MORE than just a cardio tool for one’s fitness regimen and a fun physical activity, jump rope is an exciting and intricate pursuit worthy to be considered a sport where Filipinos can excel in.
This is what the newly organized Philippine Jump Rope Association (PJRA) wants to highlight in making a case for the activity as a legitimate sports discipline and sharing the passion for it.
Noel Agra, PJRA president, shared during his session at the online Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum on Tuesday that doing jump rope is a worthwhile activity to pick up by anybody who wants to have an all-around body workout, especially now the country is in under various forms of lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“The PJRA built this association during the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) period and we want to share our love for doing jump rope. I have been doing this for the past five years and it has been life-changing for me. Actually I lost 50 pounds doing it. Through the federation we want to share the love for jump rope both as a lifestyle and as a sport,” Mr. Agra said.
Currently the newly formed association has 148 members nationwide and it is continuously accepting members and working with other groups to steadily build the legs for jump rope in the country.
Mr. Agra said they are in the process of preparing to hold different online events for now to foster the jump rope community locally and introduce the activity to more people.
The PJRA, too, is bent on legitimizing jump rope as a sport and it has already applied for membership with the International Jump Rope Union (IJRU), the international federation for competitive jump rope or rope skipping.
Mr. Agra shared that from their going around, he is very confident that Filipinos can excel in jump rope and that push for it just needs to be enhanced.
“We are in the process of finding jump rope athletes. It is a challenging sport which needs a lot of commitment and hard work. We actually have a lot of athletes who have not been exposed or highlighted,” the PJRA president said.
Despite the limitations presented by the pandemic, Mr. Agra said they at the PJRA are determined to see what they want to achieve for jump rope through.
“The quarantine lockdown is really a challenge because we are limited in what we can do. But the potential is there and there is progress,” he said.
PJRA is looking at staging a series of online events beginning in September.
For more information on jump roping and PJRA, follow the group on Facebook @jump.pjra. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo
