Grandma's Ninja Warrior Diary: Testing Out the Obstacles in Roseville

Given the need to attend a wedding in Elk Grove, the lucky contiguity to my son, Shawn, and his family who live in Elk Grove, and the opportunity for lunch with a former assistant Hatem, who now lives in Roseville, my husband, Carl, I, and my youngest son, CB, packed up the car on Friday afternoon for a weekend adventure three hours from where we live.

The Studio, a martial arts center in Roseville three hours from our home in San Juan Bautista is the closest gym that offers ninja training -- both for kids (which turned out to be fortunate for short little me) and for adults. The Studio had scheduled the next iteration of the adult class for Saturday, July 28, absolutely perfect timing. I could get there Friday night, get a full night of sleep to be fresh for the ninja training, then have lunch with Hatem, race back to the hotel for a change of clothes, and finish the day at the wedding, with a planned breakfast the next morning our grandchildren and daughter-in-law. Tight timing, but time for fun at each location.

The Studio ninja training class, taught by Master P, paid for its $15 day use fee a hundred times over. Master P put us into groups in accordance with how many pull-ups we could do. The first eye-opener? I could not reach the bar even to try to pull myself up. Everyone else, including the two women in the group, stood at 5'7" and taller. At 4'11" I found that bar out of even jumping reach. 

"Bring out the child assist," Master P told her assistant. Child? Perhaps I should have signed up for the children's class a little earlier?

The child assist, a floor-like platform that boosted me up so that I could reach the bar, did the trick. I had not worked on pull-ups, though, with Brittany, my trainer in Hollister, so my assumption about the ease of doing on imploded upon the first contact of my hands with the metal bar -- they slipped off.

"I'll bring you some chalk," the assistant told me.

Things did get better from there. I went into the newbie group, where I belonged, anyway. The various flexibility obstacles laid out on the floor presented fun and few difficulties, except for one that looked like the floating boards on the ANW show, where more than half the contestants splash down into the water below. I just slipped repeatedly onto the gym mat. Definitely something to work on.

What I learned:

• I need to develop better grip strength, but I do have enough grip strength that I can build up, rather than start from scratch.
• I definitely need upper body strength; I have had no natural "chin up bars" in the house; I can use -for push ups, but nothing serves as pull-ups. I am very much looking forward to having Jaime, our handy man, set up the salmon ladder I purchased. Even if I cannot jump up through the rungs right away, I will have several options for developing pull-up strength and one side has door knobs at the 9' level to develop my grip strength. 
• I have some pull-up options at Anytime Fitness, the gym I use in Hollister. That machine balances arm strength with pulleys so that you lift what you are capable of. I can lift half of weight right now more or less easily. So, I must take a two-way plan: 
• lose weight (I am down to 155 from a high of 164, but for my height even 100 pounds is a reasonable goal, though I set 125, my weight for many years, as my first-level goal)
• build upper body strength; Brittany can definitely help me with that
• I was able to junp up onto the swinging bags and hold on for as long as I would need to were that to be part of a series of obstacles, but I could not wrap my legs around them; I need greater flexibility there -- I may not be able to get around the circumference because my legs are short, but to stretch them out, I need to build more upper body strength.
• The climbing ropes, of two different sorts, presented upper body challenge in one case and a "traveling" challenge in the other; I now see how some of the contestants end up swinging in circles when they need to reach sidewise and grab the next  hoop or rope; I need to work on a better sense of my body in space; Master P told me I had the necessary focus to work on a black belt (she teaches that class, but I live too far away to enroll in it -- it meets twice a week; I will need to find something local. Since I am about to enroll in a yoga class, per Brittany's suggestion, for improving my balance and flexibility, a very basic necessity, I will put black belt classes down for the follow-on stage; with a 5-year plan, I can take things gradually, become good at one thing, then another, and let my body gradually build itself up to ninja capacity -- rather than rushing everything and breaking my body down (an 18-year-old might be able to do the rush, but a 68-year-old like me, IMHO, needs to do a slow roll).
• Rock climbing, the background of many of the great ninja competitors, has to be in my down-the-road plans as well. There is a local rock-climbing gym, and I will need that -- later. In Master P's class, on the first round of attempts I was able to get only one foot on the wall (made harder because we were barefoot). On the final attempt, I climbed half-way up the way and then fell, bounced into the mat, then up into the air -- I have not had that much fun in decades. I have always liked to bounce.

With my next steps clear and plans to share them at my next workout with Brittany, who will know how to build the needs into my training, we drove to nearby Rocklin for lunch at Anatolian Table -- great Middle Eastern food, which Carl and I love because of our years working in Jordan and Hatem loves because of growing up in Syria and Kuwait.

The rest of the trip went according to plan. We experienced a beautiful wedding and shared a lovely breakfast with the grands. 

Then, a long trip home. No, I cannot continue to take the adult ninja class right now with Master P. I am too far away for weekly trips, and my body is not ready to take full advantage of the training she can offer. For now, I have plenty of work to do with Brittany on upper body and core (strengthening legs never hurts, but my legs are my strongest assets -- from Army days, from lots of ball playing, jump roping, and taking part in races as a little kid, and I was little even as a kid so I had to run faster than most to win my ribbons). I also know where to go next for other kinds of training, starting first with yoga, then martial arts, then rock climbing, and perhaps a touch of gymnastics. Gradual, gradual. Year after year. See you at the competition in 2022! 

MSI Press Blogger: Dr. Betty Lou Leaver (see Betty Lou's books, published under the name of Leaver, Mahlou, and Quinelle)

Note: Grandma's Ninja Warrior Diary will be published by MSI Press in 2022