Our ancestors must not have always given up something, as fun as jumping, solely because of growing up. Sure not! Branches, wooden planks, rope bridges, hay bales, swings, the modern static bed or the simple act of riding for pleasure, have been used for the fun that occurs when we feel those moments of weightlessness. However, achieving this effect in a portable and practical way implies a more modern technology.

To be precise and not to get lost among a multitude of inventions to jump, we can limit it to the geometry we know of the current jumpers; That shape that has been proven to be the best system for rebound exercise in a simple, stable and safe way. I refer to the spring system consisting of two arches joined at their ends with one or more elatic bands between them.

With these characteristics, we can already assume that it is not necessary to go back many centuries. But if man was able to create the Antiticera artifact 22 centuries ago, who says there haven't been several inventors of jumpers we don't know? The activity of jumping is too much fun not to have tried on many occasions with better or worse results.

Inspired by the desire to know the history of this product and, seeing the amount of falsehoods that the propaganda of some companies have extended, makes me embark on the task of finding out everything I can about who was really the first to devise the first modern jumpers.

I have to admit that, before investigating the topic, I also participated in the diffusion of that generalized hoax that Kangoo Jumps invented this product. Now I wish I could atone for my sin with this post.

In my personal deal of many years with Denis Naville, founder of Kangoo Jumps and my partner in the company,(5) I realized quite soon that, really, he was not an engineer or a complete inventor, although he contributed some ideas. Denis was an economist and entrepreneur who knew how to take advantage of some opportunities and coincidences of life to achieve the first commercial success of a brand of jumpers.

Bearing in mind that all the technical and creative development, since I started working in the company, was carried out in Spain by me and that the KJs are manufactured in Taiwan, it cannot be said that the "Swiss engineering" slogan we presumed and KJ continues doing it now..

But the jumpers existed before. In my first approach to the history of the jumpers, I hoped to grant the title of inventor of the jumpers to Gregory Lekhtman, a Canadian of Russian origin and creator of the Exerlopers brand .

And I have been very tempted to do so because it appears in public documents of KJ and patent records indicate that he applied for the patent for this bounce system in 1990. He has invented and patented numerous products related to medicine and fitness(6). Although he was not really the first to patent a system like the one at hand, he was the first to market the jumpers,(7) in any case we have to recognize his merit.

Shortly before G. Lekhtman, there is quite a lot of documentation on the internet that grants the authority in the invention of this product to a more prolific Japanese inventor, Yoshiro Nakamatsu better known in his country by Dr. NakaMats.(8)

Investigating the patents I have been able to find the oldest reference of what we can consider jumpers according to the specifications that I mentioned above and dates from 1914 in France, It is described as a "sport or acrobatics device that adapts to a shoe and that it serves to increase the speed of the race or the amplitude of the jumps ". The patent is quite broad and includes alternative forms and mechanisms(20) .