Hope I'm not to late.........

"History

Rope Skipping.... Who's responsible for it?!

'Jumping a rope' is practiced for centuries around the whole world. In
ancient China, a game called Hundred Rope Jumping was one of the favorite
sports during the New Year Festival.
The Greek jumped a pole in the early days of the Western civilization.
Several painters in the Golden Ages painted children palying with a rope.
All over the world, kids were using a rope for their play, boxers,
fysiotherapists with their patients and all kind of athletes used the rope
for their play, revalidation, condition or coordination. But somehow, nobody
seemed to be interested or bright enough to develop this activity in to a
real Sport.
At the end of the sixtees nobody ever heard of Rope Skipping. Of course
everybody knew how to jump a rope.

Richard Cendali, who lived in Boulder (Colorado, USA) was no exeption. Being
a footballplayer, his coache summitted him to work on his condition. 'How
should I do this?'. 'Well.... You can choose between running up and down the
stairs of the stadium for an hour or take a rope and jump for 15 minutes.',
he responded. The choise was obvious. Being a footballplayer, jumping a rope
was for girls, he started running up and down the stairs. No problem until
snow came down and made the suface slippery, causing him some serious
problems. '...or take a rope and jump for 15 minutes.', he remebered. So he
did.

But soon the rope had no challange to him. Just jumping up and down was no
fun at all. So he started doing Criss-Crosses, Side Swings, Double and
Multiple Unders inbetween his sessions. The sessions increased, both in time
and difficulty, and 'fun' was introduced inside the rope.
His number of tricks grew and because he also was, and still is, teacher
P.E., Richard thought it was time to introduce 'Rope Skipping' to his
students. They were enthousiastic about the rope and the tricks and started
inventing new tricks inside the single rope. They took the long rope and the
Double Dutch, creating all kind of new tricks, combinations and
possibilities. Rope Skipping was born.

In the early seventies Richard Cendali started spredding Rope Skipping
troughout the whole of USA and later the rest of the world. Everywhere he
came, he brought hundreds and later thousends of ropes. He was given housing
and meals and was offered the possibility of selling his rope after his
workshops to earn back his costs for the trip. The money that was earned
from this was used for spredding the sport. His students became the Rope
Skipping Display Team and travelled together with him over the whole of the
world.

Where does the term 'Double Dutch' originate from? There are two theories:

1) 'Double Dutch' is also translated as 'Strange kind of talking'. In the
early days of the 'New USA', as the English, French and Dutch settlers came
to the country of unlimited possibilities, the children of the Dutch
settlers were jumping their two ropes in front of their houses. During their
jumping the children accompanied their jumpinggames with all kind
of songs. Of course the songs were in Dutch; this couldn't be understood by
the French nor by the English children. That's why people called it 'Double
Dutch'.

2) 'Dutch' is also translated as 'cheap'. In the early days of the 'New
USA' jumping a long rope was practised umong the settles's children. But
because of the frequent usage of the long rope it started to decrease /
flatten in the middle. As the rope broke down OR just before the rope broke
down, the Dutch children fowlded the rope so they had two ropes without a
weak part in between and they started jumping these 'two' ropes."

Eric Herber
The Netherlands


-----Original Message-----
From: jumprope@yahoogroups.com [mailto:jumprope@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: zondag 28 oktober 2001 14:12
To: jumprope@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Jump Rope] Digest Number 156


The list website has been updated -- after much guilt in not paying ANY
attention to it. Now has a message board, a chat room, links, and more! If
anyone has any action shots they'd like to send in for greeting cards, send
some my way, thanks! - GarlandGrl@... (Ginny)

http://www.reeljewels.com/skippinglist
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There is 1 message in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. History of Rope Skipping ;)
From: GarlandGrl@...


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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 19:48:40 EDT
From: GarlandGrl@...
Subject: History of Rope Skipping ;)


Hiya all,

I was wondering if some of you could help me out, a young man asked me to
give him the history of jump rope and since my version is basically what
Mrs.
Joy *wink* and Mr. Cendali would give before performances (and it's been a
while), I was wondering if anyone could help me give more information than I
have. The student really just wants to know when it started (which I
understand was a long time ago with the vines), where it started (that I
have
no idea of or can't remember, up until Mr. C), and that sort of information.

There isn't a history sketch on the Internet is there? I checked USAJRF's
website...and it's not up yet ::Sigh::

Thanks bunches!
Ginny


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