Anyone watching American Ninja Warrior?

[Irishman]

@DKW

I think the best part about it is it encapsulates what’s good about sports. You have dedicated athletes with terrific attitudes playing hard and putting on a show for the crowd. When they succeed, they shout for joy and give hugs; when they fail, they still find a way to smile. There’s none of the endless shaky officiating and corruption and favoritism and drug abuse and strikes and lockouts and stupid rules crap that plagues other sports. And they’re doing it for the love of the game. (Oh, sure, there’s a nice half-mil, but no one seriously thinks anyone’s going to win it. I mean, c’mon.)

I could not find a single instances of heckling, trash talk, or similar verbal sewage that plagues even golf now.

This is something I do appreciate. We have contestants who have built their own practice courses, and then let others train on them. We have competitors coaching others on how to do the course, running against them. Even the rivalries are very friendly - a shared conquest to be the best. That is refreshing.

We’ve had competitors dressed as Cossacks, superheroes, and wizards,

The Japanese version often has this, I haven’t seen it in the US version. There is one guy who runs in a mask. He’s a parkour guy and wears the mask as a concentration aid kinda thing. There was one guy dressed in body paint - I noticed the next contestant had a smear on his shirt. The US version doesn’t appear to have any of the joke contestants, unless they run those on G4.

Of course, because the course is so difficult (according to one message board, the first obstacle alone, Quad Steps, takes out a great majority of the hopefuls),

It is surprisingly affective. Taller guys or guys with great rebound can take them one foot to a pylon, but in the damp weather the condensation has tripped up a few folks. Even if you’ve practiced it, the unexpected slipperyness can foil the best.

Most remarkable, IMO, women compete on the exact same course as everyone else. Some of them, quite frankly, blew me away…vastly better than I woulda done, that’s for sure! And to date, I have not witnessed the tiniest shred of sexist garbage; again, if it exists, the show sees no obligation to celebrate it. (The announcers do like to harp on the fact that no woman has ever completed the course, but given how difficult even the first obstacle is, I hardly find that an earth-shattering revelation.)

Are women running on the same course? The only indications I’ve seen is they mentioned one guy’s wife was taken out the previous day, and they show in some of the practice footage a woman doing balance beam tricks in her kitchen in high heels. If so, no woman has made it through day one to make the prelim trials.

I’ve never seen this level of egalitarianism anywhere; they’re competitors, no more, no less. One episode saw a husband and wife duo where the husband went out one obstacle earlier, and nobody thought this was an especially big deal. Meanwhile, Danica Patrick wins ONE lousy stinkin’ race, and the whole world turns upside-down.

That’s a little unfair. No woman made it to the day 2 for any region. Typically there is a “Women of Ninja Warrior” show that is for female competitors. The challenges there tend to be less upper-body strength centric and focus more on balance and coordination.

That’s not to say the women competing aren’t excellent athletes, but they do run a separate course just for women.

But the bottom line is that there’s simply no equivalent of a Salmon Ladder or Jump Hang or Warped Wall in our established sports. There’s no substitute for the real thing, which they often have to build from scratch in their own homes. And then there’s practice…lots and lots of practice. All for a once-a-year event where one little misstep can render all that preparation meaningless.

That is true. Being a Parkour enthusiast seems the most appropriate background - Parkour is about adapting to whatever landscape and challenges you find. But a good parkour practicer is going to be part gymnast, part rock-climber, and part acrobat.

Which shows you how tough this course is. People who specialize in random assortments of physical feats of strength, agility, and endurance who practice regularly and pull off amazing feats of daring-do still have difficulty succeeding.

Actually, the thing I found the most jarring was during the cargo climb, they keep talking at a normal cadence despite the fact that the action usually skips ahead at least twice (since this is always the longest obstacle of the regional final).

Yes, there is extensive editing to streamline the show. I have noted how they cut out the clock on the cargo climb, show some crowd shots, and then the guy is magically at the top of the climb, the clock jumped 2 minutes forward. No break in the dialogue to suggest they aren’t giving the play by play real time.

My issue with “while you were away” isn’t simply that we’re missing runs. There are hundreds of entrants in each region; they gotta make cuts somewhere.

I understand there’s a need to edit from hundreds down to the 30 for day one, but the day 2 show (that runs on NBC) doesn’t make sense to me. How do they pick which ones to show? Why do we get to see 5 minutes of profile on Jack Stupid, who then trips on the bungee ladder, then they edit out three people who complete the course? Doesn’t make sense to me. How is this stuff decided?

I would be extremely surprised if the $500,000 grand prize was awarded automatically without even having to finish the final stage…that would make it an absolute joke.

Welcome to America. (Seriously, I hope they don’t award if no one completes the whole course.)

Yeah, the obstacles aren’t consistent throughout the regions; I think that was just to prevent it from getting monotonous. Honestly, I think they balance each out well enough that I don’t see any grounds for crying “unfairness”. The only gimme I could see (well, as gimmeish as anything ever gets on ANW) is the Bridge of Blades. Everything else requires a certain technique and is merciless. BTW, the knob-walking thing is Lamp Grasper; the uneven wheels one is Cycle Road.

The obstacles seem to come in types or classes. They trade out obstacles within one class or type, but each course has the same number of obstacles and the same variation of types. So in that sense, they are fairly even.

Part of the course is to create obstacles and try them out and see how effective they are, to incorporate into later versions of the challenge. So it makes sense to try out variations in different prelim rounds to see what is most challenging, and then develop an ultimate version for the Finals in, say, stage 3. The course evolves, the challenges evolve. Too many people can do the monkey bars? Spread them further apart. Too many people can do the log grasper? Make it a sliding target they have to grab on the move. Etc.

@Dr.Love

I’ve watched it for the first time this season. I was disappointed when Kamerion Wimbley, NFL defensive end, was disqualified for having the 16th fastest time to complete the course.

You see, this is my prior comment. One region has 8 people who didn’t complete the course, whereas this region eliminates several people who did complete the course. Seems a bit unfair. But they compete by region, and that kind of policy allows for variances in difficulty between the different region tests. So what if the Texas regional had two easier obstacles than the California one for a slightly less challenging course overall? California still gets the same number of seeds to the Finals.

I don’t think the salmon ladder would be the hardest to complete. I think either the lamppost crossing obstacle (where you grab onto orbs and cross them like monkey bars) or the obstacle when they slide the rings across the uneven tracks would be the hardest that I’ve seen.

From what we’ve seen, the Salmon Ladder is one of the hardest from pure originality. It takes a blend of strength, timing, and balance. There’s no standard way to practice, no existing Salmon Ladder courses or equipment. You have to make your own if you want to practice, and practice is a great advantage. But from pure endurance, the Lamp Grasper and the sliding rings are probably harder.

Compare different versions, where the Salmon Ladder has gone up for 10 or 12 steps. That is going to get exhausting. Then doing a big jump at the top. Vs hanging by only your hand grip, no way to even brace your feet or get leverage.

The Ultimate Cliffhanger currently is the obstacle to beat, because it involves a lengthy climb using only your finger strength to support your body, and then includes height transitions with gaps. The 4 ft gap with 3 ft height drop is the doozy. But folks have been practicing this, so we will see how it goes this year.

[etv78]

If they gave women their own show I’d watch. (Hey shoot me, I’m straight)

[corkboard]

At least one woman ran the course last night, and she made it as far as several of the guys that preceded her. The vertical walls, I think.

[DKW]

Just watched yesterday’s “final”. Little clarification on this: The “regional qualifying” and “regional final” are the qualifying rounds. Yesterday, stage 1 of the actual contest, the “final”, began, and there are 4 stages, like always.

First off…hoo boy, if you had complaints about cuts before, what NBC’s doing now is going to drive you nuts. The plan is to split the contest into three episodes, with stage 1 taking up two and the entire rest of the contest taking up the last. In addition to the 90 qualifiers, someone (the commentators never specified who) chose 10 wildcards, for a total of 100. Which, unfortunately, seemed a rather futile gesture, as more than half the field wasn’t shown at all before the episode even began. I didn’t count, but there were maybe 14 runs shown, if that. It looks like the earliest we’ll get comprehensive coverage is the second episode from the end. Oh, and since it takes time to get ready for the next stage, way to all but telegraph that nobody’s winning this thing.

I think the big, big problem is a simple one: NBC just isn’t good at sports coverage. I first heard the rumblings during the Olympic coverage, and it’s just about unavoidable now. They’re obsessed with creating backstories and narratives and hype. ESPN is a hype machine, but at least it has the decency to just run the events and let the stories emerge naturally. What if a rivalry doesn’t pan out? A sentimental favorite falls flat? A contender in qualifying completely stinks it up in stage 1? NBC has no answer. And with one hour for 88% of the qualifiers, the cuts are going to be massive.

The DVD market needs to get on this. I will gladly pay to see this uncut, uncensored, raw, and clean, and draw my own damn lessons.

Irishman - Re. camaraderie: This is just the cynic in me, but I think one of the main reasons there haven’t been bitter rivalries is that no one’s come close to winning this thing yet. There can’t be bitterness between haves and have-nots if there aren’t any haves.

Re. “joke” contestants - There have been a number of, say, flamboyant characters, but no complete clowns (or if there were…you see this coming, right?..they didn’t make it on the broadcast). The superhero actually came within one spot of making it to Vegas. I didn’t see any yesterday, though, and of course NBC would never show them.

Re. women on the same course - Yes. Same course, same obstacles, same rules. And nobody bats an eyelid. And to this date, there have been no couch-potato buffoons claiming that they could do ten times better. It’s incredible.

I’ve heard of “Women of Ninja Warrior” but haven’t seen an episode. Isn’t this just Kunoichi?

[SenorBeef]

The editing is pretty awful. Early in the episode, everyone was failing on the jumping spider, and then they came back from commercial and mentioned that while we were gone a few people had gotten to the next event. Wait - we spend the whole episode up until now watching people fail this event, and you don’t even bother to show the people who conquer it?

Later, after only 2 people had successfully made the first stage run, they casually mention oh while we were gone 3 or 4 more people made it. Really, you can’t even bother to show the successful runs?

Instead you get to see the guy who fails 2 seconds into it because he has an interesting story. Actually, I don’t mind that part as much - if the people they highlighted were all successful, it would reduce the suspense. Having guys with a lot of backstory fail catastrophically every once in a while is interesting.

But I wish they’d spend more time focusing on the successes rather than the guy who nurses injured turtles in his spare time or whatever. Certainly no one who completes an obstacle that we haven’t yet seen completed, or who finishes the stage should be reduced to a mention.

[Irishman]

Okay, I’m officially annoyed. It’s one thing when they’re running prelim rounds on G4 and then running the regional finals on NBC. I’m watching just the NBC shows.

But now that they’ve got to the Finals at Las Vegas, I just found out they’re running several rounds of stage one on G4 on various nights. GAH! So you’re telling me I have to record/view some 5 or 6 hours of programming a week on just this one show? I don’t have that much viewing time and/or recording space in addition to everything else I’m watching and what real life has going on. Crapola.

Now I have to decide if I’m just going to watch the NBC episodes, or skip it altogether. I’m too much of a completist to want to watch partial elements. :mad:

I did turn on Monday’s episode to realize they seeded in 10 special competitors above and beyond the regional winners, so that’s how they have women running the course. I also spotted the old black man in the crowd who didn’t make his regional cut. And did see the guy in the anime outfit. But I didn’t watch the episode yet. I was looking to see if I could find the “missing” episodes from G4, and thus discovered the quantity conundrum.

[Irishman]

@DKW

Just watched yesterday’s “final”. Little clarification on this: The “regional qualifying” and “regional final” are the qualifying rounds. Yesterday, stage 1 of the actual contest, the “final”, began, and there are 4 stages, like always.

Yes, that was clear to me from the getgo.

First off…hoo boy, if you had complaints about cuts before, what NBC’s doing now is going to drive you nuts. The plan is to split the contest into three episodes, with stage 1 taking up two and the entire rest of the contest taking up the last.

That totally fails to mention the G4 episodes running some of the competitors in the finals stage 1. I turned on the show, and they said “we’ve already seen ___ contestants run this stage” or some shit like that, and I was “WHAT?!”

In addition to the 90 qualifiers, someone (the commentators never specified who) chose 10 wildcards, for a total of 100. Which, unfortunately, seemed a rather futile gesture, as more than half the field wasn’t shown at all before the episode even began.

Yes, more of my complaint. We’re going into the finals and we haven’t seen over half the competitors actually compete.

I think the big, big problem is a simple one: NBC just isn’t good at sports coverage. I first heard the rumblings during the Olympic coverage, and it’s just about unavoidable now. They’re obsessed with creating backstories and narratives and hype.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that. It’s passable when watching things where you know 90% or 50% or whatever of the people aren’t in the shot for the lead anyway, so you can tell who to focus on. Like the gymnastics trials, where you ignore the folks who aren’t going to be in the top 12, or whatever. But it’s damned frustrating in this, when everyone theoretically should have a shot, and I’d be much more interested in watching some guy actually run the course than the sob story over the youth minister who used to be homeless.

The superhero actually came within one spot of making it to Vegas. I didn’t see any yesterday, though, and of course NBC would never show them.

Was that the guy in the body paint? If so, I did see him.

I’ve heard of “Women of Ninja Warrior” but haven’t seen an episode. Isn’t this just Kunoichi?

I assume so. They’ve called it “Women of Ninja Warrior” in the US when I saw it, so I don’t know what the Japanese call it.

@SenorBeef

The editing is pretty awful. Early in the episode, everyone was failing on the jumping spider, and then they came back from commercial and mentioned that while we were gone a few people had gotten to the next event. Wait - we spend the whole episode up until now watching people fail this event, and you don’t even bother to show the people who conquer it?

Yes, dammit, that’s exactly what they did in the regionals as well. :mad:

Certainly no one who completes an obstacle that we haven’t yet seen completed, or who finishes the stage should be reduced to a mention.

Agreed. :mad:!!

[DKW]

Okay, little correction: The “Final”…meaning the actual contest…is split up between G4 and NBC. G4 played a repeat of their side today, which I just finished watching. In my defense, no one mentioned this in the last…look, I’m just going to call them “trials” before we all get totally confused, okay?..the last round of trials, so I thought NBC kicked off the actual contest. Lesson learned. (Sheesh, and we grumbled about Futurama getting kicked around? )

I saw one episode of the original “Ninja Warrior” (Sasuke 20, 2nd episode) so far, and now I finally realize what’s been bugging me about the whole coverage. The original Japanese production treats it like one of their infamously screwy game shows: fun, crazy, erratic, but with occasional moments of amazing achievements. And it’s much faster paced; I think they go through 1 1/2 times as many runs in half an hour as G4 does in an hour. The American production treats it like a reality show, where we have to spend a lot of time building drama and use constant cuts and edits to fit into a narrative. (I suspect that this is the real reason CBS and NBC made such an ungodly hash of the Olympics; I am so glad Fox has them this year.) I’d like to see it treated like a sport, with real-time stats and better analysis. We could take care of all the weepy personal stuff in a pregame show and leave the actual competition unspoiled.

Anyhow. It looks like nothing much is going to change this time around. Stage 1 has been just eating these competitors up (the Jumping Spider has been especially painful); I’d be stunned if even ten made it as far as Stage 3. If they’re going to keep the reality show format, they’re going to have to think up something to keep interest other than the prospect of someone winning this. That’s not happening for a LONG time.

[Irishman]

Okay, I watched replays of the Finals Round 1 episodes 26 and 27 on G4 last night. That missed the first round of Finals Round 1.

It was generally interesting to watch. I like seeing the attempts, I like watching hits and misses. Saw the guy in the Anime costume. Apparently he’s been trying every year. Got stuck on the Warped Wall, which has a short run up track with a curved lead in, which makes some people’s stride and pacing off.

Also so a couple of the women this time. Liked the 40 year old lady.

Jumping Spider is tough. Gotta get a good jump, then have the flexibility. Longer legs are actually more of a hindrance for most because they don’t get as solid a wedge. The angle of their legs is more downward than outward.

Still annoyed by the “While you were away, 3 more competitors completed the course.” GAH! We’ve only had 3 succeed up to this point, and you just “also ran” three guys who made it? SERIOUSLY?!

Interesting is the half pipe rope swing. People seem to be running pretty high on the half pipe, and slipping out. That contributed to a couple of the misses on the rope. You can actually run along the lower portion that is almost flat and then get a good outward jump and do better.

The round balls are a doozy. You have to have precise foot placement and a lot of up down rather than thrust, or the balls spin and take your footing.

The other thing I noticed that was finally commented by the announcers, on the rope swing to the cargo net, nobody seems to be trying very hard to get a high grip on the rope. The higher the grip, the higher you impact the cargo net, thus the less climbing. I saw one guy actually have slack in his rope, and drop low on the net. Then had to climb further. Fortunately for him, everything else was pretty smooth, so he had the time to make it.

[Robot_Arm]

I didn’t see all the shows, but enough to get the gist of this American version.

Tonight, there was a commercial, then one guy ran the course, then another commercial. When they came back, the announcers said two more had run the course. What the hell; are you actually not showing more of the competitors than you’re showing?

The previous American versions never had such a faithful reproduction of the Japanese course before. They either went to a hell of a lot of trouble to recreate the original in Las Vegas, or they went to a hell of a lot of trouble to ship the original obstacles to Las Vegas. Does anyone know which?

I was surprised how many fell on stage 2. The last time a contingent of American’s went to Japan, they were more successful. I wonder if it was mental (seeing so many fail makes the rest think it’s harder than it is) or physical (the heat of Vegas, sweat on the hands, etc.).

Kudos to Brent Steffensen for getting as far as he did. First I’ve seen anyone get past the Ultimate Cliffhanger.

I’ve seen the Spider Flip before. That thing is fucking nasty.

[SenorBeef]

They recreated it. They occasionally show the construction team working from blue prints during the segments.

[N9IWP]

Have to admit watching the finals - would have been more interesting if a few more people made it past stage two.

Brian

[Loach]

When the qualifying heats were not timed I was worried that they were making the American version easy in order to ensure that there would be a winner. I’m glad they didn’t. That course is brutal. How the hell are you supposed to build up your strength in your finger tips that much?

[ekweizn]

@N9IWP

Have to admit watching the finals - would have been more interesting if a few more people made it past stage two.

Brian

The 19th season of the Japanese version only had two make it to stage two (and neither made it to the third).

[bup]

I’m not into these types of shows at all, but saw last night’s, and I’m very impressed by the athleticism. I wouldn’t have even guessed that the ‘salmon ladder’ was a viable way of climbing.

Round 3 is unbelievable. *Everything *is about fingertip strength and arm strength.

[ekweizn]

@Robot_Arm

I was surprised how many fell on stage 2. The last time a contingent of American’s went to Japan, they were more successful. I wonder if it was mental (seeing so many fail makes the rest think it’s harder than it is) or physical (the heat of Vegas, sweat on the hands, etc.).

Kudos to Brent Steffensen for getting as far as he did. First I’ve seen anyone get past the Ultimate Cliffhanger.

They shot the Vegas finals in April, I believe.

Two small-ish changes on the second stage that might have knocked out otherwise deserving contestants–(1) the Unstable Bridge (the two boards after the Double Salmon Ladder) looked farther from the landing platform than in previous Sasuke tournaments, which would make the dismount harder and (2) the Balance Tank (the next obstacle) seemed to be padded, which probably makes it harder to control if you’re trying to start/stop it. I was impressed so many got through the first stage, to be honest.

[Robot_Arm]

@ekweizn

They shot the Vegas finals in April, I believe.

Two small-ish changes on the second stage that might have knocked out otherwise deserving contestants–(1) the Unstable Bridge (the two boards after the Double Salmon Ladder) looked farther from the landing platform than in previous Sasuke tournaments, which would make the dismount harder and (2) the Balance Tank (the next obstacle) seemed to be padded, which probably makes it harder to control if you’re trying to start/stop it. I was impressed so many got through the first stage, to be honest.

It also looked like the chains on the Metal Spin had a plastic sheath over them. I only saw two contestants fall there, so it couldn’t have made too much difference.

On the dismount from the Unstable Bridge, I wonder if a little knowledge of Physics would come in handy. There are lots of obstacles where the athletes have to swing their bodies, and I think they get used to a particular way of doing it. On the Unstable Bridge, the plank they’re hanging from is also free to move so it makes for a longer pendulum and a greater period of swing. For the dismount, it looks like they’re trying to swing their bodies only to have it cancelled out by the swing of the bridge itself. If they tried to swing together with the bridge, at the longer period, I think that might help.

[DKW]

Super massive major kudos for Brent Steffensen for clearing the Ultimate Cliffhanger and then going one further. Damn, I don’t care what kind of prize scale there is here, he should get some cash for that! That irregular rock board is just crazy though. I don’t think we’ll see anyone seriously challenge that for a while.

What I’ve noticed about most of these obstacles is that, individually, they’re not tremendously challenging for a fit, agile athlete. I think nearly everybody who qualified would have no trouble clearing any one of them if they were fresh and had three or four tries. But that’s just it. They only get one shot, they don’t get to do just one, and they don’t get to rest. It’s like the NFL playoffs: win or go home. I was especially moved by the competitor who spent literally months practicing on an Ultimate Cliffhanger setup at home, came in full of fire and vigor…and went down on the Bungee Bridge (possibly the second least dangerous obstacle after the Bridge of Blades). Really puts into perspective just how enormous an accomplishment almost making it to stage 4 is, let alone actually getting there.

Really do not like all the cuts…you’d think that with 2 hours, we could at least see all the stage 2 runs. It’s become clear that NBC is truly treating this like a reality show, and they’re just going to flat-out ignore anyone who doesn’t have a good story. I honestly don’t know what the solution is. Will this ever be released on DVD?

And in closing, I know the comparison is largely spurious, but I’d totally mark out if Wipeout did a Sasuke-like course. Lemming-like determination at the Jump Hang, Metal Spin, or Balance Tank? That’s must-see TV.