We’re touching base on something a little different than we’ve ever had—something fun for you and anybody with you to do in Lake Norman. We’re sitting down with Gavin, the manager of Ninja Nation in Huntersville, North Carolina. Gavin, before we get into what you guys do here, I always like to start with:
What’s your favorite thing about Lake Norman?
Honestly, probably my favorite thing about the Lake Norman area is just the people that live here. I lived in Huntersville for a couple of years and I really enjoyed getting to know people here and interacting. Obviously, our business is here in Lake Norman, and it’s just been a joy getting to know the people that live here and get to know the surrounding area and all the businesses and stuff like that.
And you get to experience tons of different people; people come here all the time and people that are just visiting. So let’s go into why are people coming here?
What is Ninja Nation?
“Yes, Ninja Nation is an American Ninja Warrior-style course, gym, kind of on a smaller scale. Not quite as big as the sets of the American Ninja Warrior TV show, but kind of inspired by that idea. Really just a chance for kids of all ages—mostly like five years old and up—to adults to be able to come here, have fun, try out obstacles, do something that they didn’t think they could’ve done before, and train and get better, or just have fun and have a really good Saturday or Sunday or just anytime during the week.”
“Yeah, and so what I understand is it’s taking the exercise component of working out and fitness, but it’s making it a little bit more fun that they’ve seen on TV, and they get to enjoy and be a part of it now. They get to feel like maybe someone that they’ve seen on TV.”
What separates Ninja Nation from a traditional gym?
It’s a little more. We kind of advertise it and talk to people as like it’s combining the fun and fitness aspect of it. I know there’s a lot of things that have been popping up over the last decade or so that are trying to incorporate fun and fitness, and this is definitely along those lines. You’re not coming here just lifting weights for an hour or so, but it’s not quite like a trampoline park where you’re just going there just to have fun. It’s kind of a nice mix in between. You can come here and have fun but also, by the end, your arms might be a little sore, but you feel like you got a little bit of a workout. You’re also playing and having fun with your friends.
“Yeah, and I love that it touches base to really every age. I mean, because I know you’re five and up, so I know certain five-year-olds that my family hangs out with that would just probably, their jaw would drop when they walk in. But at the same time, my jaw dropped when I walked in because this place is just, if you’re watching this on the YouTube video, this place is massive—like beyond what I expected.”
Who can come to Ninja Nation?
Yes, so anytime that we are open, anytime our business hours are open, you can come in for open gym. That’s just coming in for FreePlay. You can do all the obstacles, try everything; nothing is usually off-limits unless we have a competition, which is rare. But yeah, anytime we’re open, you can come and do open gym—that’s kind of our main business, main platform of it. And then we have a lot of different aspects going all the way from classes, birthday parties, day camp, field trips, team building—like all stuff like that. But yeah, anytime we’re open, if you’re in there and you’re visiting, you can just come by and have fun.
Do you have Classes or Teams?
Our first step really is our classes. We have really been implementing an awesome class program structure throughout this whole year, which is a bit new that we’ve been working on this year and that we’ve really rolled out in the fall in the winter. So you come when you take a class a week, and you’re there for the same time slot every week—same kits, same coaches. And then as you kind of get better in those skills, we have different levels to those classes. And then that kind of goes up to our club team, which is a little bit more competitive—you know, they’ll do some easier, like beginner competitions and really know how those skills work with the coach a couple of times a week. And then even that, the last step, there is our competitive team, which those guys and girls are very skilled Ninjas, far beyond where I will ever be. And they’re the ones who compete at the big competitions and earn those podiums.
Have you ever had any champions?
Yes, so the last one was the World Ninja League, premiere series competition in Boston. And one of our team members was representing her division, representing the Ninja Nation gym, and she came in first place there, which was a massive accomplishment for her. So we were very proud of her when she did that.
Is Ninja Nation Fun?
For sure, that’s what we wanna be all about—is just catering to the fun aspect of it as well as knowing that people can take that step further in and your child wants to learn body dynamics, how to move their body through space or balance, or strength, and just really get an all-around workout. We want to be that place for kids to be able to come because we know that a lot of kids, they love doing football, they love doing soccer, they love doing cheerleading, like all those sports. But we want to be included in those and kind of be like an in-between off-season kind of training just because we know how awesome Ninja is as a sport, and we just wanna spread that knowledge.”
How can someone sign up for a Ninja Nation Class or Free Play?
For sure, our website is kind of the number one place to go. That’s got all of our services, all the information you could possibly need in there. You can always send us an email or give us a phone call from the website as well, but it’s got all the information on how to book a birthday party or even like booking. We have a mobile course, so we bring it around to different festivals and fairs to book that, field trips, so that’s probably the main place. And we’re on Facebook as well as Instagram—those are Two fun places to get some cool content from us.”
If you want a day just to go have fun, just to let everybody in your family just run loose and try new things or if you’re someone that’s looking for something competitive that’s maybe a little outside the ordinary, you have to have to check out Ninja Nation in Huntersville.
