Seventeen Years is Too Many

A couple weeks ago Alicia and I headed down to Florida. We had some shows in the area, but timed the trip to coincide with my old jump rope partner and his wife visiting Disney. We had a blast hanging out as this was the first time we have had no obligations except for just having some fun. While we were there I was able to setup dinner with another ex-teammate. In fact, this was the first time in 17 years that the three of us had been together. Son Nguyen, Trent Cunningham and Peter Nestler. It certainly doesn’t look like it now, but back in the day, we were quite the team (along with James Mothershead and Josh Bonk).

Since 1998 I have been performing solo around the world. I love my shows and enjoy all that I’m able to do. However, I do miss the camaraderie that you get when working with a team. Back when we were jumping together, we were close to the only all male jump rope team in the world. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of girls on the team, but as far as our “team” that we competed with, it was all guys. One benefit to this was that we were able to pull off (and make up) a number of skills that no one else was able to do. It also opened a ton of doors for us to travel as people always wanted to have “the boys” to show that it wasn’t just a girls sport.

Needless to say, with all the travel and years that we worked together, we have a lot of stories. It was fun being able to kick back and reminisce about old times. Of course, our wives got to hear all sorts of stories that we have conveniently forgotten over the years. It was a fun night and hopefully it will happen much more frequently in the future.