Underage Ninjas

An elite group of youth training for Ninja Warrior

To be on American Ninja Warrior, NBC and G4 require you to be over 21 years old. However, many people under 21 train on a committed level for American Ninja Warrior including myself. Several of us formed a group called the Underage Ninjas to show what people under 21 can do in hopes of not only showing that age is but a number, but also to help persuade the American Ninja Warrior producers to lower the age limit.

 

While many people may assume that you need to be a certain age to be good enough to compete in such a rigorous environment, the olympics, the epitome of elite competition, the biggest international sports competition of all is dominated by young athletes. The entire US Figure Skating and Gymanstics teams were made up of teenagers, along with dozens of other olympic athletes. These athletes perform perfectly well under in the most rigorous environment regardless of their age. Ninja Warrior is much the same. There are dozens of young athletes across the country that train regularly, the underage ninjas representing a few. In addition to being able to do exact replicas of the toughest obstacles from the show, and competing with the pros at events, I have found young people to bring the most passion to the sport. In fact, Sasuke in Japan had a competitor who was a high school student become a new star for his phenomenal performance.

 

Unfortunately, NBC does not see American Ninja Warrior the way the public, the fans, and especially the competitors and long time Sasuke (TV Series in Japan) see it. They only see American Ninja Warrior as a reality TV show much like the dozens of other out there that are popular for a while, but then lose their appeal. They are more concerned with ratings from finding good competitor profiles and liability then they are with finding the actual competitors and giving them a true and accurate chance at Sasuke the way it has been in Japan. While liability is a real concern, there is not ligitimate difference between liability of an 18 year old vs. 21, and yet the show's age limit is 21. If it is too risky to remove the age limit, despite the hundreds of equally dangerous shows which have competitors from all ages and Sasuke which has no age limit, at least lower the age limit to 18.

Anyone interested in joining this group, please contact me at webmaster@ninjawarrior.info with some videos of yourself training. The only requirements for joining are that

 

1. You actively train for Ninja Warrior

2. You have videos of yourself training

3. You can communicate over the internet (which is how we connect)