‘It’s My Active Meditation’: Miquita Oliver On The Joy Of Skipping

How long ago did you last skip? Properly, with a rope we mean. It's an age-old pastime often associated with school years or pro boxers but Miquita Oliver is here to advocate for its benefits. Last year Miquita Oliver rediscovered the joy of skipping. After posting videos of herself skipping to the rhythm of a few favourite tracks online and receiving videos of others doing the same in return Miquita named these skipping sessions Skip School and she's on a mission to get everyone involved. Here Miquita speaks to Grazia about rediscovering the joy of skipping and why we should all be adding a skipping rope to basket.

On Rediscovering The Joy Of Skipping

'I skipped when I was young. I remember I was really obsessed with double dutch. More recently, about three years ago, it became part of my training. I remember being quite self-conscious about doing it. I was with my trainer and we were in the park. There's something about jumping up and down in public that makes you feel self-conscious. I pushed myself though and over time I just got better and better. I went on a major health kick and skipping became a huge part of it. I suddenly started skipping all the time. It made me feel really strong every day. I started to perfect this double tap technique and it went really well with music, I started skipping to different tracks and I thought 'This is a thing!'. Then lockdown happened and skipping became my entire life.'

On Starting Up Skip School

'Last year I got into the habit of going to the local park with my mum and dad who live close by. I feel like lockdown saw a real celebration of our local parks. We are so lucky to have them. We'd go down their together and me and my mum would train. We'd shadow box and weight train together and I would skip. My mum has bad knees so she opted out but my dad, who's 6'3" and the loveliest man in the world, said he'd give it a go. There was this look on his face when he started skipping, his inner child came out. The moment I saw how much my dad enjoyed skipping I knew that I could get anyone to skip. It makes you feel so free. I started putting videos on Instagram to music to show people the magic that happens when you find your skipping rhythm. People started sending me videos of them doing the same thing and at that point I knew it was a 'thing'. It was then that I decided to start up Skip School.' Post your skipping videos to Instagram with the hashtag #skipschool to join it.

On The Mass Appeal Of Skipping

'Skipping has a very dated reputation. You think of men in boxing gyms or young girls playing with their friends. I actually think skipping is completely genderless. Skip School says that skipping is for everyone. That's what we try to show with the videos we put out. Our videos show older gentlemen in Hackney skipping! One of them is an old ex-boxer called Dennis. He was 70, toothless and once I gave him the rope off he went! His friend turned to me and told me that Dennis used to be a Commonwealth boxer. Then they all got involved. I thought, this is about so much more than skipping. It's about returning to something so simple and freeing, jumping up and down. Most of us jumped up and down a lot as kids but how often do we do it now? You stop jumping. I'm encouraging people to start jumping again, and to keep doing it throughout their life.'

On Active Meditation

'I have a lot of energy and I find being still very difficult so meditating is hard for me. Instead I prefer to run outside and skip for 15 minutes. It's my meditation. It's my active meditation.'

On How To Get Involved With Skip School

'At the moment we're building a community. DM my Instagram page with videos of you skipping anywhere at any time. We want to put those videos to music so that people start associating skipping with skipping to a beat. I'm trying to give skipping a new face.'

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