Jump Rope Videos

Here’s more proof that jump rope is a great exercise. In this video, Kim walks us through her jump rope workout routine. Kim is a Ford fitness model and is obviously in great shape. Whatever she’s doing must work.

It’s important for you to note that she keeps the tricks in her workout rather simple. In fact all of the tricks she does are considered basic jump rope skills. You don’t have to know how to do advanced tricks in order to get a good workout. Just basic bounce, side straddles (which Kim calls “jumping jacks”) and criss crosses are all you need to get a pretty thorough workout. However, you don’t have to stop there. One of the great things about jump rope is the literally infinite variety of tricks you can do. There will never be a point when you run out of new tricks to challenge you. Just take a look around at all of the jump rope videos on this site, and you will see new and unique things in each and every video.

Jump Rope is the best exercise I know. You can burn calories really fast. You work a lot of different muscle groups in your arms, legs, and core. The equipment is cheap. The best ropes cost less than $10. Not to mention that a basic jump rope workout doesn’t require much space to do and storage space is non existent, unlike the giant treadmill currently collecting dust in my living room.

Enter the latest fitness fad: JumpSnap. I first heard of this last year from a little blog called Gizmodo. As a lifelong athlete in the sport of Jump Rope, I’m not really sure what to think about this. I’ve spent a large portion of my life teaching others how easy and fun it is to jump rope. Do we really need to replace a $10 piece of equipment with a $60 one?

Here is the promotional video for JumpSnap. You be the judge.

Twin sisters Jennifer and Danielle Murray play on the Varsity Tennis team for Dartmouth College. They also have a strong background in jump rope.

From The Dartmouth Online:

“The duo has had a great amount of success jumping rope over the years. They competed in the Junior Olympics in Washington State. More impressively, they were able to win two titles in the Canadian National jump-roping championships, one in 2004 for pairs freestyle jump-roping that consisted of a choreographed routine created by the twins and the second for Double Dutch in 2003.”

Here is their halftime performance during the women’s basketball game against Harvard on Jan. 6:

Apparently the Bouncing Bulldogs put on an pretty amazing display at the USA Jump Rope Region 2 tournament last weekend.

From The Chapel Hill News:

“The Bulldogs won a total of 48 of 66 possible gold medals, 35 silver medals, 24 bronze medals and 21 fourth-place ribbons — as well as first place in both the large and small Team Show. The top four finishers in each event qualify to advance to the next level, and 43 Bulldog team members won the right to compete in the USA Jump Rope National Championships in Orlando, Fla., June 22-24.”

The article is accompanied by a couple of pictures from the tournament. One picture is of All-Stars Tim Martin and Mary Hunter Benton doing a frog during the pairs single rope freestyle event in which they won a gold medal. The other picture is of Suzanne Cash of SkipSations as she prepares to start her single rope freestyle routine.

This double dutch freestyle routine was performed by Jeanette, Krystal, and Vanessa of the Summerwind Skippers. It is an excellent routine and earned them 3rd place at the 2006 Grand National Championship in Orlando, Florida. They have a lot of difficult turner involvement and they absolutely nailed it. Nice routine ladies!

Here’s a great street performance by the Martial Skippers from Hong Kong. They incorporate many different styles of jump rope in this video including Double Dutch, Single Rope, Chinese Wheel, and Traveling.

Here’s another jump rope video from the FISAC 1999 World Championships in St. Louis. This is from the 4 person single rope freestyle. I think this was probably the hardest event to prepare for because it was an event we weren’t accustomed to. This event doesn’t exist in USA Jump Rope competitions.

Since we didn’t have long to prepare before the tournament, we had to keep it really simple. Our motto became “K.I.S.S.” - Keep It Simple Stupid. We basically used a slightly modified version of my single rope single freestyle routine, since it was probably the easiest routine we had between the four of us. Besides, I had been doing essentially the same routine for years and the other guys had seen it enough times that they already knew it. I laughed because they quoted the tricks to me before we even started practicing it. “Double Under AS, double under cross, double under EB, double under, triple side swing cross, double under EB, double under, triple side swing cross, double under, triple side swing left, triple side swing right, TJ, Johmmy.” That’s how good my teammateswere. We just had to modify the routine to add some more movement and partner interaction.

Here is the end result:

There has been a lot of good press for the sport of Jump Rope recently. It seems appropriate to share some of it with you here.

Rope-skippers hop to top of new sport - Features an interview with Tyler Perez of Impact Tri-Force and Anna Schimmelfing of the SkipSations at their AAU District Championship.

Jump Rope’s Big Leap - Quotes from Marcus Taylor (Corbin Bleu’s stunt double in the Disney movie “Jump In”) of the Cincinnati Ropin Rockets, Kelsy Moe of The Summerwind Skippers, Coach Ray Frederick Jr. of the Bouncing Bulldogs, Mary Hunter Benton of the Bouncing Bulldogs, and Krishinda Lee of the Bouncing Bulldogs.

SXSW News & Notes: Jumping for doc - A review of the new jump rope documentary “Doubletime” by director Stephanie Johnes.

SXSW Film Reviews - Doubletime - A review of Doubletime, mentions the Bouncing Bulldogs.

If you know of any good articles in the news about Jump Rope, please let me know.

Here’s another jump rope video from the Double Dutch Holiday Classic at the Apollo. These freestyle routines are from a couple of Japanese teams. Kurui won best of show and Kirin took third place. Both teams are amazing. Teams from Japan have dominated the competition for the last several years. In these videos you can see why. They demonstrate excellent control over the ropes, very advanced tricks, great choreography, and great stage presence.

What does the U.S. need to do to catch up? A few years ago some jump rope teams started hiring gymnastics instructors to train their jumpers. It’s not far fetched to believe some teams will hire dance instructors over the next few years to teach some hip-hop inspired moves. With the recent success of the Disney movie “Jump In!” and the good reviews for the new documentary “Doubletime“, this new fusion of styles seems poised to become much more popular.

The King Charles Troupe is an amazing group of performers. They have a basketball-comedy act that is performed while riding on unicycles. Just in case that isn’t difficult enough for you, they go ahead and throw in some jump rope while sitting atop their unicycles.

Just like our All-Star team, a lot is expected of the King Charles performers both on stage and off. When I read through their website, I found a few quotes that really resonated with me and echo what I expect of the top jumpers in our sport.

“Our group is not really about expertise on unicycles. It’s about the character of our members, what type of people we are and become.”
- Floyd “Sweets” Harrison

“Unicyclists are a dime a dozen. What makes you a King Charles Rider is what you do when you get off that unicycle.”
- Jerry King, 1908-1996, Founder, The King Charles Troupe

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