Competitive jumper forms jump rope club for Binghamton University students

For Malia Everett, jumping rope isn’t just an activity you clumsily do at the gym. It’s a way of life.

Everett, a sophomore majoring in biology, has been jumping rope competitively for around 10 years. She got her start when she was nine and her mother enrolled her in a workshop to learn skills from members of jump rope teams in her hometown community in New Hampshire.

“After that, I was like, ‘I love this so much,’” Everett said. Her mother talked to a coach of one of the teams, and Everett tried out. She made the team, and the rest is history.

Since joining the jump rope world, Everett has competed mainly under the American Jump Rope Federation, which is a subsidiary of the International Jump Rope Union.

“Competitions have two event categories,” Everett explained. “There’s speed, and then there’s freestyle.”

The speed portion of competition focuses on alternating your feet as quickly as possible, as Everett describes it. Jumpers competing in a speed event are timed for anywhere from 30 to three minutes. They’re scored on how many jumps they can get within their timed block.

“Freestyle is probably more what everyone is used to,” Everett said. “It’s all the tricks and the really cool things — people are flipping, that sort of thing.”

Everett has also competed in the National Double Dutch League, which she describes as just like the Disney movie Jump In.

“I love how unique competitive jump roping is,” Everett said. “The community as a whole is just super accepting and welcoming. There’s not a single jumper who’s going to be rude to you. I love being part of that community.”

Jump roping seems to come easy to Everett. Her proudest moment in her competitive career happened in 2019, when she and a few friends decided on a whim to compete at the American Jump Rope Federation competition. In order to do it, they had to put together a whole routine in a weekend.

Everett and her friends came up with a double dutch pair routine — an event where two people hold the ropes and two people jump inside, doing tricks.

“We put it together in a weekend,” she said, “and that routine qualified us for the world championships. It was just crazy to me.”

Everett competed with Extreme Air of New Hampshire throughout elementary, middle and high school. Now that she’s in college, competing regularly is a little trickier, but she hasn’t stopped altogether. Last spring, she competed with Extreme Air in Muncie, Ind., under the National Collegiate Jump Rope Association at Ball State University. She took home first- and second-place awards.

“I really wanted to be able to continue jumping through my college experience,” Everett said. “I wanted to give other people the opportunity to enjoy it also.”

So, last spring, Everett formed the Binghamton University Bouncers. And, from the first jump, the Bouncers have hit the ground bounding forward. Everett, the original and current president of the club, and her executive board hosted workshops, conditioning events, discussions with former teammates and bonding activities. Her next goal is to get the Bouncers chartered, something she’s aiming to have done by the end of the fall 2023 semester.

But Everett doesn’t want to introduce jumping to campus only. She wants to give the joy it brings her to everybody that she can.

“I knew that I wanted to get jumping rope into the community in some way,” she said.

Originally, she considered the idea of creating an after-school or elementary school program for potential young jumpers in the community. She contacted the Binghamton University Center for Civic Engagement with her idea, and she was put into contact with Brandy Brown, the North of Main (NoMa) Community Center coordinator.

Everett and Brown came up with a different way to get jump rope into the community – every Saturday, Everett and a few of her fellow Bouncers teach jump rope classes to children in the community. They teach both technical jump roping skills and general jump roping techniques.

In the first two weeks, Everett saw a decent turnout. In the future, she hopes to see it grow even larger.

“It’s really fun for the kids,” she said. “It’s also physically rewarding, because it’s a full body workout.”

As Everett explains it, the physicality of jumping rope is a positive thing. It means that a person who has a knack — or at least a love — for the sport can compete for life. Which is a good thing for seasoned jumpers, considering the current push for the Olympic committee to add jumping rope to the summer Olympic games within a few cycles.

“Someone just set the world record,” Everett said. “She’s 75 and still jumping rope. It’s a lifelong activity.”

It’s safe to say, then, that Everett has no plans to leave the jump rope world any time soon. If all goes according to plan, maybe she’ll even be seen nationally, jumping for gold at the Olympics.