Double Dutch Jump Rope

DOUBLE DUTCH is a type of rope-skipping that uses two ropes. There are two rope-turners and usually one rope-jumper (though for added difficulty, there can be two jumpers). Each rope-turner holds the end of a rope in each hand. The ropes should be the same length, but they don’t have to be the same color—in fact, having two different colored ropes can help a jumper keep track of which rope is going where. The left-hand rope is turned clockwise, and the righthand rope is turned counter-clockwise, in an eggbeater motion. The jumper must clear both ropes as they hit the ground, jumping quickly so that it appears she is running in place.

What does this rope game have to do with the Dutch? Jump rope lore has it that the game may have evolved from the twisting motions made by Dutch ropemakers as they wound ropes from hemp. With hemp around their waists and two strands attached to a wheel, ropemakers walked backward, twisting the length of hemp into rope. The runners supplying hemp to the spinners had to jump quickly over the ever-twisting ropes as the ropemakers plied their craft, turning the hemp strand over strand. It is easy to imagine how this work might have evolved into a leisure-time game for the ropemakers and their families. When Dutch settlers arrived in New Amsterdam (today’s New York City), they brought the double-rope game with them, earning it the nickname “double Dutch.” The game grew in popularity, especially in urban areas, but sometime after the 1950s it fell out of practice. Then, in 1973, a New York City detective and his partner revived the jump rope game by turning it into a competitive sport for city kids in fifth to eighth grades. Now double Dutch is not just a sidewalk game, but a competitive team sport played all over the world.