blog (Page 17)

I’m sitting in the house of one of my former jump rope coaches, Mrs. Leaf. This is the first time I’ve seen her in almost 8 years and it’s been a great couple days catching up and goofing off. She came out to a show I did today at Andrews Air Force Base and I even had her step up and turn some double dutch for a few audience members I had come out.This week I’ve got a number of shows around the state of Washington before heading out to Oregon and California next week. I’ll be hanging out with my best friend, Trent Cunningham,Read More →

Back in August I was part of the team that helped kick start the new FitSchools initiative by Men’s Health Magazine. They recently launched a website detailing what they are doing and how they’re going about it. They have a video clip up now that has some short segments from the demo I did at the school. Check it out at Men’s Health. I’m really excited to be a part of what they’re doing and look forward to being able to help get more kids active around the country. I’m currently in Utah where I’ve got 2 more schools tomorrow before heading up to WashingtonRead More →

2 weeks ago I laid to rest an old friend. My trusty glow rope. Over the past 2 years it has served me well and has entertained thousands of people around the world, but the time has come for it to die. All the slits were coming apart and a couple shows actually had it flinging glow sticks into the audience. Even though this was entertaining, it’s time to go. Good-bye old friend.Read More →

Today I performed in Leadville, CO (which someone told me was the highest city in the U.S.). It was 10,200 feet in elevation (almost 2 miles above sea level) and boy could I feel it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a noticeable difference in how my ropes reacted while jumping. It was the strangest thing as every turn of the rope required more energy and control than normal. Besides the rope control, I was also breathing harder than usual and was feeling a bit lightheaded. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. Below is a picture of me jumping in front ofRead More →

It’s almost Friday which means another week has come and gone. This week was crazy as I performed in in MS, KS, NE and CO. Yesterday was especially tough as I had 3 shows in Nebraska before driving all the way to Denver. It’s really interesting to note the difference in schools when you go from a rural area to a city. The first few days were in, for a lack of a better term, the middle of no where. My wife and I have been watching Smallville lately and we were just waiting to bump into Clark Kent as we went into these veryRead More →

I just flew in from a weekend in Mississippi. My wife and I flew down Saturday night and had a program at a church there Sunday evening. It was a blast as we got to perform along with Yancy (a singer that I’ve known for quite some time). The people there were great and we found out that a lot of people from California seem to be trekking out that way. Almost half the people we met had moved there from California, we didn’t see much of the town, but there must be something there that California people like.Last week was quite grueling as IRead More →

The last few days have been quite hectic as I’ve been driving and performing without any breaks. I was planning on a nice long weekend with nothing to do, but instead of sitting around taking it easy, I drove up to Illinois and picked up a dog that we had recently purchased. My wife’s brother had been holding her and we decided it was time to go and get her. She’s a black Schnoodle (schnauzer/poodle mix) and what a load of fun she is. She’s only 4 months old and already a rather large dog, she’ll be huge when she’s full grown so that willRead More →

I’ve just added a new feature to the website, Fitness Articles. This will be (hopefully) a monthly article that I will be writing on things related to fitness. The first one is an article by me titled ‘5 Steps to Jump Rope Like a Pro’. You’ll learn a little about how to get into jumping and you can also leave comments about the article to let me, and the world, know what you think about it. Hope you enjoy!Today was definitely better than yesterday as I was able to get a bit of rest last night and certainly had a better day of jumping. That’sRead More →

Do you ever feel that sometimes you’re doing great, but your body doesn’t cooperate? I woke up this morning and felt like everything was going good, I showed up at the school, warmed up and got ready to do the assembly. Right away I noticed something was different, my legs just didn’t want to do what I was asking of them. I fought through the show and got thinking, everything felt like normal, but I wasn’t jumping as smoothly as normal. It finally hit me that I’ve been working myself to the bone (early mornings, late nights and no rest time). My body has startedRead More →

After an exhausting drive back from South Dakota I’ll be spending this week and most of next in the Kansas City area. I had 3 shows yesterday and 2 today. One thing that makes this touring gig interesting is the fact that every school is so different. Between the architecture, layout, performance area, attitudes of the staff and the energy of the students, it’s almost impossible to find 2 schools that are even comparable. Today was neat because I had a 4/5th grade only school before heading into a middle school about an hour away. It’s rare to find a school exclusively for the 4/5thRead More →