Skipping Rope... like Riding a Bike?

When I was nine-years-old my Starving-Artist brother and I lived in a fairly rural area of Japan, near the city of Fujinomia. We would be moving to the USA before the summer ended and I turned ten. I would have to say that the summer of my 9th year was the pinnacle of my double-dutch rope-skipping career.

In Japan, at least in our town, skipping-rope was a big deal. Those Japanese educators put kids through some of the craziest physical education exercises. Every morning, in the warmer months, we would run around a dirt track for 30 minutes... bare foot! I think the absence of shoes was supposed to instill toughness and humility... I don't know if I got any of that, but I did end up with some of the flattest feet of anyone I know. In the colder months, they would substitute rope-skipping for the running. Picture a school yard full of little kids, freezing, each with his or her own skipping rope, bopping up and down trying to follow the example of the PE instructor on a raised stage in front. During lunch and recess, we would ditch our little skipping-ropes for the double-dutch style ropes. We loved it... jumping in the whirling mass of rope, trying frantically to keep up with the kids on the ends who were spinning the ropes as fast as their spindly arms could manage.

Which brings me to yesterday. I was visiting my good friend (and ex-girlfriend) up in Vancouver, BC. As BC ex-girlfriend and I are kicking it in the Gas Town neighborhood, partaking in the Car-Free-Day festival, we meet up with a group of her friends. They are sort of the ultra-hip crowd, but not in the elitist sense, and more in the all-inclusive quirky individualist sense. After much commotion and wrangling, they settle on a suitable piece of pavement and bust out their Double-Dutch ropes. Yup, these guys do this routinely... they carry around their ropes and meet up on sunny days for hours of rope-skipping... it's the greatest thing I've seen in ages. They start whirling the rope and the rhythmic patting of rope on pavement sounds so familiar. I'm giddy and nervous watching these pros do all sorts of acrobatic tricks. BC ex-girlfriend, a relative new comer to rope-skipping crowd, encourages me to give it a go, jumping in herself and deftly hopping around.

I wait for the rope closest to me to whir past my face and I jump into the confines of the two spinning ropes. By my second hop, it all comes back. I skip up and down with a childish grin on my face... the folks spinning the rope encourage me to try a 180, and then a 360... eventually I get myself tangled up in the ropes, but not before I'm laughing to myself, feeling as though I got away with something I wasn't supposed to.

Strangers were approaching the rope-skipping circle. Some had never tried before... some hadn't done it sense they were little kids... some were simply curious to watch the spectacle of grown men and women skipping-rope. BC ex-girlfriend and I walked away from the commotion and went on to meet up with other groups of her friends... all unique and good folk. What a fun visit - revitalizing this blogger's heart at every turn.