Maëlle DePape is a ninja.
She doesn’t toss throwing stars or assassinate emperors under cover of darkness. Instead, three days a week, she trains at the Fitset Ninja gym in Edmonton, running up walls, swinging between rings, and flinging herself through the air before landing with the grace of a cat.
“It’s like playing on a park,” she said of her ninja-esque activities.
“It’s fun. You don’t have to sit still for any of it.”
Maëlle, a student at W.D. Cuts in St. Albert, is one of about 450 athletes who will competing in the 2023 Canadian Ninja League (CNL) National Finals this Nov. 24-26 at the Edmonton Expo Centre. These everyday athletes are competing in the sport of ninja, which is making its Olympic debut in 2028.
Olympic ninjas?
The Gazette joined Maëlle at Fitset Ninja last week to learn more about her ninja ways. The place itself is a riot of trusses, trampolines, teeter-totters, balance beams, ramps, rings, bars, and weird things shaped like fidget-spinners, upon which athletes run, jump, climb, and swing. Many flop laughing onto the foot-thick crash mats after a flubbed attempt.
Ninja (or ninja warrior) is a sport where athletes try to navigate and complete obstacles in as short a time as possible, said Tim Gourlay, founder of Fitset Ninja (the host of this year’s national tournament). It’s based off the American Ninja Warrior sports show, which itself was inspired by a Japanese obstacle course show called Sasuke. It has nothing to do with the Japanese martial art of ninjitsu, but does require similar feats of strength, agility, balance, and strategy.
Ninja emerged as an organized sport about 10 years ago, with the Canadian Ninja League starting in 2020, Gourlay said. It got a huge boost last October when the International Olympic Committee voted to add ninja (dubbed “Obstacle”) to its Modern Pentathlon event.
“It’s a really unique sport,” Gourlay said, as it combines balance, agility, and strength with strategy and mindset.
How to ninja
Ninja competitions can take many forms, Gourlay said. American Ninja Warrior has athletes race through identical courses to see who can hit a buzzer at the end first. (This year’s national finals includes such a head-to-head competition.) This week’s nationals will see athletes do individual runs on the same course, with winners determined based on elapsed time and obstacles surmounted.
Corey DePape, a Sturgeon County resident and Maëlle’s father, is one of the three course designers for this week’s national tournament. He grew up watching American Ninja Warrior and decided to try the sport after his daughter did so during a Fitset Ninja event at K-Days in 2019. He placed sixth in Canada at last year’s nationals.
Corey said he and his fellow designers have been working 14-hour days for a month to build and organize the obstacles needed for this year’s finals. Most are made of wood, but some are poured resin or pre-made.
“A lot of times, my scrap wood become inspiration,” he said, as he’ll see a neat shape he can use in an obstacle.
Obstacles often have multiple elements, Corey explained. An athlete might have to get a ring around a suspended hook while hanging from a star-shaped object, for example, or hop off a trampoline and stick a hook into a two-inch hole while airborne.
“You’re trying to push the athletes to their limits,” Corey explained.
“You want them to really fight.”
For nationals, Corey said the team has designed three courses which emphasize speed, strength, and a combination of the two. Each requires competitors to complete 10 to 15 obstacles within a one- to five-minute time limit. Athletes are not told how to navigate the obstacles, merely where each one starts and ends and what they can and cannot touch. They don’t get to see or touch the course before the event, but get a few minutes to plan their route before they start their run.
“Ninja warrior is very engaging with the brain,” Corey said.
“You’re constantly trying to figure out how efficiently you can get through an obstacle.”
Corey said he could not discuss what this year’s nationals would involve, but did say that the courses were Canadian-themed and that one obstacle was named “the Boston Royale” after a Boston Pizza dish.
Last year’s nationals saw competitors swing between ropes by latching tiny handheld rings onto hooks on the ends of those ropes, footage from the event shows. The men’s final involved (among other elements) a trampoline, spinning disks, cliff-hanger ledges (which you hang from with your fingers), leaps between tiny posts, and a pinpoint leap from a trapeze.
Gourlay and Corey said training for ninja involves physical conditioning to build strength and balance, as well as practice on common obstacles such as rings and ledges. Most of this happens in specialized gyms, but you can do some of it at your local playground.
The ninja way
Winners at nationals will get medals and trophies, Gourlay and Corey said. The top 15 competitors will also qualify for next year’s World Ninja League Championships.
Maara Bryson, a Sturgeon Composite student competing at nationals, said ninja has bolstered her self-confidence and inspired her to seek a career in sports medicine.
“It’s an everything sport,” she said, as you need strength, speed, endurance, and precision to do it.
Gourlay said ninja was a great physical and mental workout, one where you’re always motivated to try and tackle the next obstacle.
“It’s a heck of a lot of fun.”
The CNL National Finals run from Nov. 24 to 26 at the Edmonton Expo Centre, and includes an Everyday Ninja course anyone can try. Tickets start at $20. Visit www.canadianninjaleague.org for details.
