World-class Woodinville jump-ropers to perform in Kirkland

A Hot Dog USA jump-rope workout is a noisy affair.

There's the rhythmic clack, clack, clack of a synchronized double-Dutch routine; the high-pitched whistle the rope makes when a tall 18-year-old whips it around during his gymnastic freestyle tricks, the rapid-fire tick, tick, tick as a teenage girl clocks as many steps as she can in 10 seconds.

There's a lot of see, too — like a high-school kid performing a round-off, flips and splits while jump roping, and three jumpers simultaneously using two ropes.

Since 1980, Hog Dog USA, a youth jump-roping team based in Woodinville, has been performing, competing, conducting workshops and classes and helping the American Heart Association promote its "Jump Rope for Heart" health program.

It has traveled the globe, producing world champions, world-record holders — and even a Cirque du Soleil performer.

On May 9, the team will display its skills — and hard work — in a free community performance at Kirkland's Kamiakin Junior High, from 6:30 to 9 p.m.

Members of the Hot Dog's "elite team" range from fourth graders to a 22-year-old who has been on the team 15 years. Their performances and workshops have taken them to Japan, Cyprus, Ecuador and Costa Rica. They've also demonstrated their skill on national television shows, from "Good Morning America" to "The Tonight Show" and "Sesame Street."

Twenty-two of its jumpers earned spots on the 2008 U.S. National Team, and it won three gold medals in the 2008 World Championship.

They train three times a week and more often when preparing for national and world-level competitions. They work to build speed, endurance and strength, and perfect technique skills and routines. The junior team, which consists of first- through third-graders, practices about an hour a week to get fit and learn skills.

Bob Melson, a physical-education teacher at Kirkland's Helen Keller Elementary, started the squad as a way to get kids active and help raise money for the American Heart Association. The team sustained itself after Melson left, largely because some team members stayed to coach.

Amy Canady, head coach since 1992, was one of the team's original members and a former national and world champion. "These are opportunities that very rarely come from other sports or activities, and this type of experience can be life-changing for the jumpers involved who would otherwise not get the chance to travel and be recognized as a leader in their sport," Canady says. "It is great for their self-esteem, as well as for their college and job resumes."

Assistant coach Allison Lord started as a Hot Dog when she was 4 years old, became a world champion and later used her jumping expertise in the talent portion of various pageants in which she competed.

Eighty percent of the 60 team members are females, but Jesse Bica, an 18-year-old senior at Bothell High School, is the world champion and record holder in the male division of the 30-second speed jump. He set the mark — 194 jumps — in winning the event at last summer's world championship in South Africa. He also has become a top freestyle jumper even though the gymnastics aspect of the sport were difficult for him to master.

His mother, Joyce Bica, enrolled him in an after-school jump-rope class when he was in first grade as a way to help him harness his energy. He seemed a natural, but it was his hard work that impressed the Hot Dogs enough to invite him as fifth-grader. Now, as he weighs college options from the University of Washington to Stanford, he factors whether each has a nearby jump-roping team.

"It's not like any other sport," he says. "There is such a positive atmosphere to it. You don't see the rivalries you see in other sports. Everyone is trying to help each other, even the other teams."

As do many Hot Dogs, he spends much of his time teaching classes and workshops. He does it with his two younger sisters, also members of the Hot Dogs, and his mother, who recently won the speed jumping title for women over 50.

Rene Bibaud wanted to be a Hot Dog in the worst way when she first tried out for the team, but didn't make it on her first try.

She didn't give up, though, and became a five-time world champion and the first jump-rope artist for Cirque Du Soleil. Today, she teaches, speaks and entertains through her Seattle company, Ropeworks, www.jumpropenet.comProfessional jump-ropers are rare, but Canady says the experience sticks with Hot Dog jumpers.

"I was just a regular 10-year-old girl who had never been out of the state of Washington when I joined the team," she says. "By the time I was 12, I'd been to half the U.S. states and Australia and performing."