As fourth period P.E. class at Cypress Falls High School falls silent, Nick Woodard and his wife Kaylee Woodard grab onto both handles and get into position. The only sound in the room that can be heard is the swish of the air as the rope begins to rotate and the tap of their feet as they jump until an enormous cheer breaks out after witnessing Nick complete a back flip while jumping rope.
On Wednesday, Dec. 4, founders of the organization “Learnin’ The Ropes”, Nick and Kaylee performed at Cypress Falls High School and gave P.E. students an opportunity to participate and learn some new jump roping tricks.
“We started competing at the regional level when we were really small, and then quickly progressed to competing at the national level then the world level,” Kaylee said. “We both won national championships and between the two of us we have twenty world titles.”
Nick, former Cypress Falls High School graduate of 2006, and Kaylee both started their passion for jump roping at an early age through their elementary school teams, leading to competing in regional level competitions. Throughout their jump roping experience, they’ve been performers for Cirque du Soleil, the 2024 Olympics and the 2012 Olympics for Nick, and have earned many national and international titles. In 2012, their jump rope program “Learnin’ The Ropes” was born.
“We wanted to inspire them [the children they teach] to show they can do a lot,” Nick said. “A jump rope is not a very big tool. It’s something very portable that you can take anywhere, but it’s something that we’re super passionate about and put a lot of effort into it, so we want to be able to show them that with a little-bitty rope that you can do a lot with it.”
“Learnin’ The Ropes” is a jump rope program that focuses on educating young children and adults about the importance of active and healthy lifestyles, while also teaching children how to have integrity, perseverance, and leadership through anything they are passionate about. Nick and Kaylee have been to over thirty states in the U.S. teaching jump rope along with visiting about twenty different countries such as France, Italy, Japan, South Africa and many more.
“Jump rope is a really creative sport, so we would travel around to different workshops and we would learn from different people,” Kaylee said. “The cool thing is that different parts of these countries kind of have different styles so we would learn from all of them and it just made it really fun for us.”
Nick and Kaylee’s elementary school coaches influenced the idea of turning something simple into an opportunity to make something of themselves.
“We predominantly do a lot of elementary schools”, Nick said. “But we wanted to come to Cy Falls. One, because it’s super special to me, and Ms. Denton really wanted me and my wife to come back, and help out, get the kids jumping, so it’s a new environment for us. But they [the students] have been doing awesome.”
