“I encourage eye contact while skipping – GIVE your love and energy to people you pass YOU have that power. We all do. We are all magic- we just need to know how to find it, use it and spread it to other people.” -Michelle Joni

Michelle speaks the skipping truth and has a beautiful way of articulating its many intricacies … that nervous pre-skip jolt…the magical way the energy of skipping shifts our immediate environment in a positive direction..and lots more! So we think you’ll enjoy this recent interview we did with her about all things skipping.

When did you start skipping as an adult?

It’s new! I started skipping (for real) a couple of months ago.

It started with dance walking. I love listening to music when I walk, and sometimes and it’s hard to not dance as I go. This year I really started to embrace it, but it started out small. I would do a little trot here, a gallop there. When people would pass by and see me shaking my thang on the street by myself, it gave me a nervous jolt. But then I realized that nervous jolt is a good thing, so I started doing it more.

The first time I skipped was 2 months ago as I was on my way to a nail appointment. It was cold out and I wanted to get there faster, so my body sped me along and suddenly I was skipping! It was almost accidental. As soon as I started skipping up Broadway, I realized how much fun I was having. I started flailing my arms and smiling. And then laughing!  

I was leaping high in the sky! It was just a few blocks, and I realized how much fun it was just to feel the freedom of not caring what anyone else thought. I also realized that everyone I passed didn’t have a look of judgement – they were actually smiling too. I literally changed my environment by skipping down the street. I made it happier. I filled it with joy, love and positivity.

I wrote on Facebook when I got to my nail appointment “Skipping is so underrated!” And a lot of people responded. “YES! I love skipping!” And I realized there was definitely something there. As ideas tend to come to me at lightning speed, by the end of my manicure I had a fully thought out Skipping Club, and it was going to start in ONE WEEK!

Love it! So tell us about your Skipping Club!

Michelle Joni’s Skipping Club is a fearless workout and dance party in motion every Thursday at 2pm.

We meet at a new spot in NYC each week and I design a themed hour of improv games, motivational topics and activities– all centered around the core qualities of skipping.

For example, on Valentine’s Day we handed out long-stemmed roses to strangers as we skipped by. We wore red and pink. The skipping adventure ended at Lindt Chocolate on Fifth Avenue, where I arranged to have a chocolate sampling. We also recently did a nostalgic tour of Alphabet City. I pointed out all of my secret spots along the way, because it was my last week living there! My favorite local restaurant, Esperanto, was the sponsor, and we had sangria, and chips and salsa to end the Skipping Club meetup.

Do you skip in intervals / take breaks in between to allow for different fitness levels? Or how does that work?

I personally have asthma and have a hard time running, so skipping is the perfect happy medium. it’s definitely a workout, but I focus more on the fun and freedom of it.

I have a bluetooth speaker in my see-through pink backpack, and we usually do 1-2 songs at a time. We take breaks for little games and to catch our breaths. Also, we stop to stretch, to give gratitude, to meditate, to talk about what we’re excited for in the future, and other fun games.

What would you say you most enjoy about skipping?

What I enjoy most about skipping is the way I can transform my environment. Skipping creates a powerful and positive field of energy – because the act itself makes you feel happy. Passersby feel that happiness, even if only slightly, and in turn, they will have the ability to spread it. It’s a ripple effect. I encourage eye contact while skipping – GIVE your love and energy to people you pass YOU have that power. We all do. We are all ::magic:: – we just need to know how to find it, use it, and spread it to other people.

Where is your favorite place to skip?

I’d have to say New York’s East Village. It’s a colorful quirky neighborhood to begin with, so it’s fun to add to it.

What advice would you offer to someone who is hesitant to start skipping because they are worried about what others might think?

I would tell them that is exactly why they should do it! Life is about pushing past boundaries. It is the only way to discover new things about yourself and the only thing that enables people to make change in this world. Think about that situation at work or in your love life that makes you uncomfortable. What if you could take small steps toward getting past it? Think of skipping as a metaphor for something that scares you. Once you learn that it’s not going to kill you and you experience a glimpse of that next level of confidence – it will open up your mind and assure you that you are way stronger (mentally, emotionally, even physically) than you thought.

Do you think that skipping makes the world a better place? If so, how?

Yes! Skipping brings instant joy and lightheartedness to the person skipping and those around them. Happiness is contagious. Also, skipping in the news is a nice change from all the negativity.

What is the best way for people to stay up-to-date on your latest skipping happenings?

Three ways: Join our Facebook page; Sign up for Skipping Club News on my website; or join the meetup!

Yes, that’s right an enthusiastic and passionate skipper has bounced onto the scene in New York and created the Michelle Joni Skipping Club that meets up every Thursday afternoon at 2 pm!

Michelle’s vision, energy, and love of skipping is truly inspiring.  Here’s how she describes this special club on the Skipping Club’s Facebook page…

A dance party in motion every Thursday! Join Michelle Joni for a FEARLESS workout to paint the streets of New York City (or anywhere she travels…) with joy, love and positivity. Surprise new location each week. And lots more surprises too! ♥

So what are you waiting for? Skip on over and join the Skipping Club on Facebook..and get out there and skip the town blue or red or pink or whatever the color of the week might be.

You can also sign up for the Michelle Joni’s Skipping Club email list on Michelle’s website or visit the Skipping Club meet-up page.

When a friend sent a group email about the game to me in June last year, it sounded intriguing but I didn’t think much of it until that still small voice within spoke up about a week later and said,

Before Game On

“Maybe you should give that Game On thing a try!?”

I am so glad that I listened to that voice and not the more reluctant part that thought it would be too hard or that it wouldn’t work for me!

Clearly all programs like this are not for everyone, but for me personally this game has been like a golden ticket as far as a FUN and EASY way of experiencing a body, mind, and spirit connection and losing a boatload of weight in the process! Needless to say I’m a huge fan and even started administering my own Game On group about six months ago.

The Game On Diet (as I have been doing it) is an online team sport.  Each player puts in $25 toward the prize and is responsible for keeping track of the number of points they earn each day for a variety of healthy activities (see below).

After Game On

Everyone turns their scores in at the end of each week and as then the administrator  calculates overall team averages and keeps track of them throughout the course of the game. The highest scoring team wins the prize money in the end (as does the highest scoring individual not on the winning team)!   The cool thing is that everyone else wins too because they dared to take on a 4-week challenge to make their health more of a priority in their lives…and the benefits of that are undeniable!

Most of my games last for four weeks, including the new one I will be starting on April 15th! (Hint, hint…Would love to have you join us if this sounds like something that might work for you!)

If you are all interested in playing you should order a copy of the Game On! Diet at your earliest convenience! You also can check out the Game On! Diet website and read through the FAQ.

Here’s a quick peek at the rules of the Game On Diet…

You have a potential of earning 100 points per day. You count your points for the following, which will be added up and divided by # teammates each week:

DRINK at least 3 liters of water a day. = 10 points

EXERCISE at least 20 minutes 6 days a week. = 20 points

SLEEP at least 7 hours, 6 nights a week = 15 points

Pick a new GOOD HABIT to do every day for the month = 10 points per day. You must pick something very specific and do-able like 3 sun salutations in the morning (vs. saying do yoga once a day). Habits run the gamut as far as what players pick!

Pick a BAD HABIT to stop for the month = 10 points per day if you don’t do it each day.

COMMUNICATE with at least one member of your own team and one member of the opposing team. = 5 points.  Each game has a Google Group that sends emails to all players so this is relatively easy to do !

EAT five healthy meals a day = 6 points each for a total of 30 points – Meals must be spaced 2 to 4 hours apart, and include a lean protein the size of your palm; a healthy carb the size of your fist (fruit/veggies/whole grains); a healthy fat the size of your thumb; and you must have veggies with at least two of your meals each day.

There is a list of foods you are allowed to eat called FYT (Flatten Your Tummy) foods which include whole grains; beans; oatmeal; baked potatos; brown/wild rice; low/no fat dairy; egg whites; plain greek yogurt; fish/seafood; lean meat; vegetarian; avocado; nut butters; nuts (5-10 each as fat); seeds; veggie oils; etc.

There also is a list of FLABB foods in the book that are not allowed w/ out penalty. This list includes artificial sweeteners; fried food; sugars; butter; cream; fruit juice; most desserts; sodas; and processed meats.  However, you are allowed 100 free calories a day that can be anything (besides alcohol and soda).  Also, cucumbers, jicama,  and/or celery snacks between meals are OK but if you eat anything else between your 5-allowed meals it will cost you a 10 point snacking penalty.

You are allowed one meal off per week where you can eat whatever you want and one day off from all of the rules.   Alcohol is only allowed on the meal off (one portion) or the day off (unlimited but not to excess!) Otherwise you pay a 25 point penalty per drink!

PENALITIES:  Snacking between meals  [-10 each], Collusion [-20]; Alchohol [-25 per portion]

BONUS POINTS:
1) Meeting a 1% weight loss goal each week = a 20% bonus
2) Submit your score sheet to the scorekeeper by Mon at noon = 10 point bonus

Obviously, integrity is the name of the game here! It’s the HONOR SYSTEM – so it is important to be true & honest for yourself and your teammates! After all if you cheat, you really only cheat yourself.  Each player is giving an excel spreadsheet to make keeping track of their points easy.

And that’s it!   While the idea of it being a game might make it seem competitive, it really isn’t about that. It is not always about following the plan perfectly..it is about doing your best and being accountable and forgiven when you aren’t able to follow the rules for whatever reason.

It really is true that every single person who plays ends up winning in the end even if they only do 1/2 of the stuff they are supposed to do in a given week!  Daring to play makes a powerful statement to the Universe about our intention of taking a stand for good health…and I for one believe that only good can ultimately come from that.

So if you are interested in possibly joining a game some time send me an email and I can let you know as new ones start, etc.  And if you’d like to start on 4/15, please email me to let me know by 4/10 at the latest…and order your book asap!

The Greencastle Indiana High School Swimming team uses skipping to help them sense and establish natural energy patterns related to each beat of a variety of movements. The ground establishes an energy beat, and then they try to “figure out” how that beat gets through the body and ultimately out through the finger tips. From that foundation they take the movements into the water and try to feel the same natural beats established with the kick and the hand stroke of swimming.

Yahoo! Skip on!

The organization’s founder Cara Jones said that “the skipping lady she had read about a few years before” just popped into her consciousness when she was putting together the roster for this year’s event so she contacted me through Facebook to see what I was up to.

We scheduled a phone call where I filled her in on the highs and lows of my 14-year (!!!??) skipping adventure…… and she ultimately invited me to be a part of it even though I explained in advance that I haven’t been organizing group skips, etc. like I used to in the early skipping movement days.

She said that my mission should I choose to accept it was to distill the skipping movement story down into 3 minutes that I would share with the audience who would pick the winner of the free video out of the 5 presenters.

The crowd was super warm and charged with good vibes…There were 5 presenters – 4 nonprofit organizations and me… and as I expected my story was a lot different than the rest. They all are relatively new organizations that are doing really practical and tangible good works in the world….while my story was more of a 30-year panoramic view of the history of the skipping movement…and probably the least likely to really benefit from a pro bono video. 

The nonprofit that won the video is called Dancin’ Power and they go into hospitals and teach kids w/ terminal illness to dance! How amazing is that?!   There was also the Mini Mermaid Running Club for Girls, A spoken word organization for teens called Youth Speaks, and the Inspiration Campaign which is a guy that crowd sources the funding for billboards that have a positive message like “You are amazing.”

I am so honored to have been invited to have been a part of such a cool event and to connect with so many people who are doing really good work in this world!  I’ve been skipping on air ever since.

Here’s a video that my friend took of the talk…although be warned that you can’t see the slide show which was a key part of the presentation…and the lighting/angle is kind of strange….
 

Perhaps like many people who left comments on the video – wondered out of idle curiosity where in the world he is today and if he’s still got a skip in his step. Well, we are happy to report that  THE Skipper has been found  after what ended up being a long and diligent search that lasted well over a decade.

Our quest to find him began way back in 2000 shortly after iskip.com was created. At the time, the “skipping movement” was getting all kind of national publicity – from Time to People to the Associated Press – and several people who read the story sent in emails about a man in Newport, Rhode Island who has been an extraordinarily passionate skipper and had gotten a tremendous amount of national publicity in the 1980s – including the Today Show!

Since for all intents and purposes, the Internet did not exist when he was doing his thing and we weren’t even sure what his name was at the time, online searches came up short. But we were undeterred.

Iskip’s Kim Corbin even visited Newport at one point and asked everyone that she met if they remembered the Newport Skipper from the 80s. One particularly charming African American man convinced her that he had been the one that had skipped around Newport and she bought his story hook line and sinker. That is until she wrote about meeting him in her “As the World Skips” newsletter and some friends of the REAL Newport Skipper wrote to tell her she’d been had since THE Skipper was white!

After a couple of years of searching, Kim finally realized she had to let go of the hope of ever finding the mysterious skipper who was surely a kindred spirit from the 80s and accepted that it wasn’t meant to be.

That is until the the Carolina Camera video went viral recently and resparked her hope and commitment for finding him!  Kim wrote a post on iskip.com asking for anyone who had leads to email her and reached out to a reporter at Slate Magazine who had written a “the rest of the story” article that revealed more about THE Skipper’s story from the 80s. But, he too, had been unable to locate him before writing his piece.

We received emails from two complete strangers who wanted to help Kim find Bill Martinelli. One lived in Rhode Island and sent some names/phone numbers based on her research, and a fellow in Florida, which was the last reported place THE Skipper had lived, sent some contact information for Bill Martinellis in that area as well.

Imagine Kim’s surprise when the man on the end line at the second number she tried ended up being THE Skipper!  When he asked who was calling, she told him that she was the creator of the iskip.com website and that she’d been searching for the Newport Skipper for many moons!  He said that he knew who she was and was even aware that iskip.com existed because friends had told him about it in the past.

Of course, they had lots to talk about and had plenty of skipping notes to compare! It’s pretty miraculous if you think about it that whatever force inspired him to skip as an adult for the first time with his girlfriend on a Rhode Island beach in the 1980s and touched Kim’s heart and spirit in an almost identical way on the streets of San Francisco in 1997 and inspired her to become a passionate skipping spokesperson as well, even though she had no idea at the time that a predecessor had skipped an almost identical path two decades before!

Kim told THE Skipper that he had already been inducted into iSkip.’s “Hall of Skipping Fame” and that she wanted more than anything to honor him for his pioneering skipping contribution on the website in whatever way she possibly could. They’ve been developing a delightful virtual friendship ever since.

Although THE Skipper does not currently have a regular skipping practice, his passion for skipping as a form of locomotion still knows no bounds.  He officially went into skipping retirement in 1990 after local officials refused to give him the permits he needed to keep his skipping business alive. (Clients paid him to skip around town carrying a billboard as Bill is demonstrating in the picture above that was taken in Atlantic City.)

All of the buzz that the Carolina Camera video going viral has created has Bill contemplating a return to the skipping stage after all of these years, which we sincerely hope will eventually happen because his passion, expertise, and pioneering spirit feel like exactly what the skipping movement needs to go to a whole new level!  And our world certainly needs the positive energy that skipping represents now more than ever.

Bill was kind enough to recently answer a few questions for us about skipping, the recent interest in his video, and what he’s currently devoting his abundance of creative energy to. so without any further ado, may we introduce THE Skipper….

Do you still believe that skipping should be a more mainstream activity?  If so, why?

I have always believed that skipping is a “better way to move across the earth by foot.” Better than running because it’s less harmful. Better than walking because it’s faster. When done properly it is a controlled form of locomotion that can certainly be incorporated into everyday life.

Whether it will become more mainstream or not may in part depend on what you and  I do in the future.

How did it feel to have your video from the 1980s go viral like it did recently?

It came as a complete surprise to me and I only found out about it after I started hearing from friends. What doesn’t surprise me is the interest in it.  I was always the object of intense curiosity and interest from the day in 1982 when I went public with it.  It brought back a lot of memories from Charlotte, NC where I ended up after leaving Newport.  It reminded me of some of the fascinating things which  happened to me as a result of being the first adult human being to take a childhood form of movement and incorporate it into daily life.  It is an incredible story if I do say so myself and I may have to get serious now about sharing it with the world.

What advice would you offer to someone who would like to start skipping but is hesitant to do so because it is such an usual form of locomotion?

There are two parts to skipping and both are difficult. The physical part requires that the technique be learned or injury can result – just like what happened to me when I skipped in the Newport marathon and ended up crawling back to the starting line on a cold, raw November day, a mile out on Ocean Drive, wearing white athletic socks which had turned red with blood.

The other part involves my famous statement, “Skipping isn’t a contact sport. It’s an “eye-contact” sport.” If you are not ready to draw attention to yourself, sometimes not necessarily the positive type, then you may need to re-think your intentions.  Skipping in public is not for the self-conscious.

What lucky projects are lucky enough to have your passionate personality working on them these days?

Right now I’m doing my small part to help make sure the Flipper-in-Chief does not unseat the President through the Mitt Romney Flip Flops website. I commissioned a fabulously talented cartoonist, Josh McGill, to create the illustrations which I  conceived for T-Shirts I like to call the “uniforms for the soldiers in Obama’s army.” Romney and his cohorts would be an absolute disaster for the country just in terms of what he will put on the Supreme Court. If he’s elected I’m skipping town.

My real job is to provide legal document preparation for people with family law cases like divorce, custody, legal guardianship, adoption, etc., at a price which is affordable. I’ve been in the business for almost 10 years working for 3 different companies, 2 of which I owned.  www.lowcostlegal.org

It’s a much needed service for many people who simply cannot afford an attorney. We do a complete divorce or custody case for $389 which most people find almost too good to be true. But we have saved  a lot of people from having to endure dreadful marital conditions and have gotten custody and visitation for parents whose kids have been kept from them.  Maybe someday we might even make some money doing it!

It’s called Skip Around the World and it is a montage of people skipping across the globe, in the same spirit as the “Where the hell is Matt” videos from a while back.  It was created by an advertising company in Los Angeles.

You can watch the video (and upload your own) on the Skip Around the World website.  Be sure to check it out!  This is a fun and simple way to share the skipping joy!!

Here are just a few still shots from their incredible montage of skippers from all across the globe…

Those are skippers in Mammoth, CA, Russia, and the Indian Ocean and there’s plenty more where that came from! So skip on over to the Skip Around the World website and submit your video too!

We also invite you to participate in next year’s event!  It’s super easy to RSVP by joining the Facebook event page and then skip at least a few steps wherever you happen to be on July 31st next year. Don’t worry we’ll remind you!

Over 6000 kindred skipping spirits from around the globe participated in this fun event that is the inspiration of Canadian skipper extraordinaire Dawna Marie Wright. Now we have several months to get more skippers than ever to participate, so please help us to spread the word by sharing the event with your friends on Facebook after you RSVP!

Let’s see how many skippers we can get for 2013! And be sure to make your calendar for 7/31/13 when the 3rd annual SUDS will be happening!

I continue to be amazed by the ways his path and the one I have been skipping the past 13-years mirror each other!

We both became so passionate about the benefits of skipping that we took our message to the streets literally and figuratively. Him in the 1980s and me twenty years later in the early 2000s.

We both got significant press for our efforts. He was on the Today Show. I was in People. Time, and Newsweek Magazines.

He almost skipped with Richard Simmons. I skipped with Donny Osmond.

Him writing a screenplay after his skipping billboard business failed. Me skipping myself into financial ruin when I realized the manuscript I was writing about the skipping experience (that I had quit my day job to write) didn’t cut the mustard editorially.

Both of our passions for skipping have cooled drastically over the years, with him skipping out of the public eye to the point that I have not been able to find his name or anything, despite multiple people telling me the story of this skipper who had lived in Newport, RI that had gotten a lot of publicity in the 80s.

I even visited Newport once and asked everyone I knew if they had met him or remembered him. One evening in a bar, an African American fellow told me that he had been the Newport skipper and made up a whole story that I bought  hook line and sinker… That is until I wrote about it in the “As the World Skips” newsletter I was doing at the time and someone from Rhode Island wrote to tell me that I had been had because the REAL Newport skipper had been white and that I’d been had. Doh!

I find it sad that the homophobia thing is likely what caused Bill to stop his skipping campaign. It is a sad but true reality that much of our culture can’t seem to deal with the idea of male skippers today… So I can’t imagine what it would have been like in the 80s! All you have to do is read the chain of juvenile comments under his YouTube video to see how far we still have to go as a culture before skipping joyfully down the street isn’t loaded with negative connotations!

The resurgence of the story of Bill’s mission has inspired me to skip a lot more than usual the past couple of days.  I feel like the skipping movement has just discovered it has a long lost relative that it never new existed until now… and it makes me want to honor his early efforts by skipping as much as possible.

I would love to be able to interview Bill Martinelli about his story or at least to compare notes since we are living such parallel lives. I am going to continue to see if I can find him!  If you have any tips that might point me in the right direction, please email me and let me know!

Imagine our surprise when we were sent this video that at long last gave us a glimpse into the 80s skipper in action:

It seems that Bill not only lived in Charlotte, but in Florida too based on this article about him applying for a permit to be able to skip around town with a billboard for money that was ultimately denied in Broward County Florida in 1988.

Thanks to some helpful hints via iskip readers, we were able to connect with Bill via email and are thrilled to officially add Bill to the Skipping Hall of Fame!

Although THE Skipper does not currently have a regular skipping practice, his passion for skipping as a form of locomotion still knows no bounds.  He officially went into skipping retirement in 1990 after local officials refused to give him the permits he needed to keep his skipping business alive. (Clients paid him to skip around town carrying a billboard as Bill is demonstrating in the picture above that was taken in Atlantic City.)

All of the buzz that the Carolina Camera video going viral has created has Bill contemplating a return to the skipping stage after all of these years, which we sincerely hope will eventually happen because his passion, expertise, and pioneering spirit feel like exactly what the skipping movement needs to go to a whole new level!  And our world certainly needs the positive energy that skipping represents now more than ever.

Bill was kind enough to recently answer a few questions for us about skipping and the recent interest in his video…. so without any further ado, may we introduce THE Skipper….

Do you still believe that skipping should be a more mainstream activity?  If so, why?

I have always believed that skipping is a “better way to move across the earth by foot.” Better than running because it’s less harmful. Better than walking because it’s faster. When done properly it is a controlled form of locomotion that can certainly be incorporated into everyday life.

Whether it will become more mainstream or not may in part depend on what you and  I do in the future.

How did it feel to have your video from the 1980s go viral like it did recently?

It came as a complete surprise to me and I only found out about it after I started hearing from friends. What doesn’t surprise me is the interest in it.  I was always the object of intense curiosity and interest from the day in 1982 when I went public with it.  It brought back a lot of memories from Charlotte, NC where I ended up after leaving Newport.  It reminded me of some of the fascinating things which  happened to me as a result of being the first adult human being to take a childhood form of movement and incorporate it into daily life.  It is an incredible story if I do say so myself and I may have to get serious now about sharing it with the world.

What advice would you offer to someone who would like to start skipping but is hesitant to do so because it is such an usual form of locomotion?

There are two parts to skipping and both are difficult. The physical part requires that the technique be learned or injury can result – just like what happened to me when I skipped in the Newport marathon and ended up crawling back to the starting line on a cold, raw November day, a mile out on Ocean Drive, wearing white athletic socks which had turned red with blood.

The other part involves my famous statement, “Skipping isn’t a contact sport. It’s an “eye-contact” sport.” If you are not ready to draw attention to yourself, sometimes not necessarily the positive type, then you may need to re-think your intentions.  Skipping in public is not for the self-conscious.