So this past week alot of things have happened. Some big things are in store for our humble course. I had a two hour interview at the beginning of last week with a freelance journalist. Who is going to write my story and the story of the course. I'm excited to see how it turns out!
Plus one of our local news stations KSEE 24 and Angela Greenwood came out for a couple hours to record what we do here and interview about training for Ninja Warrior, CrossFit, and how it all came to be. It will be edited into a video a couple minutes long as part of a special on cool things that are happening in the Central Valley people may not know about. The piece should be out sometime mid August.
Plus now that we have a decent set up I'm going to be releasing more training videos and workout videos to help improve your strength, conditioning and mental state while trying to run obstacles. Heres two videos that we just released and fee free to subscribe to us on Youtube. Thanks!
Sorry it has been a long time since I last updated on the progress of the training course! Things are moving by so fast. Last week we had our second local competition which I will include a video of that down farther in the post. We began "prettying up" the course and using the black and green koi theme on the Koi ladder through the course. We finished the Half Pipe Attack! and I'm pretty stoked to think(I do think) that this is the first near size replica of the HPA built in a backyard course.
Now we set plans and invites out to our big Invite Open Training Day at the CCNWTC and have begun the construction of our new mega expansion nicknamed The Gauntlet. Alright here we go!!
Half Pipe Attack Construction
So just before our second local competition I was hard at work finishing up the Half Pipe Attack! It took practically the rest of all my plywood and pre-cut lumber. I spent 1 week y myself building this little beast and taking footage/photos of parts of her construction. The weather started getting really hot this week. Here's come photos and clips from her constructions. Blueprints....eeeh maybe. We'll see.
New Legendary Obstacle. The Summers Shuffle.
This wicked upper body unstable crimp obstacle is from the pits of hell. The unknown child of the vertical limit and unstable bridge birthed into a beautiful but ever deadly ninja killer. Inspired by the man, the legendary 3rd stage garage course ninja Shaun Summers! Trust me its a beast, in the video below its not properly installed but will sill kick anyone's ass. In a couple of weeks its home will be set up.
June 29th: Quest for TOTAL Victory 2
Our second local competition at the course went down. This time we had quiet a few more people show up. Including about 5 guys from the local Central Valley Parkour, 4 crossfitters from my gym. CrossFit FTF, 2 skateboarders, and myself. A total of 12. Had a good vibe everyone was excited and a bit nervous.
No one was allowed to touch the course, we had them start fresh and in random order with those who have ran it before as the last to run the course.
We had quite a few slips, some face slams on the quintuple steps and for once on the warped wall saw someone fall face first on it when his feet slipped out from under him. Pretty crazy.
Only 2 made it clean through stage 1. Another would of if he didn't grab a off bounds area of the course. Me? I grazed my foot on the ground coming out of the Half Pipe Attack and didn't know it. Made it up the Warped Wall in one fell swoop and placed the fastest time when they announce I was DQ for touching the ground. Damn! that sucked haha but we had alot of fun. Ended up running out of time and didn't get to do stage 2. Everyone agreed to get ready for the big one coming up late July!
Course Walk-through. Like they do on the show when your brought on.
You wont see me in this video except for the intro. Our GoPro crapped out in the 100 degree heat and cut off right before my run lol nice!
MOAR PAINT!!
I joke that our course(a girl) found make up and started prettying herself up lol
I decided to bust out the 22 sheets of Masonite I have had in reserve for the past 4yrs and put it to good use. Painted it up and gave our 3 large obstacles a make over. The Warped Wall, the Balance Tank, and the Half Pipe Attack. Now the course is taking on an identiy the Koi fish leading you through the course as to where to go next. Man I think were going to need to make some t-shirts now!
The CCNWTC Invite Open Training Day and BBQ
I've been waiting to hold this event for almost a year now and it will fall on the 1yr anniversary of the ninja warrior training course since I started breaking it down from its Mini Mega Skateboard ramp days. I am inviting alot of my CrossFit and Ninja Warrior buddies within a couple states. Were excepting no more than 50 ninjas to come and have fun all day from 8am to sunset training practicing, we"ll have a fun mini competition, and an amazing BBQ!
I am working in full gear and build mode! Building measuring cutting not only to finish our next major expansion The Gauntlet(which I will go over soon) but to build shade out in the acres cause its 100+ degrees outside with no shade and even the best of ninjas aren't going to last long in that weather.
Alot of planning is going into this event to make sure everything goes well and everyone has fun!
The Gauntlet. A Epic Expansion. 07/06/2013
We made a point to focus on stage 1 type obstacles where we first started. The logic was you need to get past the first stage before you get to any of those upper body crazy obstacle. So why build them right off the bat. Start off with the basics and once you have a decent Stage 1 built, then begin on your 2nd and 3rd stage.
Well we finished the majority of our stage 1. Now we begin on really the first expansion we've needed to do. The gauntlet is a massive structure that will house 8 stationary stage 3 obstacles and one central hanging area that will have over 20 interchangeable hanging obstacles inside of it. With recent donations from local competitions, visits, and now donations from the upcoming event we are able to fund this $500+ expansion!
We just made our first purchase and will probably be making another 1 or two back to Home Depot to finish this project. When finished it will be almost 40ft wide an average of 10ft high and 20ft long. It will take up and 800 sqft area of our backyard. Here is a few pics from its recent progress.
As you see I released another video series. This time on the construction of a Salmon ladder that can easily change gaps and distances between rungs with no effort. Its an awesome design and an idea/ feature presented from the Koi Ladder.
The series runs 20m long. If you want to see the finished product and aren't interested in the construction just skip to the 4th video.
I was however presented with quite a challenge though. After my first mini test I knew the spacers in the design were weak and would need reinforcing. So I thought up a faceplate design and tested that as you will see in the 4th video. It was good for a little while but couldn't withstand the brutal impact and the ladder itself started to split and crack.
So are we going to trash it?! Nope no need. We have an excellent design just not a strong enough materials. If it was built from composite wood decking it be fine and good. Cost a bit more to make but wouldn't still keep with the original design.
or
You can make it out of wood but would have to ad pins through the rungs and sidewalls of the ladder. This is so the pin takes the force of the inplace and not the weak wood. Which is undoubtedly less stronger then metal. You just give up a little of the design having to remove and insert a pit every time you wish to switch or move rungs. Hopefully end of this week, beginning of next I will have the two blueprints up and available to use.
In the meantime were working on a new obstacle that is massive! and will devour most of are lumber. That and pre-pairing to support all our ninjas in Vegas. Finals are coming up this June 21st!
So a few days later I put a little paint on to make it stand out and go to install this new little beast for its first test runs and make sure it can stand the abuse.
Things I like about this design so far.
It can be carried and transported, each beam weighs about 12-15lbs(w rungs) so if you want to take it to a friends and strap/screw it down you can.
The rungs are straight forward and simple to construct, therefore easier to replace if broken.
Varied gap distances can be changed in a matter of seconds weather you want to make a 6", 12", 18" or 36" gap! :o
It was about 90+ degrees out when I first test the ICSL. All rungs were set to a 12" gap. An the bar felt about 100 degrees hot on touching it. If you watch the video you see after the my first leap I fail me second this is due to a flaw in the current design.
The 4" spaces inbetween rungs were splitting due to the pressure when swinging, leaping, and landing on the . rung. This was causing the rungs to slip and actually drop about 1-2" and sliding out. Not good! So I've come up with a new modification to add to the design to make it stronger and hopefully should do the trick. I will need to cut all new rungs though :/ Thank God they are all fairly easy to make though unlike the Koi Rungs.
Surprising enough this is what I think is the first true full size Barrel Roll I've seen built. If you can find another I would love to see it. Just place the link in the comments below. Heres a walk through and basic explanation of it. Its not 100% complete in this video yet.
In this video I have two clips of my testing the Barrel Roll. One without the new 6ft walk out platform and the second clip with the new platform. I added this in cause the total length of the rolling barrel would be too long and speed would be to great towards the end. Now you have about 16ft of rolling space.
Today was a recover and maintenance day. Thad came and new arrival Tyler Perry came to help with week whacking and moving wood and debris off the ground. We were clearing out about 20ft in all directions and racking all of it up. Alot of work about 3hrs in we called it a day(finished about 90%) and here in this video is some fun things that ensued soon after ;)
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