I’m about 90% committed to trying to get onto American Ninja Warrior one way or another, meaning I’ll submit a video hoping for a guaranteed spot, but am probably willing to go to wait in line at the actual event even if I don’t have a guaranteed invite.

One thing that could definitely increase the chance that I’d actually compete is to have a partner in crime, so I approached my buddy Ron with whom I developed my original Ninja Warrior fascination, and with whom I go rock-climbing twice a week, to ask whether he was insane enough to join me in this dream. I stopped by his home for an “insanity check” and gave him the lowdown on the American Ninja Warrior application process and my plans to try and compete.

His response was mostly “good for you, let me know how it goes” until I spun the pitch to include him, and how much fun we’d have doing it together. Although Ron and I are pretty different from most outward angles, he’s a single aging hippie bachelor (sorry Ron) and I’m a married father-of-three, we find each other highly amusing and enjoy each other’s company. Ron is also like me in some important ways in respect to American Ninja Warrior, he’s a natural athlete who is rapidly approaching middle-age and the limitations that unfriendly phase of life dictates of possibilities, and is willing to try to fight that off with whatever means are at his disposal. So to hook him I spun the mutual American Ninja Warrior experience as a ton of fun and a “if-not-now, then-when?” type of quandary. And I also promised to drive the ship, meaning figuring out all the details of applying, filming, editing, etc., that it will take to do this thing. The initiative for all of this has to be mine, but Ron is happy to come along as a wise-cracking easy-going co-pilot. After just a few minutes of me spinning the experience he got swept away in my enthusiasm and pledged his fraternity in pursuing the American Ninja Warrior dream. So it looks like I have a partner in crime now! Maybe I’ll do this thing after all 😉

Tags: Ron Friedman

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 17th, 2010 at 7:11 pm and is filed under American Ninja Warrior 2, Competitors, The Dream. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.