First he bunny hopped. Then he crisscrossed. Then he twirled. Over the weekend, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb, clad in a classic “dad fit” (neon orange T-shirt, jorts, and chunky grey sneakers) impressed many Washingtonians with his double Dutch jump-roping skills at Open Streets DC on Capitol Hill. (A video shot by @longwalksdc was shared on Washingtonianprobs, where it racked up more than 25,000 likes.) But we were curious, how did the attorney general get so good at double Dutching?
“When I would go to the rec center for summer when I was a little kid, one of the activities was jumping rope and doing double Dutch, and I learned it as a little kid,” Schwalb told Washingtonian. “Probably alongside doing things like, you know, lip syncing and tie dye and other things that you do as a kid at a rec center.” The recreation center where Schwalb learned is in Montgomery County.
Later, when Schwalb was running for office, he got the chance to give it another go. “I was at Anacostia Park one day, and they were doing double Dutch, and I got asked to give it a try, so I jumped back in, and it’s like riding a bike,” he recalls. “I learned that I hadn’t forgotten a thing.” Now, he bunny hops in whenever given the chance—although he’s not used to getting quite so much attention for it: “I didn’t realize somebody was going to be videotaping it and posting it, but I probably should have realized as attorney general that those things happen.”
Many on Instagram noted his “bunny hop” entrance style but when asked, Schwalb copped to allowing the rope twirlers, including Robbin Tyson of DC Retro Jumpers, to guide him. “Everybody develops their own technique on how to get in, but candidly, I was following the advice of Miss Tyson,” he says. “And their advice was that was the most safe and effective way to get into the double Dutch.”
When asked if he thought double Dutch skills should be a requirement for public office, Schwalb concurred. “I think that’s a wonderful criteria for being in public office. I think for finding a way to have some credibility with your daughters, it’s also an effective tool,” says Schwalb, who has three daughters. “It’s a double win: Both be an effective public servant and an effective cool dad.”
He’s also okay with “being the object of some other people’s jokes.” Noting that right now is a time with a lot of heaviness, he says that sometimes it’s nice just to be “out in community and jumping rope.”
