Nate K-G: That’s cool! So towards the end of high school, most competitive jumpers have some type of an adjustment moving on and going to college. Was it a challenge moving from high school to college as a jumper? Was it pretty easy because you were around other jumpers? What did that look like?
Kenzie Christensen: Yeah, so for me, I think it was an easier transition, just because I grew up in Logan, and that’s where I went to school growing up. And then there’s a college right here, and I just stayed at home and went to college here. So there was still jump rope around if I wanted to be involved. My freshman year of college, I didn’t really like practice or do anything because trying to figure out that college life, and all of the classes, and what buildings you’re supposed to be going to.
Nate K-G: Yeah, a lot happening. This is such, a common thing, I feel like for most jumpers that you end up doing a lot less. At the end of that first year, was it challenging to get back into the groove of things? Did your skills drop a little bit, making it more challenging? Or was it pretty much like picking up where you left off? What was that like?
Kenzie Christensen: From training like three to four days a week… to training maybe like one day a week, definitely took a toll on the skills. So starting my sophomore year of college, I started the Utah State jump rope club. And so then we started practicing two times a week and that definitely helps like bring back up stem skills.
But there were still things… like my speed scores dropped because I wasn’t practicing speed, and then like power got harder, and multiples were harder. The crosses were pretty much still really easy to me cause I had always like done very well with my rope manipulation stuff, so that was easy, like picking up right where I left off. But everything else definitely took a little bit like of time getting back into it.
Nate K-G: What was it like with the club team at the university? I’m so jealous people who’ve made a club team, because I did do a small club, not really club a, a class at when I was in college, but it wasn’t the same level of like a club team. For a jumper who might be interested in starting that at their university, what are some of the steps to start it? And then what does it actually mean to keep the club going throughout the year?
Kenzie Christensen: So there’s different regulations for every college, obviously. So you just have to look into like, if you have a club sports program, or just like a club program, and then go into their office, and just talk to them about like how to get involved. We had a USU Club Office, I just walked into and was talking to them like, “Hey, how do I get involved?” They’re basically like, “oh, you fill out like this paperwork, make sure you have like bylaws, like standards and stuff like that.”
And it was easy, because The Collegiate Jump Rope Association now has like examples that you can use, and like change it just as your requirements are needed for your university, which was super helpful. So you didn’t have to write it yourself. You could just use theirs and kind of change stuff around. So that part was super easy. So I thank them for doing that.
Nate K-G: Yeah.
Kenzie Christensen: And then, we just like took off from there, we kind of marketed the club. You can hang banners up, and so me and two other girls that grew up in competitive jump rope, we started the club and it’s still pretty small. It’s kind of hard to get people interested in jump rope in college, because everyone is like super busy with classes, and like doing their normal life stuff.
Nate K-G: There’s so many things going on. It’s hard to commit to a club.
Kenzie Christensen: Yes, but it’s taken off, like kids still jump today. I go up to practice every once in a while and then help them out. But yeah.
Nate K-G: That’s really cool. What did you do? And you said it was twice weekly, but you did the practices?
Kenzie Christensen: Yeah.
Nate K-G: Well, what did you do during those sessions?
Kenzie Christensen: We kind of did a mix of everything. Some people wanted the exercise portion of jump rope. So we would work on like footwork skills and speed steps to try to get those like down faster, so that they could just like do it as a cardio workout at home. But then other kids were interested in like learning all the skills.
So we would kind of break it up half and half and do like group stuff, so like triangle, or rainbow, or like box, so that like more fun for people instead of like, “Okay, here we go! Let’s go work out for like an hour and a half…” even for people who doesn’t know how to jump rope.
Nate K-G: An hour and a half jump rope workout wouldn’t be so hard… to just keep going for that long would be so hard. That’s really cool. I noticed that there, it seems like there’s a lot more group stuff with the college teams for the reason that you explained. Have you done a lot of coaching and jump up as well?
Kenzie Christensen: Growing up, we would teach weekly workshops.
Nate K-G: Weekly workshops?
Kenzie Christensen: Yeah.
Nate K-G: Wow, that’s very frequent! Was that like a community thing to bring new kids into the sport?
Kenzie Christensen: Yeah. So we were just trying to like give people the knowledge that jump rope existed. And so with those same afterschool programs that evolved into the weekly workshops, when we basically became like our own afterschool thing. It wasn’t associated with the boys and girls club anymore. Anyone in the surrounding area that we live could come to River Heights Elementary, and learn how to jump rope, and pass off same things to get on the team. So that’s how Just Jumpin’ grew their team, was through the weekly workshop.
Nate K-G: Was it just like local buzz that it was like offered? Was it through the school that you got most of the kids coming in? Like how did people know about that every week?
Kenzie Christensen: River Heights Elementary was like, that’s where I went to school. I feel like a lot of us that grew up in River Heights just kind of knew about the club, and we would tell our friends that went to different elementary schools, and we would perform around at different elementary schools. And then at Utah State, we would always do halftime performances. And so I think just by performing, that people would gain the knowledge that we existed
Nate K-G: Gotcha! So they were super aware cause there was a lot of stuff going on. I’m assuming you then did a lot of the coaching, and I would imagine at some point started helping to lead the workshops?
Kenzie Christensen: Yeah. So then once you hit probably like high school age, I would say, they would let you be like the leader of the whole workshop. You’d be the one on the mic talking to the kids, like, “Hey, we’re going to warm up!” Like, “this is what you’re gonna do… here’s your instructor…”
Nate K-G: What was the first time you did that, what was that experience like?
Kenzie Christensen: Oh, I was probably so flustered and I was probably saying like all weird things, like not knowing what I was supposed to be doing. I probably said the wrong thing, like so many times.
Nate K-G: It was a growth experience.
Kenzie Christensen: Yes, sure.
Nate K-G: That’s funny. Wow, it’s such a great opportunity to give middle school or high school student. I would imagine many different ages… but that’s a really awesome thing to do.
Did you find that coaching the university club was similar to that? Or was it different? Or how did you kind of look at that?
Kenzie Christensen: It’s harder to coach in college because we didn’t require practices to be mandatory. So it’s kind of like you would go to practice and there might be two people that show up, or you go to practice and there might be 10 people that show up, because it was like a club. We had like a roster, but it wasn’t like required that people coming to practice, or required to be a fee like to be in the club.
It changed when we became a club sport, there was like a lot of different regulations you had to do. But coaching from little kids to college was different. Little kids kind of like, it was mandatory to show up, or like to the workshop, like your parents were paying for it.
Nate K-G: Your parents just pick you up and drop you off. You just there.
Kenzie Christensen: Yes. We didn’t call it… it wasn’t mandatory. So it was kind of like, wishy-washy what we’re going to do at practice each day.
Nate K-G: I know what you’re talking about. That’s when the class that I did as well, that were the first couple of weeks, we had a very small one and be like three and five people… and then like some weeks you’d be like one… or some weeks like it would be like everyone, and you’re like, “okay, I guess we’re doing really different things then…” Normally, it’d be something group related, but I guess we’re just doing individual stuff. Yeah, that’s a fun part of it.
So you said that the club is still going, so you had a process in place to have officers, and people keep going, and you just would keep bring people into it?
Kenzie Christensen: I don’t think we had the greatest process of like, “once Kenzie has gone, like what’s going to happen with the club?” So the club is like really small and they try their best to get people to come in, like they invite their roommates and try to word out, we do performances. But I just don’t know if Logan is like, not the place that people want to join jump rope, because other college teams are like super big, and here people will come and try it and then they’ll do it for like three weeks and then…
Nate K-G: They’re just gone….
There might just be other things to do. I know, like that’s kind of how it was when I was at UC Santa Barbara. And Santa Barbara, you’re by, like the ocean and the mountains. So there’s like every other activity that you can go do in the middle of a bright, sunny, perfect day, that does not involve being inside. Which for me personally, I would way rather be jumping, obviously, because that’s my life. But like for most people they’re like, “well, there’s also these other things to go do.” I feel like very common.
