The article I was recenty interviewed for ran in the Bradenton Herald newspaper in Florida this past weekend on the front of the Well Being section.

You can click on the link above for the full article, but here are some highlights...

MORE AND MORE AWAKENING THEIR INNER CHILD
'Rejuveniles' are childlike, not childish by Tiffany St. Martin

Kim Corbin skips when the spirit moves her.

She skips around her church on Sundays, up and down the halls of her workplace and while shopping at the grocery store. Sometimes she even skips to the loo.

Most often, though, Corbin, 37, of San Francisco, skips on the treadmill while at the gym. "I love skipping to happy songs with serious runners on either side of me," she says.

Call her what you will — a clown, a jokester, a comedienne — but Corbin prefers the term rejuvenile.

It's a relatively new word coined by Christopher Noxon, who defines a rejuvenile as "anyone who has tastes or mindsets traditionally associated with people younger than themselves."

Noxon wrote a 288-page book, "Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up," released in June, about the phenomena.....

...Whatever stigmas used to be attached to adults who were supposed to act their age are no longer, Noxon says.

Yet when Corbin started skipping nine years ago, she was worried about what people would think. But her childlike spirit took over, and she started a national skipping club at www.iskip.com. One of the club's Head Skippers lived in Sarasota before moving to Oregon.

Skipping raises your heart rate and your spirit, Corbin says. "It's also a very innocent and positive way to challenge some of the unspoken rules of our culture that prevent us from enjoying our lives to the fullest and feeling truly free."

Back in June, I was contacted by a woman who lives in Israel who wanted to bring the skipping movement there...

I am an American living in Tel Aviv, Israel. Last year, I worked at a non-profit organization that promotes inner peace and self-awareness. Through my internet research, i came across your website iskip.com and found the concept absolutely delightful!! And here in Israel, amid regional and polticial tensions, I think skipping would be a much-needed and much-appreciated activity!

Friends of mine and myself talked about how to organize such a skipping group up and down the boardwalk at the beach in Tel Aviv. Now, a year later, I am part of a women's empowerment group, which would make it easier to get a base of participants ready for a group skip. but i would like to know how to proceed! Any suggestions to make the iskip.com's debut in the Middle East?

In the midst of our enthusiastic email exchange, of course, tensions have risen and violence has erupted. When I didn't hear back from Rachel for a while, I sent her an email to check in to be sure she was safe. Her response really made the intensity of what is going on in the Middle East real for me so I wanted to share...

Thanks so much for your email and kind thoughts. I really appreciate them! As you can guess, things here are rather somber and tense lately. I'm in Tel Aviv which is about a 1-3 hours drive from the mayhem up north (depending upon which israeli city is being fired upon.) I"m physically safe - so far - espeically compared to what the Israeli citizens of the north and the Lebanese citizens in southern Lebanon are going through.

We here in the center of Israel go on about our daily lives (work, responsibilities, even meeting up with friends) but the news is on in some form everywhere you go and no one talks about anything else. We have been warned to "be alert" for air raid sirens should Hezbullah use their longer range missiles that are said to be able to reach us here in Tel Aviv. So in the back of our heads, wherever we go, we are constantly checking to see where the public bomb shelters are.

The most disconcerting thing is that reserve soldiers are being called up so i'm nervously waiting every day to see if my fiance (he's Israeli) is going to be called up to fight. (I don't know if you know - and forgive my explanation if you do - but the Israeli army is a civilian one not a professional one, so every single Israeli citizen is obligated to serve when they reach 18 (men for 3 years and women for a little less than 2) and then for the men they do reserve duty one month every year until they are 45. This is why Israelis get so emotional when their soldiers get kidnapped - because everyone's brother/son/husband/father/friend/boyfriend/neighbor is or has been or will be a soldier.

As for skipping, I'm sure there would be no better time than now to spread some good cheer and positive energy... but the national mood is quite grim, mostly out of respect for so many deaths (on both sides) than out of fear. So i think the skipping on the boardwalk will unfortunately have to be on hold for now. Also because of safety: Last week alone there were two suicide bombers on the loose in Tel Aviv and another city north of Tel Aviv (they were thankfully found before any damage could be done) so it's been advised to avoid public crowds for now.

I promise that your beautiful skipping therapy and movement will not be forgotten - just postponed. It will make its debut here at some point. I hope sooner rather than later.

Wow. Please join me in taking a moment to send love and positive energy to Rachel and everyone who is living in the Middle East. Let's all visualize and pray for the peace this world of ours so desperately needs every day.

As you'll see a couple of entries down, I was recently written about in a new book called "Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up"

Some fun publicity opportunities have come up as a result. When a producer that was working on a story for Nightline asked me to get some last minute footage of a group of skippers, I got to see just how supportive, wonderful, and fun loving my coworkers at New World Library are. Tuesday morning practically everyone I work with took a late morning skipping break while the video camera rolled. It was so fun!

Unfortunately, I learned shortly after that the story was bumped due to the Middle East crisis...Which was a little bit disappointing...But it doesn't really matter. The most important part of the whole process for me was the magical time I had skipping with my coworkers.

I also recently was interviewed by a reporter from a newspaper in Florida for a story she is doing on rejuveniles. I thought it would be fun to share my responses to those questions here...

First of all, where do you live? I moved to San Francisco from Indiana 10 years ago.

How long have you been a skipper, and how did you get into it? I first skipped as an adult 9 years ago when I was 28. I was out with a spirited friend who started skipping and invited me to join him. As soon as I did, I couldn't believe how fun and exhilirating it was. I thought, "This could be a new exercise trend!"

When did you start Iskip.com? I created iskip.com two years later in May of 1999 when I decided to get serious about my own skipping practice and invited others to help me rewrite the unspoken rule that says adults don't skip. Along the way I have met an amazing assortment of positive energy people who love bringing joy to the world by skipping. At one point there were head skippers in 65+ cities who were helping to spread the word about the happy movement. I also used to lead regular group skipping events through San Francisco as did many of the head skippers in their hometowns.

How does skipping make you feel? At first skipping is a little confronting... Especially when I first started skipping as an adult there was a part of me that was very nervous about what people might think....But another, stronger part of me (my childlike spirit) finds so much joy in skipping that it doesn't matter whether other people understand why I am doing it or not. The more I honor that childlike part of me by skipping on despite my fears about what other people might think, the stronger the adventerous, creative, part of me becomes. Life becomes a lot more fun and meaningful when your spirit feels alive. At first my Dad in Indiana said he thought I had surely lost my marbles when I told him my vision of starting a national skipping movement. But then he skipped himself and really enjoyed it! Life is a lot better when you lose a few marbles! It's short...and it is supposed to be fun!

What do you like about skipping? It raises your heart rate and your spirit....and goodness knows in today's world our spirits need all the help they can get. Skipping is also a very innocent and positive way to challenge some of the unspoken rules of our culture that prevent us from enjoying our lives to the fullest and feeling truly free.

How often do you skip, and where do you do it? Lately I have mostly been skipping on the treadmill at the gym...and occasionally in my neighborhood. I love skipping to happy songs with serious runners on either side of me. I also skip spontaneously whenever the spirit moves me. I have been known to skip around my church on Sundays...To skip while on hikes...To skip up the hall at work....To skip at the grocery store...and occasionally I even skip to the loo, :-)

This weekend I watched a lovely independent film called Junebug I got from Netflix. It tells the story of a big city art dealer who makes a trip to North Carolina where her new husband's family lives. His relatives consist of a bristly mother, a reticent father, a crabby brother, and a wide eyed optimistic sister-in-law who all live in the same house. The movie shows there is always more to family than meets the eye.

One scene in the movie made me instantly think of skipping. The preacher of the small town North Carolina church is giving a sermon and asks the congregation, "When was the last time you were so filled up with the holy spirit that people mocked you? They said that person must be drunk. That person must be filled with new wine. I have to confess that I think that time for me may have been never."

It makes me happy to be able to say that I have been so full of the holy spirit (through skipping) that some have mocked me! Skipping infuses my spirit with lightness and joy! It makes me feel happy to be alive! What a blessing. Skip on!

I saw Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" last night and WOW! It was even more inspiring and important than I imagined it would be. It raises important morality issues about being an American and inhabiting planet earth. It explains global warming and offers strong scientific evidence that ain't all that pretty.

Thank God someone in Al Gore's position is finally willing to stand up and tell the truth in this way (even though it is really hard to hear and accept). The movie actually made me really happy that Gore wasn't appointed president. He is a man on a very important mission. He undoubtedly wlll create much more positive change in this country and world doing what he is doing than he could have from within our very screwed up political system.

I pray that Al Gore's movie will open many eyes and awaken many hearts around the world! There are scientific reasons why there have been so many natural disasters and it is only going to get consistently more intense unless we wake up and do our part to create change on this planet. If we don't start planning for the future now, the consequences of our inaction will fall on the shoulders of future generations...and that feels completely unacceptable to me. I agree with Al Gore that we have a moral obligation to take the issue of global warming and our enviornment very seriously! I can't encourage you enough to go out and see this movie.

Skip on Al Gore! And skip on all do gooders of the world who know it is possible for us to make a difference. Onward and upward! Together we can (and are) changing the world!

About a year and a half ago, I got a call from a guy named Chris Noxon who was writing a book called Rejuvenile. At the time, I was working at the Learning Annex and trying to rebuild after my catastrophic leap into skipping fame and self-employment.

Well, his book was recently published and Chris is getting an uncanny amount of PR! He was on the Today Show, Talk of the Nation, Comedy Central, USA Today, and more! Here's what Publisher's Weekly said about the book, "According to journalist Noxon, rejuveniles-adults who use childhood past-times as "a way of maintaining wonder, trust, and silliness in a world where these qualities are often in short supply"-are proliferating, and unlike other books on the topic of "kidults", his book says this is largely good."

He did an amazing job telling my story in the book in a section entitled, "The Brief But Thrilling Career of Kim Corbin Professional Skipper!" I am hoping to get permissoin from the publisher to excerpt the entire thing on my website, but for now I thought I'd share the very last part...

"But even in the midst of what she calls an "acute post-skip hangover," Kim is still wildly effusive about the power of childhood play. "Skipping reveals the true authrentic self," she says. "I may be on the sidewalk on the way to the grocery store, but when I skip I'm a kid at play. It activates the part of yourself that your adult self ignores." Yes, her experience as a skipping ambassador led to some hardship and disappoingments. But something unexpected came from promoting the virtues of childhood: Kim became a better adult. "Before skipping, everything was pretty easy for me," she says, "Skipping was a big leap. It taught me to follow my heart, no matter what happens. It was through that childlike spirit that I was forced to grow up. I thought when I started this that it was all going to be fun and easy, but of course that's not what life is. I had to learn about humility and patience and doubt and all this stuff that's not as much fun as riding the high."

It really is true that the skipping movement experience has taught me a lot about following my heart! I believe we all have a unique contribution we are born to make. I consider myself lucky to have discovered mine...Even if it seems strange to much of the rest of the world. Through an often painful process of trial and error, I'm learning to balance my childlike wonder with the realities of adult life...and it's a journey I wouldn't trade for anything...Not even the REALLY hard parts! Skip on!

As I've mentioned here before, I am excited to be working with Reverend Karen Junker on a new project called "Housechurch: A Ministry of Peace" in San Francisco. We meet on Sundays and are exploring powerful ways we can be the peace we hope to see in the world.

Rather than being anti-war (which feels decidedly unpeaceful), we choose to be pro-peace. We choose to pray for the Bush Administration rather than inwardly raging against them. Our mission is to be the peace we wish to see in the world. We know that peace begins with us.

Karen shared this message from the Hope Elders in Oraibi, Arizona at Housechurch today and I felt moved to share it here...

We have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people this is the Hour.

And there are things to be considered.
Were are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.

It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look out side yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!
There is a river now flowing very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold onto the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, and push off and into the river.
Keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
See who is there with you and Celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all ourselves.
For the moment that we do,
Our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that you do now must be done in a sacred manner
And in celebration.

We are the one's we've been waiting for...