Jumping rope.

The two words evoke all kinds of images to me. I guess mainly I think of recess at Hinkletown School when we would stream out of the oiled floored classrooms and grab that rope. It had to be heavy enough to swing perfect arcs providing safe, predictable rhythms to enter the dance. It was one activity that our "modest" dresses didn't produce a show of underwear for the ever vigilant farm boys eyes! Recent attempts at rope-jumping have revealed to me that it is utterly exhausting! But still in the early days we lined up, two or three jumping at one time and the rest waiting their turn. Fifteen minutes of cardio before we returned to our desks. 

But the big guns in rope jumping happened at events like farm sales - I remember one in particular where a big rope was put into action on a wide wooden barn floor. I can't even imagine that the girls could turn it, but that rope was lethal! I remember one girl misjudged her entry timing and that harsh, prickly, huge rope neatly snapped her glasses in two! Not to mention the "brush-burns" resulting from the rope hitting a too-slow arm or leg!

No one told us it was good exercise, it was just good fun! Different accounts take its origin back to ancient China. The Dutch seem to get the early credit in America - maybe that's why we called the simultaneously swung ropes Double Dutch! In any case, it is lovely to think of children all through the ages delighting in this simple, exhilarating event. A rope, an arm, two agile feet. 

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