When I saw the movie, I swore I could see the grainy image of a rope in the background as my friends and I jumped double Dutch — or, in my case, pretended to jump double Dutch. I never really learned how to jump properly and, by the time we entered high school, organized sports had supplanted jumping rope as our primary pastime.
So, when I heard about the 40+ Double Dutch Club, I was intrigued.
Pamela Robinson founded the club in Homewood, Ill., in 2016, during a difficult moment in her life. She was a 45-year-old stay-at-home mom who was going through a divorce and unsure of her purpose.
She shared her struggles with a friend, Catrina Dyer-Taylor, who asked what would make her feel better. Robinson replied that, just for a little while, she wanted to forget life’s challenges and have fun. She asked Dyer-Taylor to help her get a few women together to jump double Dutch.
Double Dutch is believed to have originated in Ancient Egypt and China. It made its way to New York in the 1600s via Dutch colonists, then exploded in popularity in the 1940s, particularly in Northern cities. The sight of neighborhood girls twirling two jump ropes — with a jumper in the middle, timing her jumps — became common. By the 1970s, two former New York City police officers had created a league that hosted competitions.
A handful of women showed up to jump rope at the initial meeting in Homewood, said Robinson. But in 2019, after an appearance on a Chicago area television show, the Facebook group exploded — from 30 local women to 1,000 women nationwide.
Today the 40+ Double Dutch club has more than 10,000 active members and more than 60,000 Facebook followers around the world, said Robinson. Most major cities in the U.S. have sub clubs; metro Atlanta has six. The only requirement to join is that you be a woman over the age of 40.
“It has turned into more than double Dutch,” Robinson said when we talked by phone. “It is about having a social club and a group of women who form…
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