Hybrid Rope

Hybrid Rope

Aroundsquare's new Hybrid Ropes are designed to bring together the key features of flow ropes and jump ropes in a premium offering unlike anything else on the market. Our Hybrid Ropes are 100% pure silk, dyed to a gorgeous saffron colour, and whipped with genuine kevlar reinforcements where it’s needed. The ropes are a great mid-weight, suitable for both jumping and flowing, including dynamic release moves. The silk is very soft to handle, and gets softer over time. It has good weight to it, a bit of drag, and a slight give, which integrate to a great user experience that encourages crossing back and forth between jumping and flowing. The kevlar whipping and tassels on the handles reduce any impact anxiety around release moves and encourage experimentation. The whipping on the bottom contact point, midway between the handles, is a unique feature, developed in-house, providing both weight and reinforcement where it is needed most. This knotted whipping is designed so that it will fail gracefully over time, meaning that if the cord eventually gets burned through from use, the knots will remain intact, continuing to provide protection until the user eventually decides to replace it.

Our Hybrid Ropes are available in both 14mm and 16mm diameters. Both are well suited to the hybrid space and work well for both flow and jump. The 14mm ropes are the lighter and faster, of the two options, making them lean slightly more towards the jump end of things, while the 16mm are noticeably heavier, bumping up the upper body gains and leaning them slightly more towards the flow end of things. Both options will ship with a replacement strand of kevlar, all packaged neatly in one of our new Slack Sacks.

Details and Features: 

• 14mm:  Weight: ~250g/pc
• 16mm: Weight: ~350g/pc
• Cord length: ~245cm including knotted handles
• Note that machine washing and drying on hot can achieve a shrinkage of nearly 30cm if a shorter length is desired
• Other easy methods of shortening the rope include: re-knotting the handles to include an additional overhand loop; tying an additional single or double overhand on either end of the rope
• The products include in 5mx 1.7mm diameter Kevlar cord
• Silk properties: dyed deep saffron orange; slight elasticity or "give" resulting in a satisfying springiness; soft and supple, aging well over time
  
• Contact point is whipped with constrictor knots so that it will continue to hold even if the kevlar frays through
• Packaged in one of Aroundsquare's cotton Slack Sacks

Additional Background

Rope flow is an exciting space, with great flow tricks to learn, and tons of benefits for mobility, natural strength, and general fitness, with focus on the arms and core. Flow ropes tend to be heavy.. to the point where they are not well suited for jumping. Moreover, the materials tend to fray at the contact point where they hit the ground, leading to degradation over time with no real way to repair the ropes.

Jump rope, is terrific cardio exercise, and has a ton of super dynamic and exciting moves, including releases, that.. for people into skill toys and flow props, immediately catch the attention. Unlike flow ropes, jump ropes tend to be optimized for speed. They are light and thin, to the point where a person scarcely needs to leave the ground to pass the rope under the feet. This makes possible some incredible tricks, but makes them less satisfying for rope flow.

Watching this space, we wondered whether there might be room in the middle for a hybrid oriented rope.. one that had enough weight and resistance to make it compelling for rope flow, while at the same time being light and durable enough to perform well under the pressure of jump rope. For those of you who have followed Aroundsquare for any length of time, you know that when we develop a new product, we always try to offer something that doesn’t already exist, and we’re not afraid to go after premium materials to do that.