A Hop, Skip and Jump

I have learned that you have to be able to adapt along your fitness journey. Sometimes your best laid plans get sidetracked for something else. Plans change, sometimes in the middle of a workout. The same thing holds true in writing. I had a topic planned out but my muse changed direction about twenty mintues into my workout on Thursday. So, I guess we will see where this goes.

When is the last time you jumped rope? Prior to yesterday, it was almost a year ago for me. Before that, I think I was 8. I’m not sure you can even really count my attempts last year, so I’m just going to say the last time I jumped rope was 1980. Knowing this, it is a little odd that I decided to participate in what we are lovingly calling Jump Rope January.

I think my initial response when I was told about Jump Rope January was “good luck with that”. I had no intention of adding that activity to my workout routine. You see, about this time last year I decided to make being able to jump rope a goal of mine. With the help of my pal, I started toward that goal. In short, it was a dismal failure. I couldn’t seem to get the timing right and I just got frustrated. Two or three jumps in a row was the best I could do and sadly I just quit trying. So a few days ago when my pal mentioned Jump Rope January, I was less than motivated to get involved. Now this pal of mine is a personal trainer and Im pretty sure she expected this to stir up my original goal of jumping rope. And this is why she is a master at her job, because it totally worked.

I know enough to know that I would never stick to this task without some support and encouragement. Since my trainer pal works at another club, I set out to get some of my team members to jump with me. I asked several people and all but two immediately said no way. I decided to roll with it. Eventually almost everyone came around and at last count there are nine of us in my club who are participating. Our goal is simple: be better at the end of the month than we were when we started. For me, that means picking up the goal I dropped a year ago. Funny how things come back around.

We started our jumping month on January third. My first day results? Well, it started pretty rough. I couldn’t get more than a couple of jumps. And then, about the time I was ready to quit, the people I was jumping with said try one more time. One, two three, four, five……wait. What is happening right now?….six, seven, eight, nine…..that’s ten. Don’t stop now…..eleven, twelve, thirteen. One year and thirteen consecutive jumps later, it may not seem like very much, but for this girl it might as well have been a hundred. I guess I found my motivation in the timing.