Skipping with Donny & Marie

He’s a little bit country and she’s a little bit rock and roll and Skipper Kim was their guest on the Donny & Marie Show.

This was taped in March 2000…

The sponsorship she was hoping to generate for her Skip to Mamou never materialized. A perfect example of how unanswered prayers are sometimes the very best kind.   That would have been a mighty long skip!

Good Day Sacramento

Cody Stark was the first person to ever interview Kim Corbin about her skipping dream in 1999 when he was working at Fox 59 in Indianapolis, IN.

Here he interviews her an entire decade later and asks her to get unsuspecting shoppers at the local Walmart to join in the fun!

You can watch their 1999 interview in its entirety here.

Prevention Magazine - September 2001

Here’s what Prevention Magazine’s September 2001 issue had to say about skipping for exercise…

Energize Your Workouts–Feel great, get faster results, and have fun…

Putting a little skip in your step can breathe life into a stale exercise routine. Skipping–that free spirited activity you did as a kid–is making a comeback in adult exercise, and with good reason.

“Skipping is cool,” says Prevention exercise advisor Wayne L. Westcott, Ph.D., fitness research director for the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, MA. “Football players do it. Runners do it. It really works your legs, provides a good cardio workout, and is fun for variety.”

This playful childhood exercise can also help with grown-up concerns:
**Speed up results. Add short skipping sessions to your daily walk. Skipping burns twice as many calories as walking, so you’ll lose weight faster. Or do it to raise your heart rate between sets while lifting weights.
***Sneak in a workout. Do you find there’s never any time to exercise? Skip around the house for a quickie workout.
***Strengthen bones. Moderate impact activities such as jumping and skipping help build your bones and keep them strong.
***Beat Boredom. A little skipping can energize an entire walk.
***Invite Family Fun. Young kids love to skip. Take them along to help the whole family stay fit.

How to Skip Safely:
1. Stay low and slow. Start with just a few easy, low-to-the-ground skips, pushing off your back foot and swinging your arms. When you feel up to it, skip a little longer or with more gusto.
2. Work it into walks. No need to skip for miles. Walk a block, then skip a quarter block. Continue mixing the two throughout your workout.
3. Soften your landing. Wear good aerobic sneakers to absorb impact. Skip on dirt or cindered paths rather than concrete.
4. Watch your back. Too much impact can aggravate lower-back injuries. Stick to easy, low-impact skips if you have a history of back problems.

People Magazine

Here’s what the January 2001 article in People Magazine had to say about iskip.com.

“Spinning? Old news. Tae-Bo? Yawn. In the 21st century, skipping is the hottest way to sweat, says Kim Corbin, who’s out to prove that the giggle-inducing gate is more than child’s play. Besides being a “really happy movement,” says Corbin, “it gets your heart pumping and increases your energy.” Corbin leads monthly group “skips” in San Francisco, where she lives, and has inspired skipping clubs in more than 20 states via her Web site, http://www.iskip.com

A freelance book publicist, Corbin, 32, first put a skip in her step in April 1999 in an effort to lose weight (she dropped 25 lbs. over 18 months) but kept it up because “skipping reconnects me with joy,” she says, “When I’m walking down the street there are a million things in my head. Whenever you skip, that doesn’t happen. Corbin convert Patrick Purcell, 50, a mapmaker with the Burueau of Land Management in Sacramento agrees: “It brings up the happy endorphins.”

Because skipping is more free-form than running (and, says Corbin, can be easier on the knees), some adult skippers try variations like the butterfly skip (arms swing wide) or the chicken (arms flapping), but most just relive their childhood. “All the things we did as kids we don’t do anymore,” laments occupational therapist Nancy Mangelli, 35, “This is great.”

Corbin is making sure that today’s kids don’t miss out on the fun either. Working with the nonprofit Project Fit America, a group that promotes fitness among children, she will lead a skipping tour of U.S. schools next year. Says Stacey Cook, PFA’s executive director: “It’s a great way to get parents and kids to exercise together.”

Unfortunately, the hoped for sponsorship for that skipping tour would never come to be.

Tax Day Skip in Seattle

In April 2000, the head skipper in Seattle got some nice press coverage for a Tax Day Skip she organized in Seattle, WA. This article ran in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer covered the event. Congrats, Emily!! Here is her report on how the skip went:

Less people than I had expected ended up coming, but what we lacked in numbers, we made up in fun. Alki seemed a bit quiet for a beautiful Saturday. Maybe the stock market thing has got people down. Wish they knew how much they need to skip. Our small parade of four skipped for over an hour. We had a couple of joiners mid-skip. Channel 13 was there shooting film. We made the ten o’clock news!!! The attendees were very enthusiastic and full of great ideas on how to promote ourselves and our happy movement mission. The weather was fantastic. The first group skip was like a dream come true for me. I know that sounds silly, but… I just thought it was a real hoot. A cute boy told me he thought skipping was “Brilliant!” Little kids looked at us in wonder. So did old people. Ok, everybody thought we were a little crazy. Hooray! I called out to people to join in. I would never do that alone. I skipped farther than I would have alone. When we finished, my body ached. Thank you to Tatia, Melinda and Sherry for coming out. It was great fun.

We later heard from Emily that while she was hanging out flyers at a happy hour the night before her skip, one of the guys she told about the skip ended coming to the skip. And, are you ready for this? They are now married!

Emily skipped before the ceremony to get rid of the jitters and to celebrate her good fortune. Some wedding guests were also spotted skipping. Here’s to a lifetime of skipping happily ever after! 

Time Magazine

Here’s what Time Magazine’s short feature about skipping in April 2000 had to say…

DON QUIXOTE OF THE WEEK: Can there be any physical activity not yet annexed by the gym and footwear folk and marketed as the latest fitness craze? At least one–skipping down the street. Since founding iskip a year ago in San Francisco, Kim Corbin has uncovered a hidden swath of skippers, mostly adult. So far, 14 cities have clubs run by head skippers, and group skips are coordinated through a website, iskip.com. Upcoming events include a tax-day skip in Seattle on April 15 and a skip in New York City’s Central Park in May. Corbin hopes to skip across the country to (where else?) Mamou, LA.

Fitness Magazine

Here’s what FITNESS MAGAZINE wrote about iskip in March 2000 in their TRENDS section:

Put a Skip in Your Step: Avid skipper Kim Corbin is out to make sure more people do as Dorothy did down the yellow brick road. The founder of iskip.com holds skipping outings in San Francisco twice a month and even
organized a six-city event in October. “It’s incredible exercise—physically and mentally,” says Corbin. Sound silly? Corbin disagrees. “It’s not silly to get extraordinary benefits from a fun exercise,” she says. To get started, Corbin suggests incorporating skipping intervals into your regular walks or jogs. For more information about skipping workouts and events, log on to www.iskip.com.

Wacky L.A…from Melrose to Rodeo Drive

Skipping with Jane Velez Mitchell on Los Angeles’ CBS Channel 2…My skipping partner is the ever dramatic Anthony Bradford who volunteered to be LA’s head skipper after reading an article about the movement in the Los Angeles Times.

Back Home Again in Indiana

This is the first interview Kim Corbin ever did about her skipping dream. It aired on Indianapolis’s Fox 59. Her Dad even makes a cameo appearance.

The interviewer Cody Stark went on to be a host of Good Day Sacramento and did this follow-up interview with Kim ten years later.