American Ninja Warrior dreams...

Back in 2013, my daughter and I were nestled snugly on our couch, flipping through the cartoon stations, during the later hours of the evening. Me being the clumsy person that I am, I accidentally dropped the remote, well, because, my fingers got in the way... And upon wrestling the remote to prevent it from dropping to the ground, I changed the channel. Within seconds, my daughter was mesmerized with what she was viewing. I tried to change it back to Dora or Little Einsteins, but I was met with a stern, "leave it on and let's see what it is..."

Well, it was American Ninja Warrior...

The early years...
Back when it looked like they ran courses in some grocery store parking lot at 1:00 pm in the afternoon.

The show didn't have all the bells and whistles that it has today. No lights, fire, or crowds of people pushing their way to the front of the bleachers. It didn't have Kacy completing all the obstacles in regionals, or Jessie Graff making it to the first round of the final's course, or even have a finisher on American soil.

It was just a bunch of people running through obstacles, just trying to finish first and have the best time in order to make it on the American team and eventually, compete in the finals over in Japan.

But either way, my daughter was hooked...

At only 2.5 years old.

We dvr'd all the episodes and she would sit and watch them the same way other children watch those toy review vlogs on YouTube.

She watched all the regulars become household names... She watched Brent Steffensen make it the furtherst on stage 2, Megan Martin be the first girl up the wall, Kacy be the first girl to finish all the courses, Joe Moravsky become an instant favorite, and Jessie Graff make it to finals.

Daily, she created anything and everything into obstacles and worked very hard for months, to be able to complete all 22 monkey bars at the local playground - at only 3.5 years old.

Over the years, I've added bits and pieces around the house to fuel her dedication. We even added a rope climb, rope latter, cargo net, and monkey bars to our basement...

But, we live in a small town that takes years for outside trends to catch on. So, after hearing about a local gymnastics gym offering an 8 week Ninja course, I knew, we had to sign her up.

And at the first class, among 8 other children, boys and girls split, she finished first place out of all the other children, in all timed obstacles...

At 6 years old...

And, she made it look so easy...

And hopefully, she'll stick this out and one day, we'll all be able to watch her on TV, knocking down all the restrictive barriers, and climbing to the top of Mt. Midoriyama to be an official, American Ninja Warrior.