Beginning of Warm-up no, conditioning yes.

Too much pounding on the legs to start practice with jumping rope.

Recommend always to start practice with a 5 to 10 minute slow jog, no sprinting or fast running. This warms up and loosens muscles, ligaments, etc. so you can then stretch them.

As Lawrence pointed out, does you practice have enough time to allow jump rope? I usually have 1/2 of my agenda finished when my 2 hour practice is over. Girls still want more after 2 hours but I cannot afford jump rope time.

Good exercise for those that can do it.