After warming up with high knees and butt kicks, we begin running through an agility ladder, testing various footwork patterns. Given the Finitys' focus on acrobatics, Labow gears this session to balance and spatial awareness - two of my greatest weaknesses. "I've just always wanted to be able to do a flip," Johnny says. "We range from acrobatic work on the trampoline - flips and spins - and strength training to agility and balance work."ĭuring my first session of ninja training, I meet the brother-and-sister duo of Johnny and Leah Finity, Williston-based thirtysomethings who hadn't even heard of "American Ninja Warrior" when they decided to jump in. "It's an accessible, top-notch sport," says Labow, who has been teaching young athletes ninja moves for several months he's just added an adults-only session on Wednesday evenings.
#EXERCISE NINJA TUCK JUMPS TV#
Then came the ninja training, informed by Labow's own experience on the TV show and its social-media-wrought surge in popularity. The sport of parkour - a multidisciplinary street workout from France that uses urban features as obstacles - was a natural addition to the ski programs at GMG, Labow explains. He now coaches the University of Vermont's freeskiing team and oversees Green Mountain Gymnastics' sprawling playground of trampolines, foam pits and spring floors, which were added to the Williston warehouse in 2011. Labow is a top park and pipe competitive skier and soccer player who actually competed in season 5 of "American Ninja Warrior" after training on gymnastics equipment. She became the first woman to climb the 14-foot Warped Wall, the first woman to attempt - and complete - the Salmon Ladder, and the first woman to advance to the finals.Ĭatanzaro's pint-size power has inspired plenty of ordinary athletes to try the extraordinary feats of strength and flexibility required by "American Ninja Warrior." It also helped inspire Labow to kick off a new "ninja training" class this fall here at Green Mountain Gymnastics, also the home of the Green Mountain Freestyle Center. This season's superstar wasn't the chiseled Rob "Adonis" Moravsky or repeat threat Travis Rosen, but a 5-foot, 2-inch gymnast named Kacy Catanzaro. I feel light years from " American Ninja Warrior," the hit NBC show that just wrapped its sixth season by sending athletes through a Japanese-inspired jungle of rope swings, giant monkey bars and unstable bridges toward a grand prize of $500,000. This elicits peals of laughter from my 7-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son, who are watching from the waiting area in a 10,000-square-foot warehouse in Williston.
There, coach Noah Labow wants me to execute a "misty" roll, a side-spinning front flip.įollowing his directions, I brace my arms on the top of the ramp, "donkey kick" my legs and butt and - whoompf! - land squarely on my face. Who wouldn't want to be a ninja warrior? That's the question that has me leaping through a mini-obstacle course of kid-size gymnastic equipment - alphabet-themed carpet squares, metal pirouette bars - toward a padded ramp.
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