As many of you know, last Sunday we had open casting for American Ninja Warrior 4 at The Cave.  There were many attendees, both spectators and ninja hopefuls, showcasing their “skillzz”.  One of the reasons our gym was targeted as the audition sight by G4 TV was because we are one of the main parkour gyms in the San Francisco Bay Area, nevertheless, Ninja Warrior isn’t a parkour competition.  It is however, an all-around crazy creative obstacle course, and since parkour is about overcoming obstacles, it does help quite a bit to be proficient at it, but any physical discipline can contribute to success at Ninja Warrior.  Some of our featured athletes were showcasing thier CrossFit movements, Olympic Lifting, soccer ball juggling, rock-climbing, dance, or gymnastics skills.  One of the athletes that was stressed out about what to do was Anna Tom.  She whimpered  “But I can’t do any of these things that these other people are doing!” and decided that she shouldn’t try out.  After pointing out that she was going about it all wrong she changed her mind.  ”Anna, don’t think about the things that you can’t do that the other people are doing, but just come up with things that you can do!”  ”Like what!?”, she replied.  I pointed out a few basic things that I knew she was good at and suggested a couple of ways of connecting them.  She perked up and said “well, I guess I can do that…”.  Later on she came back to me a bit more upbeat and visibly happier because she had a few routines that she worked out.  Then later still she came back and couldn’t stop talking about all the things she realized she could do and skills she had that she hadn’t thought of.  ”I’ve picked up so many skills!  I can’t believe I can do all of these things!”  She whent on.  ”I really know a lot!”.  Anna has been training here for a couple of years and has slowly collected a myriad of skills and abilities, but it took an open casting call for Ninja Warrior for her to realize it herself!

For her audition, Anna mixed in different parkour elements and climbing with Dylan Tom, her son and finished up with a bit of Olympic Lifting to showcase herself as the athletic mom with the little aspiring Ninja son.

If you’ve been taking CrossFit classes only you may think that you can’t do that many things, or at least not enough to try out for Ninja Warrior.  Nothing could be less true.  The whole purpose of doing CrossFit is to be versatile and try different things, and besides, if you’ve taken our classes for any length of time at all, you’ve practiced some gymnastics, a bit of parkour, carrying other people, judo & self defense, carrying people out of dangerous situations, juggling, etc.  If you actually tried to make a video of your collection of skills, you may just surprise yourself with everything you can do, and if you just got here recently, well, just be patient.  It won’t take very long!

Tom Hutchman’s is a good example.  Here’s his abbreviated (5 min cap) audition video that we submitted to the G4 casting crew for this season’s American Ninja Warrior season:

This is the same video, but with bloopers.  If you know Tom, have some extra time and want to get a couple of chuckles in, you may want to check this out.  It has a couple of charming and funny extras.  Otherwise it’s the same video.