Son Nguyen – The Man, The Legend

One of the greatest parts about what I do for a living is meeting people while traveling. I love meeting new people and have made a lot of great friends over the years. Last month, I was performing in Florida and I finally was able to meet up with one of my old team mates, Son Nguyen. If you’ve been involved with jump rope for over 5 years or so, you’ve probably heard the name, or at least you’ve heard of some tricks he made up. The most famous ones that he created were the son rise, the son set and the sonny-d. I’m willing to bet that most younger people would spell all of those as sun instead of son, but that’s because they don’t know their jump rope history.

Son started jumping the same year I did, though he was a few years ahead of me in school. We traveled all over the country together performing whilst we were part of the Juneau Jumpers and we have a lot of great memories from those years. He was one of those people that everyone in jump rope knew because of how talented he was. He was the first person younger than High School to complete a quintuple (5) under. One of his signature moves was a full-twist into a sparkolta (which he now blames for his knee problems).

Currently he is working toward his MD, though he already has his Chiropractic degree along with numerous other Masters and Bachelors. He is what I would call a career student. Anyway, it was a lot of fun to see him again after a long time between visits. Having been involved with jump rope as long as I have, it’s fun to rehash history with someone who has been into it as much as I am.