Y’all, I wish I could give you a sense of what it’s like to step up onto that platform. The energy is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. There are no practice runs. You only get one shot at it. You don’t know how any obstacle is going to feel or respond until you actually engage with it and put your weight on it. The cameras are focused on you. The lights, the crowd, the countdown… the nerves and adrenaline are off the scale! A fellow ninja once told me of her first experience, “I thought I was going to throw up.”
I was 44 when I first saw American Ninja Warrior come across my radar. I randomly stumbled upon a commercial for season 4, and I was stopped dead in my tracks. I stood there with my mouth open thinking, “Where has this been all my life, and how do I sign up??” I knew right then I had to find that course and beg for an opportunity to run it. I went straight to the computer and searched to find out anything I could. I learned they were casting for season 5. I figured it was a long shot, but I submitted my application and then forgot all about it. A few months went by and the phone rang with my first callback and introduction into the world of ninja.
It all came at a time in my life when I was in somewhat of a mid-life crisis. I was still in pretty good shape for my age, but I found myself looking back on my youth with a great deal of regret for never having gotten involved in a high school or college-level sport. Small as I was, I had always been athletic, doing swim team, playing church-league basketball and softball, and intramural flag football in college. But I never had a sport to truly call my own, and I had never tried competing on any kind of real stage. Now I was aging out. I felt as though I had missed, and even squandered, the opportunities available to me in my youth. That was hard to swallow. And people just don’t get involved in high-level sports in their mid-40’s. That’s when those athletes retire.
But I felt like I still had something left, and something to prove. And I sure didn’t want to live with the regret of not trying. I knew my skill-set. I grew up playing in the woods, climbing trees, swinging on vines, and hopping across logs and rocks in the creeks. So anything that involved agility, balance, climbing, or swinging… well, that was right up my alley. And there, my small size is a great asset. I had finally found my sport. Better late than never. And I love that it’s a solo sport, because it’s all on me. If it goes south, I’ve got no one to blame but myself.
Sometimes I wonder, if I had never sent in that application, what I’d be doing now, and how my life would be different. I don’t know, but I’m certain I’d spend a lot of time in regret for not having tried. As they say, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.
I feel like I got a second chance at my youth. I’m eternally grateful for that and feel so lucky. It’s like a winning lottery ticket, but instead of something worldly, like money, you get something priceless, like time. A second chance. A do-over. Imagine that feeling. That’s what it’s like. And that explains the look on my face.
I’d be honored if you’d watch THIS Monday night, July 7th, on NBC at 8pm eastern, 7pm central (or the next day on Peacock TV).
Bootie Cothran 