{"id":20998,"date":"2022-04-24T23:24:32","date_gmt":"2022-04-24T15:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=20998"},"modified":"2024-04-17T11:48:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T03:48:21","slug":"the-flexible-rope-skipping-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2022\/04\/the-flexible-rope-skipping-king\/","title":{"rendered":"The Flexible Rope Skipping King"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Timothy Ho Chu-ting, a rope skipping world champion, worked as a delivery man, is still passionate in rope skipping despite having difficulties in training during the pandemic. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esme Lam<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timothy Ho Chu-ting, the first Asian world champion of rope skipping, was forced to work as a delivery man during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ho did two hours of training in between his two part time jobs working as a delivery man for Foodpanda from 11 a.m. to 1 or 2 p.m. and 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. for McDonald\u2019s three days a week from December 2020 to February 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo matter what I do for a living, I always make sure I have time for training. I must ensure that I am fit and ready when physical competitions and training classes resume,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being the winner of Male Individual Overall Champion of the World Rope Skipping Championships in 2014 and 2016, Ho is both an athlete and a coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ho Chu-ting and his team won the team champion in the FISAC-IRSF World Rope Skipping Championship 2014. He was also the winner of individual performance.
(Photo Courtesy of Timothy Ho Chu-ting)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But most of his classes have been cancelled because of the pandemic and his income has dropped by 20 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have never thought of working at McDonald’s and being a delivery man. I thought I would always be a rope skipping athlete and a coach,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From his experience as a delivery man, Ho has learnt to enjoy working no matter what job he has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI enjoy cycling while delivering food. It feels good to exercise and work at the same time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite his passion for rope skipping, finding a venue for training is not easy during the pandemic, as sports centres have been closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes I just walk on the streets to find random places for training. It is also difficult to breathe as masks are required when doing outdoor exercise,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes I just walk on the streets to find random places for training. It is also difficult to breathe as masks are required when doing outdoor exercise.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Ho\u2019s daily training session mainly consists of three areas: speed training, jumping skills and physical training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI used to do training five to six days a week. Now I have to cut down my training to two hours per day and four days a week because of the pandemic,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic not only has affected his job and training, Ho also has to overcome challenges of taking part in virtual rope skipping contests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo be honest, I do not like virtual competitions\u2026but I will do it because of sportsmanship,\u201d he says, adding that videos are taken repeatedly until he has a clip of his perfect performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis makes athletes very tired. I spent one whole month producing six videos for submission of the virtual world championships last year,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ho Chu-ting has to film himself jumping repeatedly till he captures the best performance in order to join a virtual contest.
(Photo Courtesy of Timothy Ho Chu-ting)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Apart from hardship caused by the pandemic, Ho has to combat his injury which is his worst nightmare. He had to stop his training for two months in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel so strange. It seems that I have tried my best already, but it also seems that I have not due to the injury,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite training so hard all his life, rope skipping was not Ho\u2019s favourite sport when he was a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ho started rope skipping for physical training in his badminton lessons. He then joined rope skipping classes after his physical education teacher discovered his talent when he was five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After winning his first award in a competition when he was a Primary Five pupil, he fell in love with rope skipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt not only gives me the sense of achievement, but also helps me build friendship with my teammates who do training and make progress with me,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the age of 19, Ho won his first world champion title in the World Rope Skipping Championships in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the flag of Hong Kong was raised inside the Hong Kong Stadium in the awards ceremony, I was really excited. It was a great honour for me to represent my home place to win an award,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the flag of Hong Kong was raised inside the Hong Kong Stadium in the awards ceremony, I was really excited.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Ho has different feelings when joining competitions with a different hat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel scared and worried about my performance when I take part in competitions. I feel even more worried when my students take part in contests, as I am afraid that they may fail to perform certain skills that they have put a lot of effort into mastering. Sometimes I am even more nervous than my students,\u201d Ho says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ho once taught students with emotional or behavioural problems in 2020. The students were unwilling to engage in class at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI changed my coaching practice and taught them in a playful way. They then became willing to give rope skipping a try. As I mainly hold my lessons in mainstream schools, this special experience gives me a great sense of achievement,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To promote the sport, Ho started producing YouTube clips featuring rope skipping skills and work outs videos in February 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ho Chu-ting started producing YouTube clips featuring rope skipping skills and work outs videos in February.
(Screenshot of YouTube video)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRope skipping classes are usually for kids and teenagers. I want to promote rope skipping to adults by producing videos about how to keep fit with the sport,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope that rope skipping will become so popular that it will one day be one of the sports events in the Olympic Games, and my students and I will have a chance to represent Hong Kong,\u201d Ho says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope that rope skipping will become so popular that it will one day be one of the sports events in the Olympic Games, and my students and I will have a chance to represent Hong Kong.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Edited by Winkie Ng
Sub-edited by Leung Pak-hei<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Timothy Ho Chu-ting, a rope skipping world champion, worked as a delivery man, is still passionate in rope skipping despite having difficulties in training during the pandemic.  Esme Lam Timothy Ho Chu-ting, the first Asian world champion of rope skipping, was forced to work as a delivery man during the pandemic. Ho did two hours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2176,79],"tags":[1521,1948,338],"class_list":["post-20998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-2022","category-people","tag-pandemic","tag-rope-skipping","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20998"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21019,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20998\/revisions\/21019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}