Building Sustainable Jump Rope Motivation With Don Michael (#50)

“Everyone feeds off the energy or the visual inspiration that they gather from their immediate network.” — Don Michael

I’ve known about Don Michael (aka Happyfingers) for a while now, but we hadn’t actually spoken until a few weeks ago when we did an instagram live call together where he actually interviewed me. I knew right away that Don was all about the jump rope community and had some great perspective to share. So, now it’s my turn to interview him! We dive into loads of subjects, including social media literacy and how jumpers can use the digital world their advantage, growth in the jump rope community, how Don’s artistic talents have influenced his jumping, why Don lost motivation to jump and how he got back to being consistent, and a whole lot more.

You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast.

Selected Links

Don & Nate IG Live Part 1

Don & Nate IG Live Part 2

Jump! Documentary

Jump Rope Dudes

Show Notes

01:17 Don’s Background

05:08 How Don Learned Guitar, Theater & Marching Band

12:05 How Don Picked Up A Jump Rope

15:28 Why Don Lost Motivation To Jump

21:51 How Has Digital Content Impacted You?

24:20 The Biggest Change Don Has Seen In His Jump Rope Community

27:22 The Content That Don Likes

29:01 How A Profession In Advertising Has Shaped Don

33:46 Where Did The Name Happyfingers Come From?

36:33 How Don’s Workouts Have Progressed Over The Years

39:53 Social Media Literacy

45:03 How Do You Manage Frustration?

48:28 Future Goals With Jump Rope

53:06 Frustrating Skills

1:05:16 What Is Jump Rope To You?

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A post shared by Happyfingers Jumps (@happyfingersjumps) on Aug 23, 2020 at 8:00am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Happyfingers Jumps (@happyfingersjumps) on Aug 23, 2020 at 9:01am PDT

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Here’s each step of this combo: 👉 Swing 👉

Here’s each step of this combo:

👉 Swing
👉 Leg Over Swing
👉 Arm Wrap + Release
👉 Unwrap + Regrab
👉 Swing
👉 Basic Cross

Make sure you keep your hands really close, even as you’re doing all of this wrapping. Keep a smooth, even rhythm without speeding up the rope aggressively. Doing this will prevent handle from flying away from your body haha

And definitely don’t power through this combo with your entire arm. You want to use your wrist to rotate the rope and get that nice, smooth motion for this combo!

#jumprope #skippingrope #athomeworkout #ropeskipping #jumpropetricks

The Split Bound Handstand is where your feet split

The Split Bound Handstand is where your feet split apart (like a front straddle) right before bounding into the handstand position!

Remember: DON’T TRY THIS IF you haven’t already learned how do a Stepping Handstand Pull Through.

If you’re ready to try this, use your front leg to push off the ground to bound into the air.

Once you’re in the air, your back leg swings to rotate you into the handstand position.

This one is intimidating at first, and I would definitely recommend NOT full sending it right away! Take it slowly and only do small bounds into that handstand position at first 👌

#handstands #jumprope #skippingrope #doubleunders #handstand #athomeworkout #ropeskipping #jumpropetricks

This combo is: 👉 Toad Cross 👉 Toad Swing

This combo is:

👉 Toad Cross

👉 Toad Swing

👉 Elephant Cross

For this to work, you MUST use both hands to turn the rope! That might sound a little bit obvious, but it’s really easy to forget to use the hand that’s underneath the Toad leg.

As you go from the Toad Cross into the Toad Swing, use that Toad hand to rotate the rope as you transition into that Elephant position.

Make sure you go slowly so you don’t jump too early for the Elephant. If you wait until the rope comes all the way down to the ground before jumping, it’ll be way easier to do the Elephant Cross!

#jumprope #skippingrope #athomeworkout #ropeskipping #jumpropetricks

The Swing, Swing, Open, Open Quad is a classic ski

The Swing, Swing, Open, Open Quad is a classic skill!

You start this with a Swing, and then use the hand that’s farther away from your body to transition over your other hand to the other side.

Then pull the rope back to an open and finish with one final open rotation!

This one’s definitely tough, but the most important important thing to remember is to make sure your hands are really really efficient at doing that swing transition movement!

Your hands must be able to transition from one side to the other with very minimal movement in order to get this done. You could still complete the skill without efficient movement but it’s going to be a lot harder haha so keep all of these tips in mind as you try the SSOO Quad!

#jumprope #skippingrope #doubleunders #tripleunders #quadrupleunders #athomeworkout #ropeskipping #jumpropetricks

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← Prev:Becoming A World Champion Jump Roper With Seth Ingram (#49) Creating Optimism Through Jump Rope With Noel Agra (#51) →

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