
Fun.

Nice. Nice. So was

that your first meetup?

Darren (22:18)
That was my first meetup this year. Yeah. I’ve been in. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We went to us to what we in our rooms. So that must be the in total. That might be my 10th maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been to a few because what happens obviously we’re we’re very lucky and I’m so appreciative now. Obviously speaking to so many of you guys from the states and stuff like that. And they’re like, I’d love to go to a meetup. But of course,

Dizzy Skips (22:21)
Okay, but you’ve been to Jump Rope Meetups before?

Okay. Yeah.

Darren (22:47)
Your meetup is literally you have to get on a plane. You have to fly to somewhere, whereas I just jump on the motorbike and I can be there in a couple of hours. You know, so yeah, and of course that’s that’s for all of us. So yeah, I’ve been up to up north. So I’ve been up to Manchester for me. I’ve been all the way down to London is the main one where we go to. ⁓ So yes, those are the two that I’ve been to. I keep threatening everybody. I’m going to go to the to Birmingham.

Dizzy Skips (22:50)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

cool.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Darren (23:16)
And I’m going to go to where are we in this bad? I’m trying to get Darby. So bad lives in. So I keep saying I’m going to shop at one of those. So, um, yeah, I am going to get there. For me, it’s okay to on the, I love going on the motorbike. I only ever ride the motorbike. I really hate transport sitting on the train. It’s just boring. Um, I’m not riding the bike, but if the weather’s fine, I’ll jump up and I’ll go. But if the weather’s bit rubbish, it’s like to go all the way up to, as I said, to ride three hours in the rain.

Dizzy Skips (23:21)
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (23:45)
to get there be soaking wet and then jump around all day and then have to ride throughout. So it’s not the people. If it was just for the people, I’d go every single time. But the journey, three hours sitting on the bike in the rain is no, that’s not what, yeah, it’s not what you want.

Dizzy Skips (23:46)
Yeah.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Yeah. So how, I’m curious to hear more about the meetup yesterday. Like how did it go? How long was it? What was the format like? What, and you, mentioned you didn’t skip as much as chat. I bet there was a whole bunch of that going on.

Darren (24:16)
This is it, exactly. So I got there for, because I wanted to roller skate first. So basically the park, Hyde Park in London, it’s one of the Royal parks. And I used to go there all the time, meet my friends most Sundays. Throughout the summertime, we would go there and do our roller skating. Then obviously we got into the jump rope and I stopped going roller skating so much and then started going down more for the jump ropes. So they would be on a Saturday. So to go down there on a Saturday for jump rope,

Dizzy Skips (24:38)
Mm-hmm.

Darren (24:46)
then come home and then go back down on the Sunday. Again, it’s all money. It’s all petrol and stuff like that. So I haven’t been down there so often on the Sunday to go roller skating. So because I don’t get that out so often, I took my skates with me. I thought, right, I’ll go early. I can skate up and down with the music. Again, it’s just my music on. So you get the skate. They do their dancing. They put the music on and they dance in the way. It looks great, but that’s not what I do. I like to just move.

Dizzy Skips (24:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Darren (25:12)
I like move and flow with the music as I’m rolling along. So that’s always been the way I’ve skated. So yeah, I had a little skate up and down. I got there for about, I don’t know, about half 10, maybe 11-ish. And then when I got there, funnily enough, there were some people that already started to be there. So Fabian, sorry, I got his name wrong again. That’s the English of me, calling him Fabian. His name’s Fabian. But being English, we just say Fabian. So apologies, Fabian.

Dizzy Skips (25:16)
Yeah. Cool.

Fabian.

show.

Darren (25:40)
So Fabian ( @fabian_schoen_coach ) was there and Jenny (@jennyjustjump). So I’ve been talking to Fabian for absolute, what, four or five years now. And this is the first time we got to meet. So yeah, it’s those little things that you get so excited about doing, seeing all these people that you’ve only seen on your phone, you know, and for them to suddenly be there, it’s like, oh man. So yeah, so we met up there and then obviously everyone started to turn up slowly.

Dizzy Skips (25:49)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (26:10)
And then you get there. It’s not even introductions because everyone kind of recognizes everybody. ⁓ my god, it’s you. my god, it’s you. So there’s all that hugging and chatting away and everything. And the area that where we normally jump, I don’t know how he does it. Chris always seems to organize these things. He’s just unlucky. At Hyde Park, they have these, they put on festivals, concerts as well. So he always seems to organize a Jump Rope meetup when they’ve got a festival on. And the festival is right next to where we jump rope.

Dizzy Skips (26:14)
Right. Yeah.

Okay.

You

Darren (26:39)
So it’s always crazy. It’s so uncanny. yeah, so we kind of go to the spot. Everyone puts their bags down, chats away and yeah, and then that’s it. We just pull the rope out and away we go. People are always, and it’s, as I always say to everybody, come down because it’s literally, it’s like, if there’s 60 people there, it’s like having 60 coaches. Everybody can teach somebody something. know, where you’re just learning and you can learn a simple cross or just a

Dizzy Skips (26:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Right.

Darren (27:09)
turn. And then before you know it, you’ve learned the turn and then you’re like, ⁓ yeah, you did such a such. How did you do that? Well, I’ll show you. And, you know, so everyone kind of goes home learning something new, which they would have found harder to learn over the phone. But because that person’s there, it’s, it’s so much easier. Ah, put your hand there and do that. wow, it’s so easy. So that’s of the things I love about it. They’re absolutely brilliant. So if you do ever get a chance to go to meetup

Dizzy Skips (27:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah

Darren (27:39)
I promise you, you’ll have the best time. You really will. Yeah, they are so good.

Dizzy Skips (27:41)
Yeah, Yeah,

it seems like just a day full of unlocks of all sorts. Like not just unlocking skills, but like friendships and, you know, community and stuff like that. There is a meetup. actually am scheduled to go to one now. There’s going to be one, I think on August 2nd in Chicago, which is about five hours away from me. So I’m going to.

Darren (27:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Check out that

I’m excited

for you. I’m honestly I’m excited for you because I know how much fun meetups are. So anyone that’s going to meetup, I’m excited for you honestly. I just need to mention Nick. Nick skips the news guy ( @nicksmithnews ). I always call him Nick the news guy. don’t know if you know him. He’s in Chicago. So Nick and I, we talk backwards and forwards. And so he was always saying about how he’d love to go to a meetup and stuff. So when I heard that

Dizzy Skips (28:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, I don’t know if I do either. Okay.

Darren (28:32)
there was one in Chicago, I sent him a message straight away. was like, Nick, there’s a meetup in Chicago and you’ve got to go. So I’ve not heard back from him, but I guess obviously because he’s busy or whatever. But I really hope that he goes and I hope you get to meet Nick because he for one will benefit so much. So from going to a meetup. Yeah. Yeah. So if you get to meet Nick, tell him I said hello.

Dizzy Skips (28:38)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool. Yeah, I’m excited.

All right, I will do that. I will do that. Yeah, I’m excited about it. I guess you had met several of these people from having gone to meetups before, right? So it was kind of like seeing some old friends and then seeing some people that you’d only seen on Instagram before. Yeah.

Darren (28:55)
Yeah.

You’ll have a

Yeah.

Exactly. So what

I would say is there’s a load of us that obviously met with the first, you know, been to meetup before. So it’s always great to see them. But then the likes of the people that have, you know, traveled in so Penny (@mid_century_skipper) and Fabian and who was it? There was a Pam (@pam.jumpz) as well. I think Pam’s from Canada. think so. I’m still astounded that these people have taken the time to get on a plane to come to England just to jump rope with us. It’s just like that’s nice. That’s mad.

Dizzy Skips (29:18)
Mm-hmm.

Peter.

Yep.

Yeah.

Darren (29:40)
But it’s so great about it. I love it. Absolutely love it. But yeah, you’ll have a brilliant time. And then Chris has always got, we play a few games. So it’s a case of like pretty much last man standing. So he does like double unders. Oh, we were doing backwards skip. So we’re doing backwards. So everyone does backwards. And you do, you know, at your own speed, there’s no set.

Dizzy Skips (29:40)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Darren (30:01)
pace or anything you have to keep. then part way through, Chris will say, right now one leg. So you think you’re comfortable doing it backwards. Now you’ve got to do it on one leg only. And that’s to weed people out. And it’s just so much fun. People are cheering each other on and clapping and yeah, it’s great fun. And then obviously you win a t-shirt. So yeah, it’s brilliant. Yeah. And then he does the, the, ⁓ the meetup combo. So you’ll probably have that as well to learn. there’ll be, which you can, they’re never too hard.

Dizzy Skips (30:06)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That’s great, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Darren (30:30)
that you

Dizzy Skips (30:31)
No, I saw Chris post

the beat up combo for London and I thought I could do that. You know, I practiced a little bit, but I could pull that off.

Darren (30:34)
Yeah, yeah, I was on. Exactly.

The funny thing is, right, Chris always does these And he always puts in this as I said to him yesterday, this was the first combo he did that I looked at I went, I can 100 % do everything in that. There’s always no more one move in there. And I’m like, ⁓ can’t do that. So when I when I still take part, don’t get me wrong, I never shy away from it. But I then I hang at the back. So I let those

Dizzy Skips (30:52)
Yep. Right. Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

Darren (31:04)
I’m just like, yeah, yeah, and I just cheer at the end when everyone else cheers. But I tripped up like two minutes ago. yeah. But no, yesterday’s one. I think there’s a video coming out which, oh dear, I kind of lost it a bit yesterday. I got a bit excited. The top came off and I was running around with this top over my head. Everyone was loving it. So yeah, I don’t know what gets into me sometimes.

Dizzy Skips (31:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Hahaha!

Darren (31:30)
So I’m waiting for Chris to find that, because think it was on someone who’s here before him. I think he’s got that. So that’s going to come out at some point. I’ll probably find a hole and bury myself in it. Yeah. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (31:35)
Yeah.

Nice.

Nah, it’s all fun, man. Yeah.

One of the things I just keep thinking about every time I think about meetups is when ⁓ @doc.jumps Em Foley, she was on, and she was telling me that she had heard a prior episode where I was talking to Aaron.

you know, @aaronjumps.365 and saying, about going to a meetup and how the introvert in me, you know, thought, Oh, this is really cool. But I might be one of those people who’s standing up against the wall with my back against the wall. Like don’t talk to me or whatever. And she was saying, no, like you gotta go because you don’t have to explain to these people why you’re an adult that jumps rope. Like everybody knows that already. And yeah.

Darren (32:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, 50%. That see that was another

one. Like you said, that was and I think what was that? That was a few years ago. It feels like last year to me. I think that was a couple of years ago. I didn’t know Doc was coming to England. So when I turned up for the meetup, and then I turned around and Doc was there and I was like, that can’t be Doc. She lives in Australia. And then she got close and I was like, wait a minute, that looks like Doc. And then it was like and I go, Oh my god, it’s Doc!

Dizzy Skips (32:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hell yeah, it’s Doc!

Darren (32:52)
Yeah, so that was brilliant. So yeah, honestly, you’ll have a brilliant time. I’m excited. I’m excited for you. I’m so excited for you. Yeah, you’ll have a great time.

Dizzy Skips (32:57)
Yeah. Nice.

Yeah, absolutely. We’ve already talked a little bit about it, but like if you were to describe your jump rope style and your jump rope happy place, what is it?

Darren (33:10)
So for me, it’s pretty much boxer skip. It’s boxer skip. So I’ve always loved watching the boxers, when you know, the training videos, montages and stuff like that. it was, yeah, but it was never anything that I ever thought about getting into. So when I started skipping, that was my go-to. So I remember standing in my, I literally taught myself in my back garden. So popping on one foot, hopping on the other. As far as I knew, that’s exactly how the boxers did it. So.

Dizzy Skips (33:15)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s so cool.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (33:39)
you start off like that, you hop hop hop hop hop hop and before you know it your feet get lower and lower and you just get more comfortable with it. Yeah then the music goes on and you start doing it to the music and it’s like ⁓ actually I like this this is really good. So ⁓ Kathy Jumps (@kathyjumps) for example my double side swings ⁓ courtesy of Kathy Jumps I was watching Kathy and I was like what is that move that she was doing and it was a double side swing so my style

Dizzy Skips (33:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I do it all

the time now because of her too.

Darren (34:09)
Yeah, exactly. So

I learned to jump by pretty much knicking moves off everybody. You know, so I’m gonna do that. Yeah. So you basically showed me how to do the double side swing. I’m trying to remember the lady’s name now where I got the release from.

Dizzy Skips (34:16)
Yeah, yeah, that looks cool. I’m undo it.

Yeah.

Darren (34:29)
But I can’t think off top my head what her name is. She doesn’t skip so much now. She does more. What’s it more CrossFit stuff now? So, yeah, so she’s still in the community because I’ve still got on my phone. So she posted so often, but I she does more CrossFit. But yes, so from there, that’s when I started getting into like releases.

Dizzy Skips (34:32)
Yeah.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (34:48)
But yeah, I just started off doing the boxer skip and then that was great. Then you you learn the little move you see a move. So double side swing. So I started doing double side swing. Then from double side swing was like, okay, oh, someone’s doing a cross. How do they do that? Right? Oh, I can do that. Right. So now I can double side swing. And now I can cross. I wonder if I could double side swing into cross. Wow, I could do double side swing into cross. This is this is amazing. And so it’s literally piece by piece, these flows to start to go together.

Dizzy Skips (34:49)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Darren (35:18)
So because these are the moves that these are only moves you know, you end up doing them a million times. So you get more comfortable with them. So then you start, as you know, you build and you just start to add stuff. ⁓ yeah, there was a time when I was kind of like, okay, I don’t know what I can do now. And I’m slowly not getting bored, but it’s like, I’m just doing the same thing over and over again. So yeah, and then I found releases. That was it for me.

Dizzy Skips (35:18)
Yeah.

Right. Yep. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

That’ll fix you.

Darren (35:46)
Yeah, that was

it for me. So now there is no way I can get bored with with jump rope now because there’s always a release device and it’s it’s like, ⁓ if I do this turn, I can do release from there. I can do this. And if I do under there, can do release from there. But I think the big thing for me as far as releases goes was learning the double rotation mic release. Once I yeah, once I learned that and again, that was

Dizzy Skips (35:52)
my gosh. ⁓ yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s my favorite one.

Darren (36:15)
It’s one of them things that you see it and you go, how do I do that? And I learned to do a single one. And I think if I learned to do a single one, say, for example, in a weekend, just as an example, it then probably took me another eight or nine months before I learned how to do the double rotation. Even though I was trying to practice it every day, I just could not get it. I just didn’t understand the mechanics of how it worked. And then I ended up watching a video of jump of Coach Chris. And it was literally on his breakdown.

Dizzy Skips (36:30)
Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Darren (36:45)
And it was first releases waist height, and then you raise your hand to roughly shoulder height for the second release. So I preach that to everybody now, because that’s how I and it helped me so much. So yeah, I love passing it forward. So once I learned that, that was like that was the key to the world for me. So all of my releases.

Dizzy Skips (36:50)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yep.

Yeah, it’s weird

how one little thing like that, that shift of, yeah, I just spilled coffee on my desk here. That shift of moving your rope up to your shoulder, you know, for the second rotation makes all of the difference.

Darren (37:07)
Whoops.

Yeah, yeah, honestly, it’s it’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So yeah, when you think of people doing it all, like Samu, Samu is saved when he’s doing all these over his head and stuff like that. It’s like that’s like that’s taking it to another level now. So it’s just like, wow, it’s this stuff.

Dizzy Skips (37:35)
Yeah.

You know,

it is. When Coach Chris was on a few weeks ago, he said something that stuck with me and actually really helped me out, which was that, and I’m not gonna quote him well, I think, but he was kind of saying, basically in jump rope, there are a handful of moves.

that are riffed upon. And so like when you see a side release like that, it is basically a glorified side swing that just has, you know, a different mechanic to it kind of. and once he said that, all of these things started grouping in my head and I was like, yeah.

Darren (38:06)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (38:17)
Okay,

so that is actually not so much different than this. Like when I do a reverse release like this, it’s no different than me doing a forward release like this and spinning around to catch it. anyway, it really made a lot of difference. And Kathy Jumps actually before she was on, I was looking at her feed and I saw

this tutorial she had done on releases where she was saying, when you let go, of tilt your hand forward. And she was saying like, just a little dip-a-roo, just kind of like dip-a-roo, you know, in her happy little way. And that one tip of just kind of like letting the handle go with it a little forward made such a difference for me. And then I just hit them one after the other, you know, like, and…

Darren (38:47)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, this,

that’s how it works. It’s always because we all learn differently. Something that’s that one person will say, which will resonate with you. And it makes so much sense. Whereas before so that that answer has always been in front of you just never saw it until that person explained it like that. And then you go, why did I not think it? Yeah, that’s brilliant.

Dizzy Skips (39:03)
Right.

Yeah.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

I had another coach who was like, yeah, just go practice a hundred times. And it’s like, okay, a hundred times, but you know, I’m still hitting at the same failure rate, know, but once I got that one tip and, and it made sense to me, I was like, okay. And now I hit much more often. The other, that other tip that, ⁓ Coach Nate gave, which I really loved was when you are practicing releases, like

Darren (39:27)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (39:42)
practice both sides and then just keep a log of kind of, you know, and.

Darren (39:46)
Okay.

Dizzy Skips (39:47)
I will honestly say like I don’t keep a written log, but I keep sort of a mental log. So, and I have set up my Seconds timer on my phone. So I actually have a timer for like release practice and I will make myself do 30 seconds on one side, 30 seconds on another side. And I’ve noticed it’s helped so much like that, that just going to the awkward non-dominant side and trying to do the release and feeling like a fool. First of all, it reminds me, it wasn’t that long ago that that’s how I looked when I was doing it over here.

Darren (39:59)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

Dizzy Skips (40:17)
you

know? And, and, ⁓ and then when you switch back to this, the dominant side, the side that I’m better at, then it feels like so much easier, right? So I’m

Darren (40:17)
yeah.

I have to admit,

I’m again the lazy boy in me. I don’t do both sides. I know I should do and a lot of people going boo, both sides, you got to do both sides, which does make sense. It does make sense. But I’m just like, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I do understand why they advocate learning both sides. But look, the coaches that you mentioned so I know.

Dizzy Skips (40:34)
Yeah.

It makes sense, but you do you, Like, if you don’t want to do both sides, you don’t have to do both sides.

Darren (40:56)
Coach Chris, I know Kathy’s she’s the coach as far as I’m concerned because she will stop and teach you anything if you ask her. Yeah, ⁓ yeah, let’s jump. ⁓ What’s his name? Mike, Mike Fry. ⁓ He’s my goat, honestly, he’s my goat. I’m so gutted I missed missing him when he came to England. I couldn’t make that workshop he was at.

Dizzy Skips (41:01)
Yeah.

Yeah. I call her Coach Mike. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Darren (41:21)
So I’m so good, but he was the one I wanted to… I’ve met Chris loads of times, so I’ll meet Chris anytime. But Mike… Oh man, how often do you get a chance to meet Mike Fry? Come on now. The guy that invented the mic release? What? Yeah. Oh man, so good.

Dizzy Skips (41:31)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

it’s amazing. It’s so funny to me that like I’ve been involved in this community for, you know, a little over a year and a half or something like that. And to me, I meet people like you and I’m like, this is a celebrity. Like you are a celebrity to me because I’ve been watching you online and going, this dude knows how to jump rope, you know? And when I see I get to talk to Kathy or Coach Chris or anybody, Jenny, these y’all are my peeps, know?

Darren (42:03)
You know what, and I still consider myself a beginner. know people might think, yeah, might think, well, no, because you do all this. Yeah, but there’s still so much to learn. And even the stuff that I do, there are many times, yes, I can do it. But there are times when I don’t, I don’t feel I do it properly. I do it my way. That’s what I mean. So for example, like yesterday, when I was with Fabian, and he was trying to show me this, this, this leg move. And he does it. And he’s very technical. And it’s really good.

Dizzy Skips (42:07)
Me too.

Sure. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (42:32)
so technical because he could see straight away where my hand was wrong. That why I wasn’t able to pull it off. And I was like, those are the little, the little bits you need to, you know, take notice of in order to be able to show somebody, you know, so so when I tried to explain to people, I was trying to explain to somebody how I do the tomahawk catch. And I watch it and I do it. But now me trying to explain to somebody, I’m like, Okay, so how do I explain? So all I kept saying was like, Well, you got to it like this with your hands like that. But yeah, but

Dizzy Skips (42:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (43:02)
the coach will then break down how you get to catch it like this, how you rotate it so you can catch it that. And that’s the big difference. So yeah, I just consider myself a beginner still, even after five years, yeah, I’m still learning all this.

Dizzy Skips (43:07)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I feel like I will always be a beginner. Like you said, there’s always so much more to learn. Although I have to say, like, we have to respect where we where we’ve come to. Right. Like, because I’ve seen like you had a video recently, a little recap video or like this was you in 2020 and this is you now. And.

Darren (43:26)
Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (43:36)
And you’ve like tons of progress, you know, and we get gradualized into it because we’re out there skipping every day and don’t always realize the progress we’re making from day to day. But when you see those leaps in time, like, wow, I’m kind of proud of where I’m at, you know?

Darren (43:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, totally. Honestly, I even then when I watched it, so I put that together and that actually came together by accident. I was going through my OneDrive, something came up on my OneDrive and then there was a video of me on my little driveway that I was jumping in lockdown. So I thought, that’d good to post just simply for the fact that there’s I’ve had a few people that have, you know, joined my page because they only know you from now. They don’t know.

Dizzy Skips (43:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Darren (44:14)
You know, they’re struggling. They’re struggling. They’re just beginning or whatever. So I would just I always think it’s nice to show people. Yeah, look, I started exactly the same as you. So although you may think that I’m really good, honestly, I totally understand how frustrating it is to trip and how you can’t get this. You can’t work that out. We’ve all felt exactly the same. So I do think it’s nice to show people as well. So I had that one clip and then I was like, oh, I’ve got this other clip and then started putting it together and then walla! That’s what you see. But the strange thing for me was

Dizzy Skips (44:15)
Right.

Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Darren (44:44)
There was such a journey in it, in all of that, that it actually, I got actually quite emotional when I put it together. Because although you see the journey where I couldn’t skip, I say couldn’t skip, or learnt to skip and then slowly learnt, I could see the mental struggles I was having on each of those clips. So without getting too deep into all of it, 2019, I split up with my partner, my girlfriend,

Dizzy Skips (44:51)
Yeah.

Hell yeah.

Darren (45:14)
We’ve been together like 14 years. So I then found myself in a flat all by myself again, almost at the age of 50. And I’m just like, what is going on with my life? know, so yeah, depression started to sink in, etc. Then we got into lockdown. So now I’m dealing with a breakup of a relationship, trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my life. And now I’m sitting in this flat all by myself. So where was before you would go out with your friends and hang out and your friends would bring you out of it?

Dizzy Skips (45:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the world’s ending, yeah.

Darren (45:43)
We can’t now we’re in lockdown. can’t do anything. So you’ve got all of this. So there was quite a few times I did struggle throughout lockdown. We’re at the center depression something and I didn’t want to get out of bed. You know, it was only I would take like the laptop to bed and just literally roll over turn the laptop on and do a bit of work and then pretend I was on lunch or whatever when I was just I didn’t get out bed. So then I got into obviously to skipping and that was then my little release. And as I once you start skipping

Dizzy Skips (45:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Darren (46:13)
You just forget everything. You don’t know what it is. It’s just you concentrate so much on the skipping everything else away. Yeah. So that was my little release. And so when I put that video together, I could see all the different stages of me kind of as I as I put in in a comment going through the storm and then coming out the other side. I still back against the wind on certain times, but I’m hardened against it now. So I kind of go with the wind as opposed to battling, you know.

Dizzy Skips (46:15)
Yeah.

It’s magic. Yeah.

Yeah.

yeah.

Darren (46:43)
So yeah, I’m in such a much better place now when yeah, I can talk about it and laugh about it and stuff now. But yeah, that’s what I saw when I put that video together. So it was a bit ⁓ emotional for me at one point when I was watching it.

Dizzy Skips (46:44)
I know exactly what you mean.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I totally get it, man. And our stories are very similar in that way. I am not to the end of my legal stuff, so I can’t talk about all of that, ⁓

Darren (47:05)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (47:07)
But I will say I understand the depression. I understand a long time relationship breakup and wondering what the hell am I gonna do with my life now? Like who am I? Like what am I gonna do? And having that depression and so when I say that jump rope is my mental health and my therapy, I am not fucking around. It is my mental health and it’s my therapy.

Darren (47:15)
Yeah, yeah, Honestly.

Yeah, I 100 % agree with Yeah,

I 100 % agree with you. Yeah. That’s why I could never give it up. could never, literally as we would say, it probably sounds drastic to say, but it really did save my life. It did save my life. As you know, with the question, you can go into such a dark place. I remember honestly saying, look, God, please just don’t wake me up. Don’t bother. What’s the point? Why do I need to do this again tomorrow?

Dizzy Skips (47:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, 100%.

Yeah. Yeah.

Darren (47:54)
⁓ the

Dizzy Skips (47:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, I know that feeling and it sucks. It sucks to feel kind of hopeless like that and not

know like, there an opportunity for me to be happy again? You know, like, well, will I get out of this? You know, is can things get better? And so that’s why now, like when I’m out there skipping and I get in that little.

Darren (48:13)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (48:21)
you know force field when like Sarah Marshall said you know get that rope going i’m in my force field it is so much my happy place and i am so thankful to be able to skip and be out there that when i whip the hell out of my shin or when i give myself a welt on the ass i laugh and i dance because it’s it’s at least i’m not dead at least i’m not questioning whether or not i want to keep living right

Darren (48:35)
Yes. ⁓

yeah

yeah yeah yeah yeah it’s a happy bruise i’ll take that bruise all day long yeah

Dizzy Skips (48:44)
Yeah.

Man,

I will bleed for jump rope any day, yeah.

Darren (48:51)
Yeah, it really did save me. It really did. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (48:54)
Yeah. Well,

I’m so glad you found it Darren, cause that’s, it’s an amazing story and it’s inspirational. And for anyone else out there who’s been through that or is going through that kind of shit and thinking like, I don’t know, man, I don’t know if I want to carry on. I, the only message I have is like, just keep showing up, like keep showing up and talk to people like us because we’ve been through it. And you know, I got shoulders. I got big ears. ⁓

Darren (49:12)
honestly. that’s why. Yeah, this is it. This is why

throughout ⁓ our winter line, I know, isn’t it? So in June, I don’t know if it was everywhere or when it was the UK or whatever, but I kept seeing it all over Instagram. So June was men’s mental health month. And on my so not so much on this side on this channel, but on my other page, every few days, I would post

something to do with mental health because yeah, I’ve been there. There’s so many guys that, know, and then funnily enough, through talking through, so being on the motorbike and I obviously go to these bike meetups and you’ve made friends with other bikers and stuff like that. And I was talking to one lady friend that I’ve met through biking. She knows of two gentlemen that were in the same situation, long relationships, split up and these both committed suicide.

Dizzy Skips (49:42)
Yep. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (50:08)
They just they couldn’t cope. They just didn’t know what to do with themselves. So and you think to yourself, do you know what? I could have been one of those guys. So unfortunately, they didn’t find something that they could put themselves into. So they didn’t feel that, you know, they could they didn’t have a break from it. So it’s constant, which is obviously why they then ended their own lives. So, yeah, jump rope really did save me. It really did. So, yeah, my family would be horrified to hear that. But it’s one of those when you’re living it yourself.

Dizzy Skips (50:11)
Yeah.

yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, me too,

Darren (50:38)
You really don’t think about other people. is, you don’t mean to be selfish, but it is yourself. You think, well, how am I going to get out of it? You know, my phone’s not ringing and this, and you feel so lonely. And it’s, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I would, I advocated all the time. Look, speak to somebody. Just even if it’s your friend, is that person really your friend? If you can’t open up to that person and say, you know what? I’m feeling really bad today. I just need, I just need you literally just to sit with me. We don’t even have to talk, just to have some company.

Dizzy Skips (50:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Darren (51:08)
Um, you know, but if you

Dizzy Skips (51:09)
Yeah.

Darren (51:10)
can’t open up to your friend and tell, tell them something like that, are they really your friend? You know, so that was my thing on it. So that’s what I used to, yeah. Put on my other, on my other page. So, um, jump rope saved me definitely. And I love it. So I will always give back to jump rope. I will help anybody out. I don’t care whether you’ve just learned, whether you’ve, know, wherever it is, I will always help somebody out as far as jump ropes. Well, anyway, but as far as I’m concerned, definitely.

Dizzy Skips (51:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I, this is wonderful. mean, I’m so glad that you brought this up because I think mental health in general is important. I was thinking about it yesterday and thinking, you know, back in the day of my grandpa, who, ⁓ is past years ago, like back in the fifties and forties when he was coming into the workforce and stuff, men didn’t talk about shit like that. You went to the bar and you drank, right? Like you drank and you, that, was your thing.

Darren (51:38)
and

Nah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (52:07)
therapy

is you talk to somebody at the bar or over a cigarette or whatever. And ⁓ that worked for them to a certain extent, but I’m so glad I have Jump Rope because alcohol was killing me.

Darren (52:12)
Mm-hmm.

the ⁓

Dizzy Skips (52:37)
Mm-hmm.

Right? Yeah. Yeah, it’s

not just about drinking, Mm-hmm.

Darren (52:45)
If they’re not in the pub, yeah, it’s not just drinking. That’s their social space. So otherwise

these guys could be sitting at home on their own all the time. You just don’t know. So now that I’m kind of in that position, I understand it more. So yeah, yeah, I totally get it. I totally get it. Maybe I should get them into jump rope.

Dizzy Skips (52:55)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

That’s right. I’m sure that would go over well. Go into the local pub with a whole bunch of pink jump ropes. Come on guys, let’s go. Like, yeah, there goes Darren. Yeah. Yeah. My therapist is a backpack full of like six or eight ropes at any given time. And we just go travel from park to park and have our own little meetups.

Darren (53:04)
Let’s go! ⁓

That’s

it. Exactly. Exactly. I need to actually start traveling with mine with more. ⁓ I see the French jumper. he French jumper? Yeah. Yeah. When I see him, he seems to take his rope with him everywhere. And some of the places that he jumps with his, I’m so jealous of his drone. Yeah. I’m so jealous of his drone. But yeah, he jumps everywhere. Yeah. They’re amazing.

Dizzy Skips (53:35)
Yep. Cheret Yeah.

Yeah.

The drones. Yeah. Yeah, he’s done a few of those like mountain top ones where he’s on the side of a mountain and he’s got a drone

that’s tracking him as it’s going around. Yeah.

Darren (53:58)
Yeah, they are so good. They are so good. So I’m getting that might be my thing next year is to get myself a drone. That might be my Christmas present. Give myself a drone. Yeah. And then we will up the game a little bit.

Dizzy Skips (54:00)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I have a few drones, but they’re all very manual drones. They’re not the kind that have those kind of tracking features. But yeah, I think that would be super fun to get one of those where you can like tag yourself and then go for a run and it’ll just follow you and kind of keep you in frame or go for a skate. Yeah.

Darren (54:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, I like the 360. I like the three.

See, I’ve already I’ve already got it in my head. So you imagine doing that on a 360. You know, a matrix now. So you do release and then you can slow it down as it’s going around. That’s going to look so cool. Nobody’s steal my idea. That’s my idea, right? Yeah, that’s it. It’d be so good. It’d be so good.

Dizzy Skips (54:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

That’s right Ridley Scott – stay away Darren’s gonna copyright this

Darren (54:49)
So yeah, that’s my new thing.

Dizzy Skips (54:50)
Yeah.

So, ⁓ what’s next for you in jump rope? Like, do you have any goals? I mean, obviously it sounds like you’re sold on the meetups. You’re going to go back when more meetups happen.

Darren (55:03)
Oh, meetups, meetups are the one honestly. So yeah, I’m going on all the time, but I’m going to try and try and get to some of the overseas meetups. So for example, Portugal, so Robz (@robs360s), I met Robz Robz over to England. I actually, Robz yeah, I love Robz to bits. And the funny thing is during lockdown and stuff, I was one of the people that he suggested the whole thing to me.

Dizzy Skips (55:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Love that guy.

Darren (55:32)
He asked me my advice. Yeah, said, Do you think it would work? And I said, mate, if you put it on the way the jump rope is, if you can organize it, I guarantee you’ll get people to come. Your people will come. And his first one was a success. But to the point now they seem to be so successful. He’s having to limit numbers. That’s how successful they are. So, you know, I can’t wait to go. I’m hoping to go next year. I was supposed to go this year. I promised him I was going to come this year. And I never made it. So ⁓

Dizzy Skips (55:33)
Yeah?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Darren (56:02)
Robz close your ears because I’m coming next year. He’s probably thinking, you said that already. But yeah, that is my plan.

Dizzy Skips (56:08)
I’m

gonna plan to come next year too if I can pull it off, because oh my gosh, like that magic that you get of in-person tutorials where someone can just say, no, hold your hands a little bit over here and then you’ll pull it off, like getting Robz to show you that stuff and pull off some of those 360s, I would be unstoppable.

Darren (56:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, he’s phenomenal.

Do know what I find, what I find brilliant is, obviously, because we’ve been doing this for like four or five years now with the same sort of people. So we’re all standing around this, you know, around the same time and at the same level. And it’s just seeing how everyone is splintered off into their different what they like. So we’ve all got to a certain stage where we’re all jumping, we’re all crossing, etc. So for example, now, Fabian, Fabian now leg crosses, there is not a wrap

Dizzy Skips (56:41)
Yeah. Right.

Yeah.

Darren (56:53)
or a leg cross that he doesn’t seem to be able to do. So although I’m not, I wouldn’t consider myself brilliant, excellent at the releases. Releases is my thing. I love doing releases. It’ll be the forward or backwards, whatever. Robz, Robz, there is no, he 360s everything. And it’s just like, how do you do that? F-ing trim. I’m such a, how do you not get dizzy? I’m doing it so long now, I don’t get dizzy. Wow. But yeah, it’s just the way that people are splinting off into the-

Dizzy Skips (56:57)
Yeah.

Right. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Darren (57:22)
the certain things and then you’ve got like the Kathys. The Kathys do everything. Do you know the Swiss Army have to do the lot. Oh I can do release, can do flow rope, I can do, yes Kathy we’re talking about you now.

Dizzy Skips (57:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We love her. Oh my God. And she’s so positive and happy all the time. Like it doesn’t matter what she’s doing. Yeah. Whether she’s being chased by bears or doing the side shuffle. She’s, yeah.

Darren (57:36)
⁓ we do. Yeah. ⁓ I think, like you said, we love Kathy. Absolutely love her. Yeah, she’s amazing.

the best,

the best. The first time she said about the bear, I thought she was joking. I was like, what? And then when she showed me this black bed in her garden, I’m like, no way. What the hell? Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. And all I’ve got to worry about is.

Dizzy Skips (57:54)
Right? Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, for anyone who’s listening

who doesn’t know what we’re talking about, go back and listen to Kathy Jumps episode because she talks about the bears, like coming up on her porch and sniffing on her jump ropes.

Darren (58:12)
Yeah

Yeah,

honestly, there’s one video where she’s like…

Dizzy Skips (58:19)
Wait, what’s that?

Darren (58:19)
That’s a bear. That’s a bear.

And she literally dashes inside, grabs everything, runs inside, looks out the window and there’s a bear coming up the stairs. You’re like, my god. Yeah, that’s just nuts. That is absolutely amazing. So yeah, but she always says she lives in the… Yeah, she lives in the woods, she said. She lives in the forest, didn’t she, she says. so that’s local for her. Do know what mean? That’s nothing. it’s a bear. Yeah, brilliant. What?

Dizzy Skips (58:23)
Drops the…

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is some wild, wild, wild jump roping.

Yeah, she’s I think in northern New Jersey, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Darren (58:50)
She sees bears like I see Squirrels. Right. Okay. Fair enough. At least my squirrels aren’t gonna eat me.

Dizzy Skips (58:51)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Right, yeah. Not gonna carry off your dog or something like that. Yeah. Well, Darren, this has been fantastic and I just am so thankful to have connected with you. I love watching you jump and I really appreciate you coming on to talk to me. I’m so glad you got to go to that meetup. Like, I had a little bit of fear of missing out, you I wish I could have made it, but I know I’ll make it, you know, well.

Darren (59:03)
Yeah, exactly. ⁓ damn.

Dizzy Skips (59:25)
I’m planning to make it next year and I’m sure we will connect at a meetup before too long.

Darren (59:30)
We honestly, will everyone over here will welcome you with open arms. You know, it’s like we’re literally one big family. We are just one big family. This community is amazing. It’s the shame that the rest of the world cannot be like this community because there would never be a war. There would never be famine. There would never be anything. If the rest of the world was like this community, this community is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. There’s nothing that beats this community. It’s amazing. It’s no

Dizzy Skips (59:36)
I can’t wait.

Yeah.

Yeah is.

Right. Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

It

is.

Darren (59:59)
I don’t see anyone that ever gets bad comments, right on any of their posts, you know that person commenting is not into jump rope. That’s how I see it. Yeah, exactly. You just don’t see it. You get some because I know Fabian’s had a few. He has a few people make comments about, you know, old man and you know, why don’t you just jump the rope and you you clearly don’t jump rope because otherwise you would understand what he’s doing is not easy. Yes, if you make a stupid comment like that.

Dizzy Skips (1:00:08)
Yeah, and I and you just don’t see that that often. I mean

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Darren (1:00:28)
You clearly have no idea, right? So we appreciate it because we know how hard that just because he’s wrapping around his leg and it looks like it’s a no. He’s tripped so many times wrapping around his leg, you know that? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, all props. I take my hat off to everybody that does everything in this community. It’s amazing place. Actually amazing. And props to you as well, sir. Honestly, props to you as well. One for getting started and getting into it and two for taking it to another level and bringing us all together.

Dizzy Skips (1:00:30)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. You reminded me like, what’s that?

man, it’s my pleasure. It’s just so fun to be able to be involved in the community and learn more about people and get to talk to cool people like you.

Darren (1:01:03)
Yeah,

thank you, thank you, yeah. See, we all get to communicate and chat and yeah, no, I love it, I love it.

Dizzy Skips (1:01:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, you made

me laugh earlier. I was looking at your Instagram feed before we connected and there’s this video of you jumping in the park and you’re on a mat and you’re just kind of doing your boxer skip and you throw a little release in the boxers getting and there’s a lady that walks by you with a stroller and then there’s a family that walks the other way and there’s like I think there’s like four people in the family there’s a younger girl and she looks over at you and then all of the women look over at you as you’re jumping and then you try and do a release at the end and I think you fumbled the release and then you kind of like throw your hands up to God and they’re all looking at you I was like that’s exactly me like no idea what’s going on elsewhere in the park you know people are kind of

Darren (1:01:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (1:01:52)
and I’m

Darren (1:01:52)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (1:01:53)
asking God like why couldn’t I hit that release?

Darren (1:01:55)
Yeah,

yeah, honestly, once it’s classic case of once the music starts playing and I’m on the mat, the rest of the world doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist unless I get a beep in my ear, which is the phone. got a message or whatever. There lot of times I do not even notice people. And I don’t mean in a flippant or horrible way. do sometimes you make eye contact. That’s when you kind of notice people. But yeah, many people have noticed me or I’ve been I’ve been walking home before and then.

Dizzy Skips (1:02:01)
Yeah, yeah, right? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, no.

Yeah.

Darren (1:02:23)
I’ve had people stop me and ask me, how did you do that? And I’m like, sorry. But I didn’t realize that they’d actually seen me at the park because I never even noticed them. But they obviously walked past and seen me. So, yeah, it’s really good. It’s really good. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (1:02:28)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I

know what you mean. You get in that bubble and don’t see anything outside of it. I had it happen where I went to the local pride festival a couple of weeks ago and some lady walked up to me and said, you’re the jumping guy. You’re the, you’re the park jumping guy. And I was like, yeah, how do I know you? And she’s like, ⁓ I, I see you in the park all the time.

Darren (1:02:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Well, this was it. When I was jumping on my driveway, it’s like an archway. So that clip that I was saying when I’ve learned over the time, one of the clips is the bricks that you’ll see. I think it’s one of the first or second clips. That’s the archway where I basically learned to skip. So that was throughout lockdown. So because I was there pretty much every day, I’ll never forget one kid went past, one little kid went past and he says, mum, mum, I want to see the jumping man.

Dizzy Skips (1:03:11)
Okay.

Darren (1:03:24)
So I was the jumping man for ages. The kids would go fast and they’d be across the other side of the road and I would just suddenly hear them shouting, because obviously they can’t cross the road, because they’re trying to get my attention. The jumping man, the jumping man. That was me. So yeah, I’m known around here as the jumping man.

Dizzy Skips (1:03:25)
Hahaha

Nice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

⁓ That’s Nice. Well, that’s a

terrific badge to wear, the Jumpin’ Man. Yeah. Well, yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, thank you, Jumpin’ Man, for coming on the podcast and talking to me. You’ll have to come back and we’ll do this again.

Darren (1:03:49)
Yeah, I love it. The jumping man, yeah. I love it. You know what kids are like.

Anytime you like me, you just let me know, message me, send me whatever and yeah, as you can see, I can chat all day. I can chat all day. I love it. So yeah, we’ll definitely do this again whenever you’re ready. But let you get a few more people on first. I don’t want to take over.

Dizzy Skips (1:04:09)
Me too,

Alright.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

of course. Yeah, we’ll do some group ones too where we get a few different people on and have like a group conversation. I think that’d be fun.

Darren (1:04:24)
Yeah, no problem. Yeah, yeah, no

problem. Yeah, be great. Be great. I’ve enjoyed this so much. So yeah, thank you to you as well. As I said, thank you to you, Yeah, the podcast is brilliant. Yeah, well done.

Dizzy Skips (1:04:29)
Right on.

Yeah, thank you. I’m so glad you enjoy it, Darren.