We called that Chinese Jump Rope.

I figured it probably wasn't from France.

I can't remember the rhymes we used, which is odd, because when I knew them I thought I'd know them forever.

But have you seen the UK equivalent, Bulldog? 30 kids each side of a "pitch". They run at each other and try and force the other side back. No rules

We had to play this in gym class in elementary school. Only with fewer kids, because we had a class of 20 or 21. Still. (shudder)

Am-chau, I can only remember one right now...

Ours was a bunch of rubber bands joined together, and people would hold it at different heights (ankles, knees, arms-length, hips, waist, underarms, shoulders, arms-length) and other people had to jump over them without letting the elastics touch the ground. Up to about hips, you had to clear the elastics without touching them at all.

That's different-- ours depended on jumping on the elastic with your feet: two people would put the elastic round them (again, starting with ankles and moving up), and you had to land on it in specific patterns, saying the silly rhyme to help you remember what you where doing.

Dammit, now I want to stand up and see if I can use the lines between the cork floor tiles to see if I can remember any of them. I'd get some strange looks.

We had to play this in gym class in elementary school.

Yeah, bulldog and dodge ball both. I find it interesting that the really shudder-inducingly brutal games were the ones the gym teachers imposed on us, not the ones that we kids came up with ourselves.

That's different-- ours depended on jumping on the elastic with your feet: two people would put the elastic round them (again, starting with ankles and moving up), and you had to land on it in specific patterns, saying the silly rhyme to help you remember what you where doing.

Oh, we used to play this too. We called that "In & Out" because the first two were "Inside and Outside"

We called that "In & Out" because the first two were "Inside and Outside"

Yeah, that's right. "In, on, out..." and then a lot of stuff about bananas and granny's knickers.

There may have been stuff there I missed last time I heard it.

My aunt loves to tell the story of being in France and watching several young French girls playing Chinese Jump Rope -- the kind where you have to jump in and out in various complicated patterns, adding a layer of complexity each time you successfully complete a sequence. These girls? Were wearing buckle shoes.

For the life of them, they couldn't get beyond level 2; they kept catching the rope on the buckles of their shoes, and they refused to take off their shoes and do it barefoot.

My childhood years involved a lot of ranging around the neighborhood -- okay, 3-4 houses' back yards and a patch of woods; we lived on a busy street -- and thinking we were wild creatures, when really, there was a stay at home mom in at least one of the houses, and I'm sure she kept more of an eye on us than I realized at the time.

Of course, we never played pickup baseball; we played spy and war and secret foot-traps in a sandbox about as big as a bathtub.

We used to play "British" Bulldog growing up.

We played a version where the object was to run from one side of the play area to the other with out getting tackled (or tagged). Once you got tagged (or tackled), you became one of the defenders. Last person running won.

We had to play this in gym class in elementary school.

Yeah, bulldog and dodge ball both. I find it interesting that the really shudder-inducingly brutal games were the ones the gym teachers imposed on us, not the ones that we kids came up with ourselves.

See, at my parochial school in the early '60s, there was no gym class. We played dodge ball and British bulldog because we liked them. No one was forced to play.

My childhood years involved a lot of ranging around the neighborhood -- okay, 3-4 houses' back yards and a patch of woods; we lived on a busy street -- and thinking we were wild creatures, when really, there was a stay at home mom in at least one of the houses, and I'm sure she kept more of an eye on us than I realized at the time.

We were on a busy road, too, but we were everywhere. We had the advantage of having a not-very-much-used national park in close proximity, so we'd just bid the parentals adieu and hike the three miles up the road to the Revolutionary War encampments.

I have a teeny suspicion that Monty Python was taking the piss.

No!