By Justin Juul
Jill Herrera (Switchblade), Valerie Hurysz (Death Valley), and Erin Dougherty (Venom Miss) of SFC Double Dutch can do The Ludicrous, The Donkey Kong, and The Turducken all without breaking a sweat. Never heard of these tricks before? Don’t worry, after a six-week course at SFC, your vocabulary will be full of weird slang and you’ll be pushin’ more rope than an exhausted porn star. The Guardian caught up with The SFC Girls recently to find out what happens when journalists stop staring at their computers and start gettin’ down.
SFBG: So what’s your deal?
Switchblade: We are Switchblade, Death Valley, and Venom Miss, Otherwise known as SFC Double Dutch. We jump rope, perform, and teach classes in the Bay Area.
SFBG: How did you get into the Double Dutch thing? I mean, is there a scene? Do you battle other Double Dutch crews and stuff? Or did you sort of just pick the jump rope thing randomly?
Switchblade: We met in the summer of 2002 and we wanted something physical to do with our friends. We just sort of landed on this, really. As far as a scene goes, there’s not really a battle scene like you find in break dancing. The Double Dutch community is really organized and clean and it’s not what you imagine when you think of old New York street-style stuff.
SFBG: But that’s kind of what you guys are all about, right, the street stuff? Are you the first people take that sort of old-school New York aesthetic and apply it to your group?