Just like after American Ninja Warrior 2, I received more than a few questions from friends and family after American Ninja Warrior 3 about whether I planned to keep competing in Ninja Warrior competitions or I planned to hang it up. My response is the same every time, an incredulous “Why would I ever voluntarily stop? This sh*t is awesome!” I guess these inquirers just don’t have a sense of how much fun it is as a grown man to leap, climb and scamper around random obstacles. It must look like work to most people, while for the competitors it is pure fun. I’m DEFINITELY going to be back trying to get into American Ninja Warrior 4 and see if I can work, sweat and compete my way to a shot at running on the hallowed ground of Mt. Midoriyama at Sasuke in Japan.

I immediately “started” my training for American Ninja Warrior 4 the day I got back from Venice Beach at ANW3 back in May. I took a bit of a break this summer, or at least slowed down, for a couple of months when my training buddy Ron fractured his foot and I coincidentally also had a crazy spike in my job work, but I am back on the horse trying to get faster, strong, and smarter for whenever ANW4 goes down. With the popularity of ANW3 on G4 and then the big airing of the season finale on NBC, I expect a huge surge in applications to compete for ANW4, which means my submission video to get accepted has to be better than ever. I’m already mentally working on it…more to come in the future.

And for training, how am I going to prepare? I plan on continuing with my core training of rock-climbing and parkour, with some yoga and strength-training support. I also hope to get more time working on actual obstacles, which no doubt is a big differentiator between the top guys with courses in their back yards and “leisure competitors” like myself who train but don’t have a warped wall or salmon ladder in their back yard! I might have access to a couple of courses from guys I know here in New Mexico, and plan to take a trip or two up to train with the hard-core APEX guys at Boulder. Overall my training is similar to previous years…lots of grip and upper body strength combined with the intuitive speed and approach of the parkour demons (that’s my goal, at least), and then throw in more obstacle-specific work wherever I can.

Who knows if ANW4 will happen later in 2011, if the networks decide that they want to send Team America to the very next Sasuke (which happens twice a year), or it will happen in the summer of 2012 for the ‘standard’ once-a-year trip that ANW has offered so far in its three seasons. In any case, when it happens is out of my hands…the only thing I can control is whether I’m getting ready for it whenever it does down! As always, thanks for your support readers, it means a lot.