Saturday, April 11, 2015

J is for Jumprope

Walking past the kids' school the other day, I realized that in none of the six years my oldest has been there, has jumprope (or skipping as they call it here) been a thing.

When I was growing up, playground activities seemed to cycle around.  I could be wrong of course; I did go to about seven different schools in seven different countries.  But I'm pretty sure I'm not.

For a period of time, jumprope would be the in thing.  Then maybe it would be Dodgeball or Bullrush. A month or so later, that would become unpopular again and maybe elastics would be the big lunchtime game.

But somehow, it always seemed to cycle back to jumprope.  I remember long tournaments where multiple people would run in and out of the spinning ropes.  I remember learning the coordination needed to turn the ropes for double-dutch, and the rhythm to skip it.  There were hundreds of different rhymes to scream out s you jumped, and rules for getting in and out of the jump-zone.

Jumprope was fun and I'm sure were all fitter as a result of doing it.

I wonder why kids don't still do it….  Or is it just my kids' school?  Do your kids still jumprope?

5 comments:

  1. I used to love skipping when I was at school, even though I can't jump well and never have been able to - it was always fun. Never did figure out the whole two ropes thing though. I have no idea if kids are doing it nowadays.
    Tasha
    Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)

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  2. Our schools here have an annual fund raising contest in the elementary schools to see which boy/girl can jump rope the longest. They get sponsors and everything. It's pretty cool! :)

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  3. Very little jump-roaping here. Sad really because it's fun and great exercise. I'll have to nose around.

    Great topic!!

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  4. I don't have any kids, so I'm afraid I don't know. But I do live right behind a school playground, and I can't recall ever seeing the kids out there jumping rope. Could it be that it's not popular anymore?

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  5. I jump rope from time to time for the exercise.

    Stephen Tremp
    an A-Z Cohost
    @StephenTremp on Twitter

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