During the period of voluntary restraint from going out, our bodies become sluggish.
I have been swimming for many years, but I can’t go swimming as the sports centre is also closed now.
Obviously, the gym is not open too and no yoga lessons are available, so it is impossible to do the usual
sports.
I have thought of going for some walking, but I prefer to refrain from doing so as there may be risks of
bumping into unexpected accidents with others.
Then, I came up with the idea of jumping ropes.
I decided to go to a park where there were no people, with my jumping rope.
I used to do a lot of jumping rope when I was in elementary school.
My school was the Keio Gijuku Yochisha elementary school, so our homeroom teacher has been the
same person for six years. In my class, when I was in the first grade, my homeroom teacher handed out
jumping ropes, and jumping ropes became our morning and lunchbreak routines. Our teacher jumped
together with us and so the happy time of jumping ropes increased. During the six years of jumping rope,
even those who could barely jump at the beginning got better and better each day.
The ropes we were given were real, so they were very heavy. And the bit of the rope that hit the ground
wear out as we jump longer.
Our teacher gave us new ropes when our ropes got completely worn out and cut in half.
Children who practiced so hard learned difficult jumping techniques such as double-unders and cross
double-unders, and their ropes broke, and the teacher gave them new ropes.
That is how we got hooked on jumping ropes.
I was also hooked on my violin at the time, and my jumping rope and my violin practice got linked at
some point. I thought that I would be able to learn the difficult violin techniques if I practiced like I did,
over and over every morning with my jumping rope.
As I began practicing my violin technique a hundred times, and two hundred times…I gradually got to
learn them, and felt great with accomplishment.
Now, I am jumping rope for the first time after so long.
It seems that the tightness of the rope brings the fresh morning air with it. It’s like the air of the
schoolyard.
I felt like I could go back to that moment when my friends’ faces were shining brightly in the morning sun.
