Rope Jumping Still Battling With Identity Problem

Try spinning a rope over and under your body, 350 times in one minute, jumping over the rope each time, never missing. Not even once. It's kind of like sprinting one lap around a track, and never stepping on any of the 350 cracks in the pavement.

Try instead to spin that rope and leap high enough so that the rope makes four revolutions before your feet hit the ground.

If you get good at that, try a backflip or a handspring or an aerial cartwheel, while your friends spin two ropes in opposite orbits around your body.

Amy Smith and her friends have done all this. That's not the hard part. The hard part is being told what they did was not really a sport.

``Whenever we appeared in the newspaper, we were in the feature section, not in the sports section,'' said Smith, now an assistant coach for one of the nation's top rope-skipping teams, Kirkland's Hot Dog USA. ``Of course, we were glad to get whatever coverage we got, but it's frustrating. Especially because our team promoted physical fitness and the spirit of competition. To not be considered a sport is hard to take, but we understand how it is people don't understand.''

Smith, 20, is a freestyle specialist. In 1984, she and three of her Juanita High School classmates, Rene Bibaud, Caryn Shiroyama and Heather Pinkney, formed a team that won a world rope-skipping championship. All the girls came from Helen Keller Elementary, where Hot Dog USA was started by physical education teacher Bob Melson about 10 years ago.

Since then, about 500 youths have learned to jump rope with Melson. Team members have successfully competed at the local, state, regional, national and international levels. Last month, Melson's team, representing several age divisions, went to Greeley, Colo., for the 1990 world championships and came back with armloads of trophies and medals.

The level of competition and the difficulty of tricks performed have increased significantly. Smith said some of the 12-year-olds she helps train have mastered tricks that she didn't learn until age 17. But the sport of skipping rope still hasn't outgrown its identity problem.

Melson said he believes the reason jumping rope is viewed this way is because it is still partially thought of as a playground game young girls play.

``In the past, things that young women did were depicted not as a sport, unlike things that males did.''

Smith admitted when she first heard a team of rope skippers was coming to her school to perform, she thought the idea was silly.

``I thought, `how stupid, who would want to jump rope for 20 minutes?' '' she said. ``I couldn't imagine until I saw it. It was the most incredible thing. I was determined right then to be good at it.

Melson likened competitive rope jumping to sports like gymnastics, or figure skating. Rope jumpers also have to compete in compulsory events, and are judged on form, difficulty and execution. Smith attested that, when the elements of acrobatics and gymnastics are added, rope jumping is a sport that requires great endurance, coordination, timing, strength and balance.

The physical merits of rope jumping have never been questioned. The American Heart Association's sales pitch is that rope jumping for 15 minutes is as effective as jogging for 30 minutes. Melson pointed out that boxers, football players and other athletes jump rope to train.

Hot Dog USA is an official demonstration team for the American Heart Association. The organization provides funding for the team to travel in the U.S. and to foreign countries, promoting the AHA's ``Jump Rope for Heart'' program. Participants in the program are asked to jump rope and gather pledges of money for the amount of time they spend jumping.