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Learning to Skip Rope — Description

This story took place about 13 years ago, when Cinnamon was 7 and Peppermint was 11.
Warrensville Elementary was set to hold a special event at the school, where the students would all get to skip rope during a class period, which would help the school raise funds for the Heart and Stroke foundation, and encourage the kids to be active and have fun doing so. Cinnamon, of course, loved anything fitness related, so she was looking forward to being able to play and get active during school.
The only problem was, Cinnamon had never used a skipping rope before. She didn't know how to skip. Luckily, though, she was in such a big family that surely, one of her siblings could help her.
Sure enough, not long after the event was announced, Cinnamon found her big sister Peppermint practicing in the backyard after school. She was skipping very gracefully, almost never missing a beat, up until Cinnamon approached her, which distracted her a bit.
CINNAMON: Hey, Pepper.
PEPPER: Whoa! Phew!
CINNAMON: Oops, sorry.
PEPPER: It's ok. What's up?
CINNAMON: Can you teach me how to skip?
PEPPER: What? You don't know how to skip rope? You're good at all kinds of sporty stuff.
CINNAMON: Nope, I've never done it before.
PEPPER: Well, then, sure. Rosemary taught me, so now I can teach you.
CINNAMON: Yes! Thanks, Pepper!
So Cinnamon went to the backyard shed, which was where the kids kept all their outdoor toys, and found another skipping rope, then brought it to where Pepper was.
PEPPER: So you hold each end of the rope nice and tight, have the rest of the rope behind you, then swing it over your head like this. When it goes in front of you, you jump over it like this.
Pepper demonstrated, then jumped slowly a couple times over her rope to show Cinnamon how it was done.
PEPPER: Now you try.
So Cinnamon held the ends of the rope, made Sur the rope was behind her, then swung it over her head. She didn't jump quite fast enough, however, so the rope hit her feet quite hard.
CINNAMON: Ow!
PEPPER: Ooh! Are you ok?
CINNAMON: Uh-huh.
PEPPER: You gotta jump a bit faster than that. Watch how I do it.
Pepper jumped a few more times, and Cinnamon watched exactly how she did it. She watched how high the rope was when Pepper jumped, and she watched how Pepper's feet moved. She tried again, and this time...
CINNAMON: "gasp" I did it!
Cinnamon managed to jump over the rope, but stopped moving her arms right afterwards to watch Pepper's reaction.
PEPPER: Yay! Now try to keep going. Keep swinging the rope with your arms, and jumping and skipping with your feet.
Cinnamon tried again. This time she didn't jump over the rope, and almost tripped.
PEPPER: Oops, keep trying.
Cinnamon tried again. She managed to jump over it once, but when she tried again, she missed.
CINNAMON: Aww.
She tried once more, but the same thing happened. She tried again and again, but each time, if she managed to jump over the rope once, she missed when she tried the second time. She was starting to grow frustrated.
CINNAMON: Ohhh! I'll never get it!
PEPPER: Sure you will! You just gotta keep practicing.
CINNAMON: It's just so hard.
PEPPER: Yeah, just like throwing basketball into the hoop.
CINNAMON: Huh? That's easy.
PEPPER: For you, maybe, but I just can't get it. I guess I just need to practice more like you do.
CINNAMON: Yeah.
Just then, Cinnamon realized that her sister was right. Cinnamon played with the basketball hoop by their driveway all the time, so she got quite good over time, while Pepper doesn't play with it much at all, which meant she was more out of practice.
CINNAMON: Yeah, I guess I did practice basketball a lot.
PEPPER: Mmhmm, and you're super good now. I bet you can be good at skipping too once you practice enough.
CINNAMON: Yeah. Or at least good enough to skip at school next week.
PEPPER: Sure! Just keep practicing.
Cinnamon did keep practicing. She remembered what pepper told her to do, and she practiced the way she moved her arms and legs.
Finally, after a while, she started being able to do a few jumps at a time, then a few more, and a few more.
She practiced after school every day, getting better and better.
Finally, by the day of the skipping rope event, she was good enough to skip to a rhyme that Pepper taught her.
CINNAMON: Cinderella, dressed in yellow,
Went upstairs to kiss her fellow,
By mistake she kissed a snake,
How many doctors did it take?
1, 2, 3..
She managed to skip all the way to 12 before she missed. Her friend Kelsey noticed.
KELSEY: Wow, Cinnamon, you're really good!
CINNAMON: Thanks!
The skipping event was so much fun for the students, and the school was able to help raise plenty of money for the charity. Cinnamon felt proud to have been able to help in such a fun, rewarding way.
Even after that day, Cinnamon got better and better at skipping, and could even cross her arms, go backwards and do double-dutch. To this day, she sometimes skips rope during workouts, and whenever she does, she remembers that fateful day when she was young, and her big sister teaching her and encouraging her to practice and help herself get better.
Learning a new skill isn't always easy, but once you succeed, it can be very rewarding all around.