The first skilled rope makers emerged from early China, Phoenicia, and ancient Egypt. Jump roping's origins surfaced in the Netherlands, and made its way across the Atlantic in the 1600s. Dutch settlers were America's first jump-ropers. The English, who governed the Dutch colony in the Hudson River Valley, found a sport that involves jumping over one or two ropes to be absolutely ridiculous. Oddly, it was the English who christened the two-roped variety of the sport "double Dutch". The name was a derogatory term because anything associated with Dutch culture was considered absurd and inferior to the English.
   It took until the twentieth century for double Dutch to hit the uptown streets. In the '40s and '50s, jumping rope was all the rage in the inner city. Apartments and buildings were stacked and sandwiched together with sprawling pavement front yards. Girls would head to the sidewalks with their mothers' clotheslines, still wet from laundry day if they could manage it so the ropes would be heavy enough to hit the ground just right. By the late 1950s, double Dutch nearly became extinct as it was overshadowed by the popularity of television and radio among youths. It wasn't until 1973 when Officer Ulysses F. Williams of the NYPD chose to use double Dutch in his youth outreach programs. The project was cleverly named "Rope, not Dope", and its focus was to keep girls away from the destructive temptations of the inner city. The amount of organized double Dutch teams increased during the 1980s, and the New York City had fifteen hundred jumpers alone.
   Before long, the ADDL would be created by former D.C. police officer David Walker. He had seen the positive impact double Dutch had on his community, watching girls being rescued from the lures of gangs, drugs, crime, and sex. Shortly after the ADDL's inception, McDonalds restaurants began sponsoring tournaments locally and nationally. This not only provided much needed financial support for these events, but helped double Dutch gain a wider audience and legitimize it as a sport. When McDonalds severed its ties with the ADDL in the late 1990s, it also single-handedly collapsed the network of rope-jumping leagues. The ADDL continued but struggled as it carried on without McDonalds' clout and resources. Membership declined and tournaments were few and far between. Double Dutch went back to the streets and so did the children.

Rene' Bibaud

ROPEWORK

www.jumpropenet.com

206.313.1757

805 Warren Ave. N. #302

Seattle, WA 98109