The key to a nice rise is Instant yeast and room temperature ingredients. Follow the recipe on my website and you should get a good rise with your dough.
http://flyfishohio.us/Party Rye Bread.htm
Also, keep your dough covered with plastic wrap or a tea towel. Draft is the enemy of bread dough. I also stopped using tap water, because the water company puts lots of chlorine in our water, and chlorine kills yeast. I use water from our Brita filter.
