Jump Rope Videos

The 2006 USA Jump Rope National Championship will air this Sunday April 22nd, 2007 on ESPN2 at 11:00 a.m. Central/Standard Time. If you have never seen a jump rope tournament before, prepare to be amazed. This is an amazing single rope and double dutch competition that will display the best talent from across the United States.

Here is a sample of what you can expect to see. This video is of Grand National Champion and USA Jump Rope All Star Adam Pang performing his single rope freestyle routine. Adam is an amazing athlete and his routine is flawless.

Here is an awesome routine from the Summerwind Skippers at the 2006 USA Jump Rope Championships at Disney World. Kelsy Moe, Shane Winsor, Calli Wold, and Lee Reisig won the Grand National Championship in double dutch pairs freestyle with this routine. This same foursome also won the Grand National Championship in 2005 for the same event. Summerwind team member Lee Reisig is also a member of the USA Jump Rope All Star team.

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 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:

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.

This is USA Jump Rope All Star team member Billy Jackson competing in the 2006 USA Jump Rope Championship. Billy is from the Louisiana Jazzy Jumpers. He has a great single rope freestyle routine with some incredibly difficult rope releases.

There is going to be a Double Dutch Contest in Leuven, Belgium on Saturday, April 14th, 2007. The contest rules say that there will be 3 events: 2 minute speed, Fusion, and 115Free (aka Double Dutch Pairs Freestyle). It is an international open competition. For details on entering, check out the website at www.ddcb.be.

Here’s some excellent double dutch freestyle from DDF, a team of world champion jumpers from Belgium. I met team member Maarten Goedemé before when I toured Europe in 1998 and again at the 1999 world championships. He is an excellent jumper and all around nice guy. DDF is actively bringing the Fusion style of Double Dutch to Europe.

Here is some more video from the 1999 World Championships in St. Louis. As I said before, I was very fortunate to have some truly amazing teammates. Here is the single rope freestyle routine from Shaun Hamilton and Willie Amos. Both are very gifted athletes. Shaun is now the head coach of the USA Jump Rope All Star Team and Willie played football for Nebraska and is now a professional football player for the Chicago Bears organization in NFL Europe.

Labels: All-Star, Champion, Jump Rope, single rope, USAJR, Video