On the third Monday of each month, I do a Memory Lane Monday post.   Yes, I know we already have TBT and FBF, but I like the sound of Memory Lane Monday.  Plus today happens to be Monday and I had a memory today that I wanted to share, so there you go.  So let’s step it up, and head down Memory Lane…

Not sure what brought this memory to mind, but for some reason I was recalling how much I enjoyed jumping rope when I was young.  Really young.  Like elementary school young.

My favorite way to jump rope was with my friends.  As I recall, this would usually take place on the playground at school.  I think we also did it at home on the sidewalk in front of our house.  We would have one long rope with one girl on each end doing the twirling.

Sometimes we would start with the rope staying near the ground and just gently swaying back and forth.  I remember standing in front of it moving back and forth to get the rhythm of the swing and timing it just right for jumping in.  A lot of times on this one, we would chant, “Blue bells, cockleshells, evie, ivy, OVER!”  And right after the word “over”, the handlers would start twirling the rope overhead.  If we continued with any chant after that, I don’t remember it.

 

Other times, the rope would already be turning all the way around, and you had to jump in.  I remember using the same back and forth motion with my body, getting in sync with the rope, and figuring out just the right time to jump in.  If you jumped in and timed it wrong, you would stop the rope and have to go to the end of the line.  But if you got it right, a lot of times the chanting would start this way: “Johnny over the ocean, Johnny over the sea.  Johnny broke a milk bottle and blamed it on me.  I told Ma. Ma told Pa. Johnny got a lickin’ and a ha ha ha!  How many lickins did he receive?”  Then the counting would start!  And as the count got higher, the rope would turn faster.  When you finally missed and stopped the rope, if your count got high enough, there would be some whooping, hollering, and laughing about how many lickins Johnny got!

Then there was the dreaded double dutch!  I don’t think we did that one quite as often, but it was fun, too.  A lot harder to get the timing right for jumping in.

It was always such a fun time!

I don’t think I jumped rope much after elementary school.  The last time I recall jumping rope was while I was teaching.  The last few years before I retired, I helped to coach the jump rope team with my friend and colleague Lynn and the PE teacher Dave.

 

Every year our school did Jump Rope for Heart.  One year that I helped coach the jump rope team, Lynn and I worked together to choreograph our own little jump rope routine to the tune of Donna Summers’ “I Will Survive”.  OMG, we had so much fun.  During our grade level’s PE time on the Jump Rope for Heart day, we went into the gym and performed our routine for all the students.  I’m sure we looked quite ridiculous, but we had a lot of fun, and the kids seemed to enjoy it.  Let me tell you, that jump roping thing takes a LOT of stamina!  But we did survive!  And I think that’s the last time I jumped rope.

These days to stay fit, I workout at Orangetheory Fitness.  We don’t jump rope there, though.  But I do love my memories of jumping rope with friends as a kid and of jumping rope with Lynn in the gym that day.

Do kids still jump rope just for fun?  How about you?  Do YOU remember jumping rope as a kid?  Maybe you still do it as an adult.  Do you remember any of your jump rope chants?  I’d love to read about all of it in the comments!