Brookings native trains for spot on "American Ninja Warrior"

BROOKINGS | Ninjas are renowned masters of assassination and stealth from feudal Japan. So it might come as a surprise to hear that the longhaired 28-year-old rock climber and skateboarder Jake Murray has been training to become one.

But not just any ninja: he"s working to become the American Ninja Warrior on the hit NBC show that bears the same name, the Brookings Register (http://bit.ly/1XHM2Rb ) reported.

American Ninja Warrior is described on its website as an "action-packed series that follows competitors as they tackle a series of challenging obstacle courses in both city qualifying and city finals rounds across the country." Those who find success at their regional tryouts move on to the national finals in Las Vegas. There, a four-stage challenge awaits competitors vying for the $1 million prize, which no one has won in the show"s six previous seasons.

Now in its seventh season, Murray earned his first chance to face the grueling obstacle courses in a bid for that prize.

Murray grew up in Brookings, but has lived in Denver since 2010. Like many American Ninja Warrior competitors, he works part time, in his case, at a restaurant. This allows him to work for about two days a week to pay the bills and dedicate four days to training.

As much as 95 percent of his training consists of rock climbing.

"It"s a biased opinion because I"m a climber, but I feel like rock climbing training is the best training for this. There is no better way to get the grip strength, the upper body endurance. There is no other activity that I know of that"ll get you as prepared for finals," he said.

Another appeal of part time work for Murray and many others vying for a shot on the show is that part time work gives them more flexible hours, letting them leave for longer periods of time.

"If I need to, I can get the time off. I can say, "Hey, man, I need 20 days off to go do the walk-on,"" he laughed. "It"d have to be a pretty supportive boss for a full-time job to get that off." His introduction to American Ninja Warrior came from the Japanese show it"s based off, called "Sasuke." A skateboarder during his teens, he saw "Sasuke" at a friend"s house.

"It looked extremely appealing being the squirrelly kid that I was. I love climbing things and was a hyper kid, so it looked right up my alley," he said.

Getting his start when he was 13, he"s been skateboarding for 15 years, and he credits it with lending him his agility and balance. Since then, he"s added rock climbing, which he"s been doing for six years now. He picked that up at the South Dakota State University Wellness Center.

He largely forgot about the show until it arrived in Denver. Murray had been rock climbing for three years by then and thought he might have a shot at it.

But the biggest obstacle of the show, he came to discover, was getting on in the first place.

"It"s a kind of joke among all the ninjas that the hardest obstacle is getting on the show because there are only two ways to go about doing that," he said.

The first way (and best, in his opinion) to do it is to submit a video application featuring your personality and skills. It"s a time for would-be competitors to showcase themselves and hopefully stand out from the thousands of other applicants.

It"s still challenging to do, Murray said. "This last year they had over 40,000 - I heard 50,000 - submission videos. I tried that for the past two years."

His first video submission was past deadline, however, so he then tried the second route competitors have to getting on the show: walk-ons.

"The walk-on lines are heinous. Three years ago for season five, I waited for just over 24 hours in line, and I was 65th in line when I signed up," Murray said.

The first 10 or so in line stand the best chance, but it"s still more or less dumb luck as to how many they pick from the line.

And as more people catch on to that each season, the lines and waits increase. Last year he lucked out and began as the 12th one in line.

This year, he began with a video submission again, this time parodying the 1984 film "Footloose."

"I"m a big fan of the movie. I did the angry dance scene and poked fun at the year before and how I didn"t get to run and had some fun with it," he said.

A well-meaning friend submitted it to Reddit, where it took off; unfortunately, publicly posting submission videos is a no-no with American Ninja Warrior.

But by then, the video had done its job. It took off online, making onto Yahoo!, People Magazine"s website, Climbing Magazine"s home page and a few blogs.

"Footloose" star Kevin Bacon even saw it and posted "Nice job Jake" on his Twitter feed.

After people from the show reminded Murray of the rule, the video was taken down, but it accomplished the most difficult task: getting the show"s attention, and ultimately, an invitation to compete.

Qualifiers took place in mid-April. He competed in Kansas City, where he finished with the fifth fastest time: 1 minute and 22.37 seconds.

When he"s comfortable with a course, he tends to go faster than some others, a risk in some cases.

But he explained, "That"s how I move, I guess. It"s probably the skateboarding; I like to go fast." One of his favorite memories of his time on American Ninja Warrior is at the qualifier, when he finally got to up on the starting platform.

"It felt so right," he recalled. "It was like this is where I should be right now, like I felt I earned it. I worked pretty hard to get there, and it was pretty awesome." The finals took place late June in Las Vegas, where his family, friends and girlfriend watched him do his run through of the course.

He had his turn at 2 or 3 a.m., but the hour did little to dampen his enthusiasm.

"When you get up there, you"re pretty amped, the adrenaline"s going, you feel good," he said.

He was confident about the first stage, which emphasizes agility. It was the later stages, which test power, upper body strength and endurance, which concerned him more and trained for.

With his run done with, he said he loved the chance to compete. It"s not the attention he likes about it, but the chance to test himself and have his training pay off.

But as he ran through the course, there"s nothing comparable to the moment when you recognize the voices of your family and friends cheering for you, he said.

He loves the camaraderie that the ninjas have with one another: "There"s never a dull moment when you"re in a room with 100 ninjas." Mum"s the word on the results of his run, however, at least for now. For that, people will have to wait and see until 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 7 if his run through makes it on the NBC program, although it"s not guaranteed that his run of the course will be shown.

Regardless of the results of his Las Vegas performance, can the people of Brookings look forward to an attempted return next year?

"Absolutely! If they"ll have me back, if I get my call again, I will definitely compete. I hope they do. I"m still training for it - never stopped. I"m hoping to be that much more ready next year," he said. "I hope you see me next year. I hope I get that call again because I love it."

Reflecting on having reached a longtime goal, he encouraged others to dedicate themselves to their dreams as well: "Even those things that seem unreachable to you, all you have to do is put in the effort and the time and you"ll get there. You can accomplish things. Set goals for yourself."

Source: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/brookings-native-trains-for-spot-on-american-ninja-warrior/article_62c13c77-fc39-591d-9bca-ab9388265855.html