Vn64.1 Jumping Rope 8/13/77

Miriam began jumping rope after we moved to Massachusetts. Earlier
she had played a game ‘Angels/Devils’, a group rope jumping game in
which a child in the center of a ring turns, saying alternately ‘angels
devils angels devils. . .’ until one of the children in the peripheral ring
fails to jump up as the rope comes to his place. If that child is hit
by the rope while ‘devils’ is being said, he takes over in the center
of the ring; otherwise the child in the center starts the rope spinning
again.

At kindergarten, the children apparently jumped with a long rope
(with a person to turn at each end). Miriam asked to have such a rope.
I bought some rope and we played with it in the court yard and at Logo.
Jumping with this rope was one of Miriam’s favorite activities on the
‘breaks’ she took in the course of Logo sessions. Inasmuch as I was
maladept at turning a rope with the proper rhythm and clearance,
Margaret Minsky and Ellen Hildreth were frequently attached for this
service. Margaret got caught up enough in Miriam’s enthusiasm to buy her
a book on jumping rope (Jump Rope, Peter Skolnik, Workman Publishing
Company). During this period of jumping rope at Logo, Miriam gradually
increased her skill to the point where her counting becomes confused
before her jumping fails.

Yesterday at Robby’s party Miriam attempted for the first time to
jump with the rope traveling backwards. Today she has been achieving
3 or more jumps per attempt. When I asked her why she was doing it
backwards and had she ever seen anyone else do that, Miriam replied,
“Just because I want to,” and “Lisa Larson.” Lisa, a former playmate
in Connecticut, was that daughter of Miriam’s baby sitter and her
senior by two years. After the rope jumping of today, this evening
Miriam was reading her jump rope book. I saw her with her arms crossed
on her leap and a puzzled look on her face as she apparently tried
figuring out from pictures how to jump “crossie.”

Relevance
Rope jumping was an activity which much engaged Miriam at the
beginning of our project, which was put aside for about two months,
and is now coming back as Miriam considers attempting procedures more
complex than those she mastered before.

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