It feels like flying.
For Meredith Kim, a 10-year-old, 4-foot-7 “firecracker born on the Fourth of July,” leaping through the monkey bars and swinging from a rope is as natural as walking across the room.
When Meredith’s soccer game was canceled on a rainy Saturday in January 2019, she decided to give a new Ninja Warrior gym a try. A coach saw her swinging effortlessly from bar to bar and told her parents she was a natural at Ninja Warrior, a burgeoning sport for kids.
The obstacles, many of which were created for adult “America Ninja Warrior” competitors, don’t deter the Memorial Drive Elementary fifth grader, who goes by “Merica” in competition. She remembers watching the show and thinking the obstacles looked fun.
There are monkey bars at the back of her playground at school, so the idea of laching — jumping from bar to bar — seemed like a fun challenge to Meredith.
“I was like that looks so easy,” Meredith said. “I like that they put up new obstacles and try these new courses. We try to do them with a fast time, and it can be hard, but it’s fun to try them and see how it works.”
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About a week later, Meredith placed first in her inaugural local Ninja Warrior competition. Soon, she was practicing soccer three days a week with Saturday games, and going to Iron Sports, Houston’s premier America Ninja Warrior gym, twice a week and competing in weekend competitions.
Last May, she sent an audition tape to “America Ninja Warrior Jr.”, which was looking for competitors for its second season. In July, she and her family flew to Los Angeles for the show’s taping, which will air March 28 on Universal Kids.
The show is for children ages 9 to 14. Nearly 200 kids were chosen to participate in the first season.
“(Meredith) fell in love. She’s always been super active, she’s tried it all,” said Meredith’s mother, Amanda Kim. “She hasn’t done gymnastics in a few years, but she plays year-round competitive soccer. She’s done tennis, she’s run track before. She just placed third in the world for Ninja Warrior.”
In February, Meredith finished third out of 149 girls at National Ninja League Worlds in Greensboro, N.C. bringing home a trophy shaped like a Ninja Warrior buzzer.
When in competition, she doesn’t think about much other than “catch the bar.” She relishes the feeling of learning how to beat an obstacle she has never seen before.
The reasons she chose Ninja Warrior over traditional youth sports like baseball or competitive dance are pretty simple: “I get to hang and fly through the air.”
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Josh Salinas, co-owner of Iron Sports and mastermind behind Mini Ninjas, has competed in the last three seasons on “America Ninja Warrior.” He’s gotten as far as the third stage of the final round in Las Vegas, but he fell a stage short of the $1 million prize.
The sport requires athletic ability and flexibility, but also brain power. said Salinas, 29. “You don’t get to the level of competition she’s doing and excel that well; she definitely has natural abilities, and then having that background of soccer and just being active.”
What makes Ninja Warrior different from other sports is the competitor has to figure out how to dominate an unfamiliar obstacle every time. At Iron Sports, one of the original facilities when the show debuted 10 years ago, the obstacles change daily so the kids don’t have time to get bored.
“When I set up my competitions here, the point is to have an obstacle the kids have never seen before in some form. That way, it will set the kids apart,” he said. “The kids who are very, very capable of adapting will be able to excel well.”
Coaching is a passion Salinas found after he walked away from gymnastics due to an injury. He was already hooked on Ninja Warrior competitions, but at 6 feet and 175 pounds, he’s taller and heavier than the typical competitor.
Being smaller and lighter will make the difference for Meredith and her 7-year-old sister Maeleigh, Salinas said. Maeleigh also trains at Iron Sports and is ranked first in the 5-6 year-old division of Texas Ninja League.
Boys and girls compete on the same course with identical obstacles. Even though the competitions are broken down by gender, girls consistently finish faster than boys.
Two of Salinas’ students from his original Mini Ninja class, Celina Vanhaezebrouck and Isabella Wakeham, have received calls from “America Ninja Warrior” for season 12. This will be the first season in which 20 teenagers (ages 16-18) will compete alongside the adults.
While Salinas said it’s good for the kids to compete, he likes how they support each other more than other sports he has participated in. It’s a hoot-and-holler type activity.
“(By watching), they’ll know where they can progress. If someone like Meredith hops on an obstacle and gets all the way across, another kid will see her and think it’s possible because she is small,” he said. “Size doesn’t matter anymore because ‘she did it, so I can do it now.’”
Meredith’s father, Greg Kim, was an athlete as a child. He played football, baseball and ran track in high school. He loves that his daughters have chosen such an athletic sport.
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“I’m very proud; I’m living vicariously through them now,” he said, laughing. “I don’t want them sitting around the house all day, watching YouTube on their iPads. They need to get out and do this.”
He said the key is that his daughters are having fun and getting an intense workout at the same time.
Children and adolescents should have 60 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily, according to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which is issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prolonged physical activity has shown to benefit brain health for school-aged children and reduced symptoms of depression, according to the guidelines. In addition to lowering a child’s risk of eventually developing heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes, regular physical activity promotes life-long health.
But for the Kim girls, it’s all just play time.
“I like when (Maeleigh) competes, I get to hang out and talk to all the other siblings who do it about what our favorite obstacles are and what we’ve done over the weekend,” Meredith said. “If there’s a little area that we can play while we wait, we go and try to do these crazy, crazy challenges.
“Like a 14-foot lache or a 180 where you swing backward and turn around to catch the bar. Maybe jumping from here and try to catch it this way… we challenge each other.”
julie.garcia@chron.com
Twitter.com/reporterjulie
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