The Woman Who Skipped Steps and Succeeded (Until She Didn’t)

Most “dad advice” type maxims will insinuate that you can’t skip steps, right? Well, of course you can. I remember one of the most bastardized-CrossFit things I’d seen as a coach was a student who could do double unders, but not singles. 

I was baffled. 

Now, I don’t blame her. She wanted to do “the thing” and jumping rope wasn’t her interest. Doing what looked like the choreography of CrossFit was her goal. That’s a plenty fine goal and, to her credit, she taught herself a very difficult skill (double unders) without much prerequisite skill (single unders). 

The trouble with these kinds of short cuts is that they create a hole in the foundation that would need to be remedied before going further. Skipping steps, albeit effective at times, is short sided. 

When considering your path of choice to your goals, respect the trade off in skipping steps. This woman had her double unders, but it was a dead end street. If she wanted to master double unders for larger, tighter sets, she’d likely need to go back and gather understanding of quality single unders to do so. Furthermore, when the powers the be at CrossFit decide triple unders or crossover jump rope efforts are a competitive standard, the skipping steps path that took you to double unders likely won’t take you beyond that. 

The longview of movement is a skill-based perspective.