Skipping Class

LINCOLN - It's a typical day after school, in the gym at Northern Elementary. Ropes whirl through the air. Feet stomp. Some of the jump-ropers look straight up, some down at the floor, some at the ceiling. They have one thing in common: eyes fixed on some target, with a look of extreme concentration.

The Lincoln Lions are the state's only competitive jump-rope team and they take their sport seriously. The evidence is on the gym wall, in the form of a banner that lists the seven different first-, second- and third-place awards the Lions won at last year's national championships.

Some of the jumpers have tiny feet, others feet that look absurdly long for their pint-sized bodies. They're all fast ‹ but one is the fastest of all.

Nick Forgue is the reigning speed king of jump-roping in the United States. Nick can jump 343 times in one minute. That's 5.72 jumps, nearly six full revolutions of his rope, each second.

Nick isn't a professional athlete. He's a 13-year-old seventh grader at Lincoln Middle School. Nick first won the grand national championship in the three-minute event when he was 11 years old. With 860 jumps in three minutes, Nick beat not only all the other 11-year-olds, but also everyone else who competed, of any age.

At last year's championships in Orlando, Fla., Nick broke his own record, logging 893 jumps in three minutes.

I'm not sure what I was expecting the jump-rope champion to look like. I'd pictured a driven, beefy, well-muscled young man with a serious disposition, one who would fit into a room full of boxers in Rocky, training doggedly with jump ropes and punching bags.

Instead of Mr. Tough Kid, I was greeted by a 5-foot, 1-inch, 88-pound boy with braces, dimples and a perpetual grin.

Besides meeting the jump-rope master, I wanted to try my own hand at speed-jumping. How easy or hard would it be to keep up with Nick? Could he give me any tips, or was it something that couldn't be taught, only felt?

My lesson began with a one-minute race between Nick and me. The coach ‹ gym teacher Byron Kinniburgh, or Mr. K, as the jumpers call him ‹ instructed me on proper technique: don't jump with both feet, but rather, one foot at a time. Jogging, they call it. Mr. K would time me, and Nick's mother, Tammy, would time him. They'd only click the counters when our right feet hit the floor, customary practice because otherwise the feet move too fast for the counter's hand to click.

Well, in some cases. Nick completed 123 right-foot jumps, or 246 jumps total, in a minute. (Clearly, he was either out of practice or taking it easy.) I got 61, or 122 jumps total.

Afterward, I staggered to the water fountain, feeling thirsty enough to empty a water tower.

"It's a very aerobic exercise," Mr. K told me.

I'd noticed.

WHEN NICK JUMPS, he makes it look effortless, as though anyone could do it. The motion is rhythmic, mechanical. It's as though he has strings attached to his knees and someone is pulling them forward, alternating between legs.

I asked him for some tips on my own form, to get my speed up. He watched carefully as I jumped, analyzing.

"Have you jumped before?" he asked. "Because you're good."

Maybe this wouldn't be so humiliating.

Nick told me to keep my eyes straight ahead. Hunch down a bit, he told me, so the circle the rope travels is smaller. Try to twirl the rope using just your wrists, instead of your whole forearm.

Mr. K timed me again. On the first jump, the rope got caught on my shoe.

"Can I start over?" I asked.

"That's what the kids say," Mr. K said, but he let me start again. This time, I broke 70 with my right-foot hits. If I could improve this much in half an hour, imagine what I could do with real practice!

Now, it was time for Nick to teach me some tricky moves, the kind competitive jumpers use in a freestyle routine, where jumping is combined with dance/gymnastics moves and style is more important than speed.

I quickly mastered jumping backward and jumping with my arms crossed in front of me. I faltered, however, on the front-back crossover, a move that involved starting with both hands to the left side of my body, spinning the rope in a circle, rotating my right hand over my shoulder and behind my head, and then twirling the rope over my head as I jumped sideways through it. (I'm not making this up.) I felt like I was stuck on repeat, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day: No matter how many times I tried, the rope kept getting caught on my shoe as I attempted the sideways jump, in exactly the same way each time.

Recognizing that learning to jump rope can be an emotional roller coaster, Nick ended on an easier trick, the double-under. This involved turning the rope in two full circles for every one jump with my feet. At first, I had the same problem of rope stuck on shoe, but inside of 10 tries, I was getting the rope under my feet that second time with a fraction of a second to spare.

"Do you want to try timing Nick?" Mr. K asked eagerly, offering me a clicker. Sure, I said, jumping at the chance to stop jumping. How hard could it be to press my thumb down every time Nick's right foot touched the floor? Mr. K was going to time, too. Didn't he trust me?

Mr. K's enthusiasm should have been a dead giveaway. At the end of 30 seconds, my clicker registered 55 jumps. Mr. K, a more seasoned jump-rope judge, counted 37.

I was beginning to wonder whether I had a place in the world of competitive jump-rope. Like a lamb to the slaughter, I went for one last challenge, knowing full well my calves would still be sore four days later. Mr. K timed me jogging in place, the same leg motion used in jump-roping, but without the rope. I pounded my feet on the floor as fast as I could, and logged 94 steps with my right foot. If I could just do it that fast with the rope, I'd get 188 jumps in 30 seconds, or 376 in a minute. With adrenaline coursing through my veins, I just wanted to keep trying. I was hooked.

NICK WAS RECRUITED for the jump-rope team in second grade, after Mr. K saw him jumping at recess. "He stuck out," Kinniburgh said. "His ability was there. He showed a desire. He wanted to learn."

"The big sixth graders did it, so I thought it was cool," Nick said of his own motivations. At the time, he had played soccer and taken karate lessons, but was just a regular youngster in terms of sports ability - until Mr. K tapped into the excellence that was waiting.

"When we came to see him at a tournament, we thought, 'Oh my God! You can't even see the rope!' " his mom said.

By fourth grade, Nick was practicing every day after school, and even coming in before school and on Saturdays to squeeze in extra practice. If he needed to perfect that difficult move for his freestyle routine, he put in time in the garage at home.

Nick is unfazed by his fame in the niche world of jump rope. Besting the other jumpers wasn't important to him, he said.

"More than winning, I wanted to beat a record," he said.

And after beating his record, Nick decided to retire. He quit jumping this year to try new things: wrestling, soccer, track.

Last month, he went to Cape Cod with his family to watch his 7-year-old brother, Gregory, compete in a tournament. (Gregory won six gold medals.)

Sitting on the sidelines evoked mixed feelings for Nick. "Sometimes, when a kid was jumping and messing up, I wanted to go out there and jump for him," he said.

Mr. K asked Nick whether he'd come back to the team next year if someone beats his record this June in Orlando. Nick shrugged and looked doubtful. But just as Mr. K is sure jump-roping will soon become an Olympic sport, he's sure Nick can be lured back by a challenge for his title.

"Michael Jordan comes out of retirement," Mr. K said. "So could Nick Forgue."