The sun is setting on the first warm day of the year in Manhattan, and 63-year-old Brooklyn resident Betty Lewin strips off her coat and steps up to the swinging jump ropes.
“Let me go again!” she says.
On this, her fourth attempt, the grandmother of eight finds her rhythm and successfully makes it through several revolutions. Laughing, she tells the crowd it’s just like when she was a little girl skipping rope in Israel.
Double Dutch — a game where two players turn a pair of ropes like eggbeaters, while a third jumps between them — is making a comeback, and this time it’s not just for kids.
“The demand for double Dutch jumpers — both as performers and instructors — is massive, and, sadly, there are very few jumpers to fill the need,” says Melissa Quayle, the organizer of the impromptu event, which took over the south side of Union Square on Monday night. More than 200 people lined up to watch amateur and pro jumpers.
Quayle, a music event producer, first started organizing rope shows 12 years ago in Seattle as a fun crowd activity. These days, most of her time is dedicated to teaching classes and organizing pop-up events all over New York City as part of her Double Dutch Empire organization, which she founded in 2010.
Lifetime Television is even banking on its rise in popularity with a new television series called “Jump!” premiering Friday at 10 p.m.
The show follows the journey of one of the hottest jump-roping teams in the country, FloydLittle’s Double Dutch from Newark, NJ, as they compete to defend their championship titles. (The team has performed with Pharrell Williams and Missy Elliott, and even at the White House Easter celebration.)
The game’s origins likely date to ancient Phoenician, Egyptian and Chinese ropemakers, but it was Dutch settlers who brought it to NYC. When the English arrived, they saw the Dutch playing a new game with two ropes instead of one, and named it “double Dutch.”
The modern, competitive version of the sport was popularized by a pair of NYC police detectives, David Walker and Ulysses Williams, who founded the country’s first double Dutch league in 1974.
Today in Union Square, Double Dutch Empire pros draw people in with the likes of NYU student and six-time World Jump Rope champ Zev Troxler, 20, who leaps and glides effortlessly, adding dramatic flips, handstands and push-ups into the mix.
While Troxler displays his talent, onlookers clap, cheer and stop to take photos. Some of the braver audience members make their way toward the center of the circle and ask for a turn.
The youngest jumpers tonight are 3-year-old Najah Almari and 4-year-old Ameer Amine. Their cousin, Yissr Almasari, 11, also tries double Dutch for the first time and takes to it immediately.
Anyone can do it, and it brings all types of people together just to have fun. I’m the 33-year-old weirdo doing double Dutch — and I love it.
- Melissa Quayle
“We probably have a jump rope at home collecting dust,” says Yissr’s mother, Rawda Amine, 35, when he asks if they can buy one. Rawda jumped rope as a little girl, too, and says she’s happy to see him playing with something other than an iPad.
Low-tech it most certainly is, but that’s part of double Dutch’s growing appeal.
Starting June 24, Quayle is partnering with the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy to present a free double Dutch class on Wednesday nights from 7 to 9 p.m. at Pier 2 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
“Anyone can do it, and it brings all types of people together just to have fun,” says Quayle. “I’m the 33-year-old weirdo doing double Dutch — and I love it.”
The next Double Dutch Empire event is at the Tribeca Film Festival’s Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day on April 25. DDE will perform onstage and teach double Dutch from noon to 4 p.m. This event is free and open to the public; doubledutchempire.com.