Double dutch squad aims to rope Pittsburgh kids into sport, and off of phones

From left above, Niara Dean-Wasim, Aicha Conde-Cyrus, Fatou Conde-Cyrus, Aliya Samson, and Danae Darwin jump as coaches Arista Hunter and Shawnte Knox swing them during Double Dutch Swing Squad practice at the Kingsley Association. (Jess Daninhirsch/PublicSource)

To Shawnte Knox and Arista Hunter, jump rope is more than a nostalgic game played as children or a quick warmup to an extended exercise. It’s a unique, heart-racing, body shaping, inclusive sport.

The two are using double dutch, a creative form of jump rope, to engage and promote healthy and fun exercise to groups of all ages in Homewood and far beyond. Their Double Dutch Swing Squad is building partnerships and gearing up to one day join the growing number of competitive jumping teams nationally. First, they need to continue building relationships with organizations and sharing more of what they call “fun, empowering fitness services” with the community.

At a community event on July 13 at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Downtown, the squad and its co-founders, Knox and Hunter, hosted a demonstration and taught attendees ages 3 to 45 how to perform an activity with surprisingly deep roots.

Double Dutch is a cherished tradition within the Black community with lots of ancient history. Known to many as “rope skipping,” it originated in ancient Egypt and China and later spread to Europe. Perhaps as early as  the 1600s, Dutch settlers brought the game of double dutch to the Hudson River trading town of New Amsterdam, now New York City. In 1973, National Double Dutch League founder David A. Walker and his fellow NYC detective Ulysses Williams started making the game into a world-class competitive sport.

Knox and Hunter formed the Pittsburgh squad in 2021 to encourage a fun form of exercise. Building on nostalgia for the sport, they began mentoring within schools and organizations, assembling a performing team for events in the community.

Trey McCune, executive director of the Homewood Brushton Branch of the YMCA, hosted an event in May in which kids were given a chance to showcase their skills. The Double Dutch Swing Squad brought fun tricks, engaging music and lively attitudes. Trey said that watching people get engaged in double dutch showed him how the sport is a great way to get active, physical and fit, improving overall wellbeing. The team was able to make connections with community members and later made the YMCA their home for practice.

The Double Dutch Swing Squad has a youth performance team that practices two Saturdays each month and does five or six community events in the summer. Knox and Hunter also do other community events, teaching double dutch, throughout the year.

Getting kids off their phones, and into the ropes

Jump rope has been proven to be a great booster of vital capacity, cardiorespiratory endurance, speed, upper-body strength, muscular endurance, coordination, balance and agility in children.

“Most children don’t know how to jump rope today, so [creating the Double Dutch Swing Squad] was a form of moving kids off of technology and getting them outside in the ropes, getting creative in jump rope and exercise,” said Knox, 32, from Penn Hills. The squad also aims to create empowering health and fitness spaces for individuals to learn and strengthen motor skills, coordination, good sportsmanship, teamwork and networking, within a safe space.

“Kids are not playing outside anymore, not seeing hopscotch or release,” said Hunter, 32, from Braddock. “It’s more like Call of Duty, whatever’s on your phone, or game systems like PS5,” rather than grabbing a rope and creating routines with friends.

Weaving community through rhythm and ropes

Aliya Samson, 12, said she began jumping with the team when they came to her school for a fundamentals program and has been jumping ever since. She loves double dutch, adding “that we perform and we get snacks and food,” plus the water staff aided her when she jumped herself almost to dehydration.

The squad has built bonds with organizations including the YMCA, McKeesport Area School District, Pittsburgh Cultural District and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, gathering new admirers and bringing past jumpers back to the sport.

“Double dutch isn’t as well-known today,” said Kristin Baker, strategic partnerships and community engagement program manager at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. “While you can learn about basketball, football and cheerleading from television or school, I don’t know many schools that incorporate double dutch into physical education.”

Earlier this summer, Baker had the opportunity to connect with the Double Dutch Swing Squad and formed a new partnership with a local community organization with their help. “Their presence at the local Gallery Crawl drew a diverse crowd looking to learn more about double dutch while crawl attendees experienced the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s dynamic galleries,” Baker said.

Nia Howze, director of health and wellness at the Kingsley Association in Larimer, got to jump with the team this summer. It wasn’t her first time doing double dutch, but it was her first time doing it successfully. She said the squad’s sales pitch was successful. “They even got a couple of guys to double dutch, and most guys don’t think they can jump. They tend to think that’s not for them.”

The squad is looking forward to eventually becoming a competing team within the next few years. According to the National Double Dutch League, there are nearly 100,000 boys and girls, worldwide, jumping competitively and representing their schools and communities. The number of participants is steadily increasing as it gains more exposure and recognition for being both a fun and lively activity as well as a serious, focused exercise.

“It is a form of art,” said Knox. And it’s for anyone. “If you can breathe, turn or jump, you can do it.”

This story by Public Source data storytelling intern Cionna Sharpe was originally published by PublicSource, a news partner of Kidsburgh.org. PublicSource is a nonprofit media organization delivering local journalism at publicsource.org. You can sign up for their newsletters at publicsource.org/newsletters.