The family that ninjas together, stays together.
At least, that’s the case for Sharon Brown-John and her daughters, Nora and Lilly.
Sharon, 47, Nora, 16 and Lilly, 14, are all champions of ninja sports, a high-flying test of agility, speed, stamina and derring-do that’s been popularized by the reality TV show, American Ninja Warrior.
Sharon Brown-John recently won the World Ninja League championship in the masters female competition in Greensboro, North Carolina, while Nora won the elite female division. Lilly placed fourth in her age category but she’s been among the top three competitors in Canada the past three years.
The Brown-John’s all train at the Momentum Movement gym in Port Coquitlam, travelling together in the family van four days a week from their home in North Burnaby. Then they hit the road most weekends for regional and national competitions in places like Florida, Utah, Minneapolis, New Mexico and Sudbury, Ont.
“It’s something in common we have together,” said Sharon of the family dynamic that also includes her husband, Travis, who’s dabbled a bit in the sport as well but acts mostly as a supporter and builder of the home gym they also have in their basement.
“It’s really cool to be able to do so much as a family,” said Nora, who was the first to take up the sport, seven years ago, because of her love for swinging on monkey bars in the playground.
Travelling to the gym with her sister got Lilly involved as well.
“It looked like fun,” she said of watching Nora fly from ring to ring, hoist herself up and over obstacles, balance across narrow beams and leap over chasms.
As her daughters’ chauffeur, Sharon said she had no choice but to hang about the gym as well.
A former gymnast as well as tennis and volleyball player, it was only a matter of time before she turned her downtime waiting for Nora and Lilly to finish their training sessions into actively trying some of the obstacles and courses herself.
Sharon was hooked.
“It was just like a big playground,” she said.
Sharon signed on for adult classes at Momentum, then, while escorting her daughters to a competition in the backyard of the Spokane, Wash., home of renowned American Ninja Warrior Sandy Zimmerman, she found herself entered in her first event.
“It was just really fun,” she said.
The family’s passion for the sport is all-consuming. Daily schedules are built around training and vacations are for getting to competitions.
But all that togetherness in and out of the ninja arena comes with a distinct advantage as the Brown-John’s have their own cheering squad and they’re able to learn and share strategies for conquering obstacles as they watch each other compete.
“They know their bodies way better than I do,” said Sharon of the inspiration she gets from her daughters.
Nora said watching her mom push herself is a motivator, while Lilly said she gets a boost when her mom and sister are also competing.
“I get more confident when I see them do stuff.”
