An Okotoks teacher is helping make sure youths don’t skip out on healthy exercise.
Renee Adams, a teacher at John Paul II (JPII) Collegiate, is a four-time provincial champion at skipping and has helped establish Okotoks Happy Feet, a skipping club for foothills youths.
The club will host a team tournament this Saturday at JPII.
“We will have seven schools from across Alberta,” Adams said. “There will be kids from seven to 29. The 29 year old is amazing. She can do absolutely everything.”
The 26-year-old Adams has done some pretty amazing things herself. She won four consecutive provincial skipping titles as a member of the Provost Peppers, in her hometown of Provost.
“I started skipping at five because my older sister did and I wanted to be just like her,” Adams said with a laugh. “Every year we did Jump Rope for Heart and I noticed I was good at it. So I started to try it competitively.”
She quickly learned skipping was the perfect activity for her other athletic endeavors, including competing nationally in tae kwon do.
“Skipping helped me with my footwork, timing, my hand-eye coordination, my cardio, absolutely everything,” Adams said. “It helped me with all my sports.”
She said competitive skipping is well beyond the young girls on the driveway singing: ‘Cinderella dressed in yellow, went upstairs to kiss her fella” before jumping into the rope.
“I never really did that kind of stuff,” she said. “I was able to do every trick at an expert level. I would do a cartwheel into a double-dutch rope, I would do flips, skip with an object and I could skip a rope while in the double-dutch.”
Adams won her first provincial skipping championship as a 13-year-old and then won the next three years. She also competed in three national championships.
The Okotoks Happy Feet is entering its third year and Adams said it is an ideal sport for all youths.
“I used to teach in Red Deer and I noticed a lot of the kids (Grades 4, 5 and 6) were outside texting, playing on their phones so I thought I would try skipping,” Adams said. “I wanted to get the kids active and so I introduced some skipping ropes. One time, I went out to the playground and it seemed all the kids were skipping.”
There are presently 35 youths from Okotoks and High River in the club. Adams said she has to cap it at that number because she is the lone coach. She said it’s an ideal sport for youths of all ages — all they need is a rope and a decent pair of running shoes.
Adams encouraged the public to attend the team competition this Saturday at JPII.
The competition, which includes teams from Edmonton, Leduc, Calgary, Camrose and Turner Valley, will begin at 10 a.m. at JPII.
