DOUBLE DUTCH TREAT 2 YOUNG STARS WORKIN' IT OUT FOR `JUMP IN!'.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

It spins a tale of high-school dreams, peer pressure, obstacles to overcome and heart-skipping romance.

And it has jump ropes. Really, really fast jump ropes.

``Jump In!,'' the Disney Channel movie premiering Friday, also has as its stars Corbin Bleu of the network's still red-hot ``High School Musical'' franchise and Keke Palmer, best-known for her lead role in ``Akeelah and the Bee.''

Maybe it will do for the highly athletic rope-skipping known as double dutch what Bleu and his cast mates did for kids with a yen to sing and what Palmer did for spelling.

Bleu plays Izzy, an up-and-coming Brooklyn boxer who is coached by his dad (played by Bleu's own father, David Reivers). Palmer is Mary, a member of a double dutch team that, with a big competition looming, has lost one of its four members. Mary and the other girls persuade Izzy to step in.

Izzy is worried about being razzed by his friends for getting into what's seen as a girls' game, and about what his boxing-driven father will think. So he practices jumping secretly in the early morning and then works in his sparring around high-school classes.

Bleu, 17, had to train in both sports to prepare for the role.

``In `High School Musical,' I had to learn how to play basketball, which I'm horrible at,'' he said by phone just a couple of weeks into the ``High School Musical'' concert tour. ``So they knew that I'm a perfectionist, and when I have to learn something, I really want to get it down.''

He trained intensively before filming. ``I had two hours of boxing every day and then a one-hour break and then three hours of double dutch -- and that was every day for two months.

Practice makes perfect x 2

``So I definitely got whipped into shape. It was such an incredible experience, but it was two things I never in my life would attempt to do if not called for in a role.''

Palmer, 13, took up double dutch in preparation for her film debut in ``Barbershop 2'' and kept it up as a hobby. In that spot at the bottom of a resume where other actors list fencing or foreign accents as their special skill, Keke's said double

dutch. Still, she had to train for the trickier work, and both actors used stunt doubles for the most outrageous moves.

Double dutch, which may have originated with New York's early settlers from Holland, became a competitive sport in the 1970s. Two spinners hold two long ropes, twirling one clockwise and the other counterclockwise in a precise rhythm while one or two jumpers bound in and dodge the ropes with hip-hop bounces and acrobatic maneuvers.

``When I was just doing it for fun, I would do crisscross or a leg in the air, stuff like that,'' she said. ``But this stuff was like a real sport. Back flips, suicides, donkey kicks -- all of these things I can't do outside of the ropes.

``I did do push-ups in one scene. I was so proud of myself,'' she said.

That endurance Bleu and Palmer developed while making ``Jump In!'' last summer is an asset in their hectic lives.

Palmer, a home-schooled eighth-grader who lives in Pasadena, is finishing her still-untitled debut album, due in May from Atlantic Records. Her music video, ``My Turn Now,'' is getting plenty of play on Disney Channel, which has boosted her public profile.

``Before, I might get noticed here and there,'' she said, ``but nowadays it's like, `Mommy! ``Jump In!'' ``Jump In!'' '

``This other girl, when I was walking across the street, said, `Oh my God, Keke Palmer rocks!' I'm like, `Whoa, I rock!' ''

Bleu is in the midst of the national ``HSM'' tour, putting every ounce of his energy into a stage performance with music and production values that appeal to both wide-eyed tweens and their parents.

He's got game

``First of all, I pop on the stage out of this device called the toaster,'' Bleu said. ``Then we bring out the jump ropes and we actually do the whole jump rope thing on stage.''

For a song titled ``Marchin' '' from his upcoming CD, he plays drums and twirls a baton.

``And then we do `Getcha Head in the Game' with all the basketballs.''

Aside from the ``boxer'' and ``professional jumper'' notations he can add to his resume, Bleu is grateful for the insights the ``Jump In!'' workouts brought him.

``I have so much respect for both techniques now,'' the Los Angeles resident said. ``The amount of training and work that they endure is immense, and I just don't understand how they do it.

``But having gone through it myself, the respect factor goes up, and you really understand why these people do what they do. Because when you have finished it, and you've accomplished that, you feel like you can take on the world.''

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

[e-mail]

JUMP IN!

What: TV movie about a rising boxing star who winds up showing off his footwork in a double-dutch jump rope contest.

Where: Disney Channel.

When: 8 p.m. Friday.

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE CONCERT

Where/When: Honda Center in Anaheim, 7 p.m. Jan. 26; Selland Arena in Fresno, 6 p.m. Jan. 27; Staples Center in L.A., 7 p.m. Jan. 29.

TIckets: $38.50 to $58.50, Honda and Staples (at press time, only single tickets were available at those venues); $45.75 to $55.75, Selland.

Info: highschoolmusical.aeglive.com; Ticketmaster; [phone].

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) JUMP start

Disney Channel movie `Jump In!' makes schoolyard game cool again

(2 -- color) Izzy (Corbin Bleu), a promising young Brooklyn boxer, lends his neighborhood friend Mary (Keke Palmer) a hand -- actually, his feet -- when a member of her competitive jump-rope team drops out at the last minute, in the Disney Channel movie ``Jump In!,'' which debuts at 8 p.m. Friday. The two young actors trained for months to learn the technique of double dutch rope jumping for the movie.

(3 -- color) - Keke Palmer

(4 -- color) - Corbin Bleu