Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Ninja Offers Challenges
PRAIRIE GROVE — Wyatt Young and his uncle, Justin Young, of Prairie Grove, enjoyed excursions across the country while Wyatt competed in his last season of 15 & under Ultimate Ninja Athletic Association events.
According to its website, the Ultimate Ninja Athlete Association (UNAA), is the official global league of world obstacle courses for Ninja competitions.
UNAA promotes and organizes an international series at Ninja obstacle course and related events gyms and competitions across the world. The UNAA World Series includes Area qualifiers, Regional qualifiers and the Ultimate Ninja World Championship finals each year.
The UNAA World Series is composed of judged competitions based on performance and time comprised of series designed to allow athletes of all abilities to compete.
UNAA founder and CEO, Bob Clark, grew up skiing, windsurfing, rock climbing and racing motocross. Once he discovered Ninja obstacles, Clark developed the competition envisioning providing an opportunity for top athletes in the sport a chance to make a livelihood doing what they love, on a grand stage.
Preliminary competition is based on a point system. One point is awarded for every obstacle completed successfully while the clock continuously runs for the duration of each competitor’s run.
Competitors have one reattempt for the entire course, which according to the rules, must be used on the first obstacle they fail to negotiate. Rules stipulate a retry is worth one point. Athletes, who complete the entire course without using retry, pick up an additional point. The top score is determined by whoever achieves the most points, combined with achieving the fastest time. The top 10 in each class advanced to the main event finals on Sunday.
There are benefits of not being the first person to run through the course. Wyatt prefers not to be first competitor going through an obstacle course, something which happens a lot.
“You’re the guinea pig,” Wyatt said.
The uncle/nephew tandem arrived at Longmont, Colo. for an event in May where snow and cooler temperatures greeted the Arkansans.
“We got out there and kind of got a little bit acclimated, but not a whole lot,” Justin Young said. “He was ready to go the next day and did really well. We have a good time traveling together and seeing different places.”
Wyatt placed well enough to qualify for Regional and after the competition the Youngs went up into the mountains and drove around and saw some sights.
Wyatt engaged in what he terms a little bit of activity in the Rocky Mountain west thin air and high altitude of Colorado.
“But a lot of stuff was closed because of how cold it was so we didn’t do a whole lot and how much snow there was on the ground,” Wyatt said.
Justin experienced a completely different reaction to the differences in elevation and climate.
“I could barely breath and he was out there jumping around, running on rocks and getting into things,” Justin Young said.
Wyatt just had to try out the terrain.
“I wanted to see how tired it would make me, but it didn’t actually affect me that much,” Wyatt said. “I’m so young and fit and healthy that it didn’t really bother me much, but I see how other competitors might have a challenge with it.”
In June, Wyatt competed at Ardmore, Okla. where he qualified for the World Finals.
“I went in there (Ardmore, Okla.) with a lot of confidence, but definitely there are people that I try to watch and learn from because there are people who are better than me. I learn from them and use their techniques while I ran the course so that helped,” Wyatt said. “I have my mentality that I always use before I do something competitive and that is just believing that you’re going to come out on top. That’s who we are and just having that self confidence is really important.”
Justin Young noted Wyatt develops relationships and capitalizes upon those to increase his knowledge of conquering an obstacle course.
“It’s a pretty tight-knit community. He competes against the same kids almost every time at each of the events so he knows who’s going to be good and who’s going to be his toughest competition,” Justin Young said.
Wyatt appreciates the friendships he’s built.
“I have a whole range of contacts now just from doing the American Ninja Warrior stuff,” Wyatt said.
Wyatt was just looking for something to do to challenge himself athletically, which drew him towards the Ninja competition.
“I realized that this is a TV show that’s widely popular. That’s the thing that really helped me in trying it and liking the sport because it’s really popular. But also it’s going to bring other people and other competitors into the sport so everything’s fresh and unique. That’s really nice,” Wyatt said. “Everything I read. You can draw inspiration from everything I see. I get it from everywhere. It just comes at you from everything, I’m just taking it all in.”