With over 300 votes in our Boot Camp – Love It or Hate It? poll, the whole Boot Camp concept in American Ninja Warrior is one of fierce debate. Now that we have seen all of the Boot Camp, what was the most memorable moment of the whole thing for you? This could be a “defining moment” of Boot Camp or just a funny or insightful glimpse into the competition or a competitor. I’m curious to hear what people thought was the “Most Memorable Moment of Boot Camp”!
Archive for December, 2010
Boot Camp Most Memorable Moment
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010Boot Camp – Love it or Hate it?
Thursday, December 16th, 2010I must admit that I missed the last few episodes (*shakes fist at DirectTV*), but I understand that the whole Boot Camp concept as the place where the 15 finalists duke it out to make the top 10 spots on Team America to go to Ninja Warrior has been introduced. I see the bulletin boards aflame with people’s opinion of the whole Boot Camp idea. Ninja Warrior purists hate it, other people say it’s a great evolution of the American Ninja Warrior brand for commercial purposes, some say it is great preparation for Team America to go compete in Japan. What is your opinion? Vote below and feel free to post comments.
My Run at American Ninja Warrior
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010Now that the opening round at American Ninja Warrior has been aired I’m finally free to disclose how I did here on my blog. It’s been a hard few months keeping my mouth shut! Unfortunately they didn’t show my run on the show, so a number of friends and family who dedicated 3 hours last Wednesday night watching American Ninja Warrior are now more than curious to know and see how I did (they said they loved watching the show though, even if I wasn’t featured, and I think ANW has a gaggle of new fans). I won’t overanalyze how I did here before you watch the video itself, maybe I’ll save the obstacle-by-obstacle analysis for a subsequent post if people are interested, but I will preface it with a few background characteristics.
First, the opening round covered two days…both Saturday and Sunday over that great weekend at Venice Beach. My run slot was around noon on Sunday, so I had the advantage of watching other competitors do their runs on Saturday and build my tactical plan. That was great. What was not so great was the second dynamic at play, since I had all day on Saturday and a ton of adrenaline to process, I did something very stupid. I went to the “fan mini-course” that had small replicas of several obstacles just to goof around with some of my friends. Long story short…I long-jumped over a pit and the pad was misaligned on the far landing platform, and I rolled my ankle over giving myself one of the worst ankle sprains of my life. I spent the rest of the day cursing my stupidity. I went to bed that night and woke up the following morning believing that I would probably pull out since I could barely walk. I was beating myself up pretty badly for what I had done, and the likelihood that I had just ruined a dream of competing in Ninja Warrior.
The third and final dynamic…adrenaline and ibuprofen! I took a fistful of the latter, and about an hour before I was about to run I started to get bucketfuls of the former. The two combined to numb out my ankle and while I was waiting in the holding pen behind the starting platform I finally believed that I was going to be able to run after all. I’ll admit, I was more than a little nervous for the first obstacle the Quadruple Step that had actually felled quite a number of pretty strong competitors. The steps on the platform were all angled at about 45 degrees and pretty far apart, and I had witnessed more than one competitor jack up their ankles on it. I was afraid my ankle would buckle the first big landing on it on one of those angled steps, and I’d scream like a stuck pig and flail into the water. But I decided I had to attack the obstacle at full bore, not even thinking about my ankle, and just see how it turned out. In the end I feel very fortunate that I was able to get on the course and compete at all given my ankle situation, so while I was disappointed not to achieve my goal of advancing to the semifinals I felt some degree of satisfaction derived from just getting out on that course and letting it rip the best I could. In the end the adrenaline and ibuprofen did their trick, and I didn’t feel my ankle at all during the run, although it was pretty cranky afterwards!
I hope you enjoy the video, stitched together from two videos captured from slightly different angles, and let me know what you think! I’m hoping people start using the fancy new Comments system I just integrated on my blog 😉
American Ninja Warrior 2 Semifinalists
Monday, December 13th, 2010Congrats to those 30 studs who concluded the opening round course in the fastest time to advance to the semifinals which should air this Wednesday Dec 15th on G4. Below is a list, from fastest to slowest, of those 30 who have forever grabbed a tiny piece of immortality in the world of obstacle course nutjobs. Special shout-outs to David Campbell and Travis Furlanic who helped train me at their personal course back in July, and to Ryan Stratis and Travis Rose who I hung out with a lot at the event itself. You guys are super-studs, and I look forward to watching to see how far you progress!
1) Trevor Vaughn in 39.05 seconds
2) David Money in 40.52 seconds
3) Travis Furlanic in 40.65 seconds
4) Brian Orosco in 41.23 seconds
5) Levi Meeuwenberg in 42.92 seconds
6) Ryan Cousins in 43.86 seconds
7) Paul Kasemir in 44.77 seconds
8. William Spencer in 45.75 seconds
9) Travis Rosen in 46.73 seconds
10) Chris Wilczewski in 48.72 seconds
11) Evan Dollard in 49.37 seconds
12) Sean Morris in 49.76 seconds
13) Richard King in 49.98 seconds
14) Caine Sinclair in 50.62 seconds
15) Ryan Brier Rachall in 50.69 seconds
16) Patrick Cusic in 51.62 seconds
17) David Campbell in 52.45 seconds
18) Dorian Cedars in 52.87 seconds
19) Shane Daniels in 55.07 seconds
20) Adam Laplante in 56.43 seconds
21) Andrew Taber in 56.50 seconds
22) Adam Truesdell in 57.62 seconds
23) Austin Greene in 57.96 seconds
24) Ibrahim Peek in 57.98 seconds
25) Ryan Stratis in 58.96 seconds
26) Lorin Ball in 59.74 seconds
27) Brent Steffensen in 1:02.74 seconds
28) Christopher Geis in 1:03.60 seconds
29) Thomas Hall in 1:04.67 seconds
30) Andrew Karsen in 1:06.02 seconds
Great Show, Great Production!
Thursday, December 9th, 2010Congrats to G4 for putting together a great opening night show of 3 solid hours covering the opening round in Venice Beach. The production quality was high, the commentary insightful, and you did a great job capturing the energy and enthusiasm of the event. Quite a number of friends of mine who had never watched Ninja Warrior before said they were surprised at how engaging they found 3 solid hours of people running the same obstacle course! Even the marketing beforehand was high quality and very targeted (Maxim, USA Today, Howard Stern show, XBox Live). Great job.
Of course, my own run at American Ninja Warrior ended up on the cutting room floor. I ain’t even mad. My mommy still says I’m handsome.