Connor Kraska ’28 is not your typical law student. For almost two decades, he has been a professional and competitive jump rope athlete, traveling the world for competitions and performances and teaching clinics. Now, as a first-year law student at UCLA School of Law, Kraska is applying to his legal studies the same discipline and dedication that made him a 33-time grand national champion and a two-time grand world champion.

Here, he discusses his path to law school, his growing passion for entertainment and sports law, and how the mindset cultivated by years of jump rope training and competing helped prepare him for the rigors of legal education.

What an uncommon background! Why jump rope?

I've been jumping rope since I was nine years old, and I'm still going, because there's really nothing like picking up a jump rope. Jump rope has taken me on adventures I could never have dreamed of as a kid — from traveling the world for competitions, performances, and clinics, to appearing on TV programs. Picking up my rope allows me to be creative and de-stress — and get some good cardio in at the same time.

For those unfamiliar, can you break down how competitive jump rope actually works?

The sport is organized around a few key distinctions. The first is between individual and team events — most competitions include both, though some focus on one or the other. Within team events, athletes compete in either single rope events, where each athlete has their own rope, or double Dutch events, where teams share a set of long ropes.

The second distinction is between speed and freestyle. In speed events, athletes complete as many jumps as possible within a set time. I like to compare it to speed skating at the Winter Olympics, where the clock, not a lap count, is the constraint. Whoever lands the most jumps wins! Freestyle events work a bit differently: athletes have 75 seconds to showcase their hardest tricks, earning points based on the difficulty of each completed trick, with deductions for errors, and then a presentation multiplier of 0 to 100 percent applied to their score (think figure skating!), and the highest score wins.

Put it all together, and you get four main event types at any given competition: individual speed, individual freestyle, team speed, and team freestyle.

What area of law are you most passionate about and why?

As a professional and competitive jump roper, I have a growing passion and real interest in entertainment and sports law. Jump rope has played a big part in my life for over 16 years, and as I’ve grown older, the underlying legal issues at play within the jump rope community have become more obvious to me, whether it’s negotiating contracts as a performer or acquiring music licenses as an athlete.

What initially drew you to UCLA Law for your legal studies?

I was looking for a law school that had a reputation for world-class faculty, a collegial student body, and a variety of career paths to choose from. The perfect weather most of the year definitely helped make the decision easier too.

What role do you think your athletic accomplishments played in preparing you for law school?

Learning the doctrine of the law is like learning a performance routine in jump rope. In the same way that I have to learn the sequence of tricks for a routine, I have to learn the sequence of different torts, for example. Zooming out a bit, too, I see similarities between learning any new doctrine and acquiring a new skill. Fundamentally, I know the elements of a skill, or the elements of a doctrine, but performing the skill, or applying the doctrine, just takes practice and repetitions.

The sport has also taught me important lessons about resilience. If you want something bad enough, you never quit. You keep training and practicing until your goals are met. And that's exactly how I plan to approach law school and my legal career.