I failed everything about gym class, including rope climbing. It was later discovered I had minimal eye-hand coordiantion.
Yes.
it was one of the only things i was good at as a youngster. I sucked until i fianally grasped the idea of using my legs, then I could shimmy up faster than a monkey. it was fun to be a total geek with no sports ability and big glasses and be better at one gym-thing than most of the “jocks”.
Then I found martial arts and there was no going back. 
Yeah, I always enjoyed doing that, guess I had the right build.
What was amusing though was after college when I went with an attorney friend to his posh workout club in downtown Ft. Worth. They had a rope there that went through a hole in the 2nd floor to the ceiling above. We were working out and I grabbed the rope and started climbing. So I’m going up and up and all of a sudden I’m surrounded by a bunch of diners on the second floor. It was the restaurant and all these people are eating and here comes this guy climbing through up to the roof. They were all looking at me but what could I do? So I just kept climbing, tried to climb in a manner preventing any of my junk from flashing anyone, tapped the roof when I got there and then lowered myself back down through the hole and to the floor below.
We went to the restaurant later. One of the chefs saw me and said "Ya know, I’ve been here 5 years and I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Heh, well, what the hell… when you climb a rope you go to the roof, lunch crowd or not.
High school in Indonesia, 1970s. We had 3-4 ropes that we had to climb, sometimes racing. The worst part was coming back down and having the huge knot at the end whip up and smack the 'nads during the dismount.
In Switzerland, we would climb long metal poles. The poles could be inclinced so that they were in a vertical position, or slightly inclined (easier to climb thenm when they were inclined.) There would be several poles next to each other and you would race. Has any one else ever seen this?
Photo:
Swiss kids climbing the “perches” (French word for the poles) in 2005
I missed page 2, I see that Jragon mentions climbing poles in post # 54 of this thread.
Yes.
Epic fail.
We had to climb it at my NYC high school, early 1980s. I managed it, though probably in the slowest time of anyone who did reach the top.
We did it in gym class in the mid-80s. Ours, at least, were knotted every 3 feet or so. That made it easier but you still couldn’t use your feet. Myself and four or five other kids managed to do it.
In addition to the rope, we had the peg board. Fastened to the wall, it had, I think, 16 holes and two pegs. You had to climb up by inserting each peg into the hole above, go lateral upon reaching the top, then back down. I couldn’t do that one either.
Yep, we did rope climbing. This was in the late 80s. I had a rope swing as a kid and figured out how to leg wrap on my own pretty early on. Plus, at that point I was still doing gymnastics off and on. That big thick rope was easy compared to the thumb-width ones I used to climb.
Thicker mats down at the bottom aren’t actually much safer. Sure, if you actually fall catastrophically, a crash pad might help, but you’d dramatically increase the chances of twisting an ankle from a moderate to low height. And there’s always the false-safety factor to consider. Someone thinks it’s okay to drop from a higher height and screws themselves up because they think that padding cancels out kinetic energy. Hint: it doesn’t. A relatively thin (usually 4–6 inches) moderately stiff pad is a compromise between the gym floor (because, ow!) and an unstable landing surface like an 18 inch crash pad.
Someone asked earlier if rope climbing is any good for conditioning. Yes, it’s mainly a test of upper body and core strength if you don’t wrap with your legs. Otherwise, it’s an overall conditioning exercise, similar to rowing. It doesn’t take much actual strength if you have good technique. There are a couple styles of wrap I know, that have varying levels of security. One is so secure that you can actually lock off your feet and let go; just hook an elbow around the rope to keep your upper body over your feet.
They should teach technique in PE classes, but they probably don’t. I’ve come to the conclusion that practically no one in education has any fucking clue as to what they’re doing when it comes to physical fitness. The current fitness guidelines shown in an earlier link are practically useless as either a training or screening protocol.
We had to. It was a regular part of my gym classes in high school, maybe about once a week. It wasn’t mandatory to make it all the way to the top, but we were “encouraged” to give it our best shot (by a gym coach who might have been the inspiration for Mr. Buzzcut from “Beavis and Butt-Head”). I usually climbed the rope about as well as Les Moore from “Funky Winkerbean,” but I remember one glorious day when I did make it all the way up and back down again. I never made it all the way again.
I did it a couple of times, late in elementary or early in high-school, I don’t recall
By which I mean I tried as required, and jerked around on the end of the rope like bait for some kind of giant, chunky-geek-eating fish. Never made it up more than a foot or so. Not as painful as dodgeball, in that the other kids only threw non-bruising contempt at your face, but not one of my better childhood memories.
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I never held the ropes responsible, of course, though it would be years until I discovered all the fun options inherent in them.
I’m surprised the restaurant didn’t comp your meal. Especially since you were so nonchalant.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, all part of the show. I’ll be here for two shows daily, Thursday through Sunday. Please try the fish and make sure to tip your waiter.” 
Wait…what???
My kids have to do it. Most gym activities are lawsuits waiting to happen - nothing terribly unique about rope climbing except perhaps you are more likely to fall to break a bone than trip, or get a ball to the head. My kids also have to be able to RUN a mile - starting in Kindergarten. They work their way up.
Two weeks ago my little brother tripped over his almost size 13 feet, fell and hit his head off of a radiator in the stairwell. My mom listened to his symptoms and decided he didn’t have to go to the ER; she had a fax a form to his school saying that she declined them taking him to the ER.
But yes, most gym activities are accidents waiting to happen. Kids need all the activity they can get though; unless they do an after school sport they aren’t getting enough exercise. In high school we had to run around cones and pivot 90 degrees - it’s a miracle an ACL or a meniscus wasn’t torn every single day.
Senior year in high school. We had a bell at the top of the rope that we were supposed to ring. I got so good at it that I rang the bell every day of the week my second semester.
I haven’t climbed a rope since. And I haven’t been in that good shape since, either.
We had a big rope going way up, but I never got the chance to climb it. I wanted to, I think I could do it arms-only. I heard other gym classes at the school climbed it though.