"An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea."
-Buddha-
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How to Make the Ninja Gym into Reality
Posted on February 20th, 2010 3 commentsSo, gents and ladies, this question won’t let me rest. How can we bring the Ninja Gym into reality?
I can think of a few incarnations that this idea could have. There’s the traditional “build a biz plan, get outside funding” approach, which could work, I suppose. But there’s also the more organic, grass-roots type of startup, where a bunch of us with similar goals get together and just build the thing ourselves. This is more appealing to me. It would have to start small, of course… unless one of the founding members happened to be independently wealthy. Not impossible, but not something to plan on.
But I don’t think this has to be a super-expensive project. Honestly, what did real ninjas have? Did they have amenities and utilities and all that jazz? No! They were hardcore survivalists who used everything they found in nature for their training. And how about the fun aspect? Do we need a bunch of electronic gadgets or expensive accessories to have fun and get exercise? Remember how much fun you used to have on the playground. And what was that? A field, some monkey bars, a metal slide, stuff to climb on. Do we need much more?
There’s a training field for a school close to here that has adult-size monkey bars, a balance log suspended from cables, and a few log hurdles and posts. A couple friends and I stumbled into it one day by accident and proceeded to spend about two hours just screwing around on the obstacles. The course was simple to the extreme, but it was fun! If we just could find an appropriate piece of land to do it on, couldn’t we build a wicked ninja course with our bare hands?
I know there’s a ropes course in Provo, too, and I really want to go check it out. I don’t know how “ninja” it is, but at least it would be an adrenaline rush!
What do you think? Do you know a place or persons who would be interested in building something like this?
3 responses to “How to Make the Ninja Gym into Reality”
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Dan–Hey, I stumbled upon your site today while searching for “Ninja Warrior Gym.” Like you, I’ve been playing around with the idea for a while (along with other fun gym concepts, like the MarioKart Gym idea I posted on the blog today).
But yeah, the Ninja Gym (remove the word “Warrior” and you avoid trademark issues). I completely agree with replacing the water with foam. You want to remove as many risks for injury as possible and make the gym work for kids and adults alike (the focus is on adults, but if you attract the kid birthday party crowd, you’re golden). I don’t think you’d have to go through the entire course as a whole; rather, maybe you’d have one or two full courses, and elsewhere you’d break up and replicate the individual components. And for some of the training, you don’t need an obstacle–you just need a pull-up bar or a situp mat.
I think the space itself would have to be pretty big. I don’t think height is a huge issue–on the show they always make it so the contestants fall 20 feet to their doom, but people at the gym could fall…2 feet. And that’d be fine.
I really like the concept–I don’t see a place to subscribe to comments to see your response to this note, so if you want to discuss the idea further, just e-mail me.
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Hey Jamie,
I just read your MarioKart Gym idea, and I think it would be AWESOME. I used to play that game with my brother until all sorts of weird hours. Imagine if I could have been cardio training for that entire time!And yes, I agree that it’s not necessary to have patrons fall 20 feet to their doom… while it makes for good TV in Japan, it would make for all sorts of good lawsuits in America!
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