Page 2 / News, Trends, Gossip and Stuff To Do : On the Street : Oh, Just Skip It (You Might Like It)

Are you a people person? A born leader with good organizational skills? Have we got a gig for you.

There is one catch, however. You must like, or preferably love, to skip. Yes, skip--as in “through the tulips.”

Iskip, a national skipping group based in San Francisco, is looking for a head skipper in Los Angeles--someone as free-spirited and enthusiastic about skipping as Kim Corbin, the group’s founder.

“People love to skip, and they are just dying for permission to do it again. I want to make that happen,” says Corbin, 30, who organized the group earlier this year.

Since May, she has led half a dozen “group-skips” in San Francisco. These include Sunday skips through Golden Gate Park and happy-hour skips through the city’s financial district. Anywhere from one to several dozen bouncy bodies--male and female--usually turn out, and the movement, she believes, is growing.

Using what she calls “positive harassment,” Corbin, during her morning solo-skips through the neighborhood, challenges others to join her. Sometimes she is ignored, other times she receives a sly smile, but 70% of the time, she says, people take her up on the challenge.

“I was nervous when I first went out that people would laugh at me,” she says, “but this happens very rarely.”

In addition to the pure joy of skipping, Corbin, a publicity director by day, also points to its health benefits. “It’s a good calorie burner,” she says. “There are no rules to it. And it looks a lot less stupid than power walking.”

For the record, a 145-pound male burns about 340 calories an hour walking, 470 calories an hour cycling and a whopping 630 calories an hour skipping. Alas, there are no specialty skipping shoes, but Corbin is hoping a footwear manufacturer will jump on the bandwagon sometime soon. Until then, the woman being called “the original skipper” recommends cross-training or running shoes.

Other skip tips for beginners are outlined on the group’s Web site (https://www.iskip.com), which counsels skippers to stretch before and after (“You’ll be using muscles you forgot you had”), and, most important, “Enjoy yourself. Let skipping bring out the kid in you.”

It certainly has in Corbin, who participates in live chats each Monday at 6 p.m. on the site.

Skippers of the world unite.