Working out should be fun!
I actually never thought I would find working out enjoyable.
Why is that?
I can't claim this to be true for all of us, but at least to me, working out seems to be tied to working really hard, and it should probably be painful, and you should be lying on the floor needing at least 5 minutes before you can get back up for the workout to have been really efficient and contributing to improved cardiovascular health. From science, we know this is entirely wrong. Still, I believe many people connect working out with something that is exhaustive and often lack motivation to work out because of it.
For me, it was like this for a long time. I don't know where it all came from. I have been working out fairly consistently in some form most of my life - on and off anyway, except when I was pregnant (in hindsight, I wish I was more active). The commonalities through all these years are that it's always been high intensity, I have always lost motivation, and I've always been on the hunt for a new type of activity within 3 months. Once I got bored, I would find any excuse to not work out. Motivation is a powerful thing.
So you see, I've always had to convince myself to work out, feeling guilty when I failed. And regardless of the activity, working out has always been the focus. I wasn't going to step class; I was working out. I wasn't spinning; I was working out. No wonder I lost motivation. In precisely zero times did I say: I'm gonna go and do this thing because it's fun.
Fun just wasn't a part of it.
In my 100th attempt to find a new activity, I saw a reel on Instagram with someone jumping rope, and I was instantly drawn to it. I actually lied before; there was one thing I did enjoy - aerobic dance classes. But it was tough to find the ones I liked. They couldn't be too fancy, as I'd lack the movements. But I didn't want a pure aerobic gym class either. I did enjoy the footwork and putting it together into routines. I got so frustrated that I often came home disappointed from the gym and had a hard time finding alternatives online. Sadly, I lost motivation for that, too, as it didn't match my need for creativity and variety.
Back to the jump rope reel...
I became so fascinated by the post that I started browsing more content and following more jumpers. In no time, my Instagram was flooded with jump rope content (yay, algorithms 😁), and I bought my first rope.
While waiting for the rope to arrive, I prepared. I watched so many reels and YouTube videos of how to do different footwork skills like the running man, heel taps, rope taps, straddle, high knees, etc…there were endless possibilities. I was so excited. My rope arrived, finally, and I got outside. There was still snow ❄️ on the ground. I didn't care at all (and I am NOT a winter person), and I dove right in, intent on learning the running man as my first footwork skill. It wasn't too bad, actually.
I loved jumping rope as a kid, and I had tried as an adult every once in a while as a warmup. So I surprised myself with how fast I got into it, unlocking the next thing and the next. I was addicted. It was so much fun! I got slightly overexcited and jumped a bit too much; my shins screamed for me to ease up a bit. And I did, but it was so difficult. I saved hundreds of reels of things I wanted to learn, telling myself I probably wouldn't unlock half of them. Releases, in particular, fascinated me, but obviously, those were for the pros. Fast forward 15 months, 20-25 ropes (whoopsie 😅), my own jump rope, practicing in my backyard:
I might not jump every day, but I absolutely LOVE ❤️ jumping rope!
I am so fascinated by jump rope. It allows me to unfold my creativity, the jump rope skill library is never empty, and the online community is awesome and so inspiring! The fact that jumping rope is good for my cardiovascular health is merely a happy side effect because I'm not jumping to work out; I'm jumping to have fun! And you should too!
In fact, I'm pretty sure everyone in the jump rope and rope flow community has one thing in common - we all think it's fun, and we cannot, for the life of us, understand why the entire world is not flowing or jumping rope!