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Las Vegas ‘camp’ lures wannabes for ‘American Ninja Warrior’

Emily Kistler decided to move across the country when she found a Las Vegas gym that had the equipment she wanted.

“I specifically moved out here partially because of Camp Rhino,” the 21-year old UNLV entertainment engineering student said. “When I found that gym, I decided I had to move out here.”

Kistler, who lived in Boston, Massachusetts, came for the camp’s unique boot camp, cross fit and obstacle course training. It opened in 2012 and offers obstacle training sessions for “American Ninja Warrior,” an NBC TV show, where men and women compete through grueling obstacle courses for a grand prize of $1 million.

Camp Rhino owner and founder Julie Johnston said the popularity of the TV show continues to draw in people from around the world.

“The numbers at our gym are directly reflective of how ‘American Ninja Warrior’ has grown,” the 33-year-old said. “(Camp Rhino has) become an attraction in Las Vegas.”

Kistler joined the growing sport after competing in obstacle races for about a year. After someone told her to try training for “American Ninja Warrior,” she was hooked.

“It’s honestly just a lot of fun and the people there are just really awesome,” she said.

The camp, located at 7211 S. Eastern Ave., suite 120, offers ninja warrior sessions for adults Monday through Wednesday, ranging from advanced to beginners. Anyone can try an obstacle session for $15. Memberships are $125 monthly for yearlong contracts, or $150 for month-to-month contracts. Recently, the camp began offering sessions to kids, offering lessons Monday through Thursday. Memberships for kids are four classes for $40, or $100 a month for unlimited sessions.

“Almost all the little kids can do the 10-foot wall, it’s crazy. They’re fearless, they just run up it,” she said.

David Funk, 40, who teaches the training sessions, said the kids fly through the obstacles because it’s like a playground to them.

“They’re fearless to the point where you really have to keep an eye on them and keep them close to the ground,” he joked.

He teaches kids as young as 8 and as old as 17 , who come for various reasons, from exercise to aspiring contestants on the show.

After blowing out his knees in 2010, Funk looked for exercises that would keep his legs moving and the pain at bay. In 2013, he was introduced to American Ninja Warrior and the obstacle courses.

“We just have a really ridiculously different kind of workout, but it’s more, in my opinion, playing,” he said. “It’s like a playground.”

The contestants on the show make it look that easy, at least. In order to qualify, they have to submit videos of themselves training. After that, if they get asked to try out, they go on the show, where they compete against other ninjas.

The finals for the upcoming season were filmed in June in Las Vegas. Funk said that time of year, as well as when the episodes air, bring in waves of people who want to try their hands at the obstacle courses in the 13,000 square-foot gym. A popular obstacle is the “salmon ladder,” where contestants latch onto a bar and heave their body upward three, four times on pairs of bars.

And then there’s the warped wall, a towering, vertical wall that contestants run at, grasp the edge of the top, and haul themselves up. At Camp Rhino, they have one that’s 16 feet.

But the obstacle that people struggle with most?

“The ninja killer in the gym are the floating doors,” Funk said, referring to hanging pieces of hard mats that contestants wrap their hands and legs around. The flat mats make it almost impossible to hold on, and requires upper body strength and just about every muscle in the body. But most important is grip. Grip, Funk said, is everything when it comes to the obstacles.

“If you don’t have grip, it doesn’t matter what else you can do. If you can’t hang (on), that’s usually the first thing to go,” he said, adding that it’s one of the first thing he tries to teach beginning ninja warrior trainees. “Everything else will come later.”

Funk has submitted videos to try to get on the show. The Las Vegas resident said he hasn’t been accepted yet, but he stays positive; it just means another year to train.

After putting in everything she had into establishing Camp Rhino, Johnston said she’s seen training aspects of the gym — cross fit, boot camp, American Ninja Warrior training — continue to grow. She said she’ll submit an audition tape to the TV show next year. In the meantime, she said she’ll continue putting money into providing versatile equipment for her ‘rhinos.’

Introducing the sport of obstacle course racing to beginners and exposing the younger generation could be a way for it to become an official sport, she said. Currently, Camp Rhino hosts training at UNLV as well.

“You just wonder if that’s the start of getting something like this in the universities and getting this to be a recognized sport,” she said.

Contact Melissa Gomez at mgomez@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0278. Follow @melissagomez004 on Twitter.

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