Jackson Erdos takes a deep breath as he steps into a massive gym, obstacles lining the walls. He’s competed on some of the biggest stages of ninja competitions and faced unimaginable challenges. He’s conquered the cat drop, bested the balance beam, solved the
salmon ladder, and wrestled with the warped wall. Each obstacle he overcomes fuels his enjoyment of the sport.

“It’s just, it’s so fun to challenge myself against not other people, but the course itself,” Erdos said smiling.

Erdos, who competes in the sport of ninja and has been featured on the hit show American Ninja Warrior, has racked up countless awards, including the American Ninja Warrior Junior Championship during Season Three. He is ranked third in the professional world rankings in ninja, and is the 2024 Pro World Ninja League champion, a title which Erdos says he’s most proud of.

But nothing brings him more joy than training his students, forty people aged six to thirty-six years old, all of them ready to absorb his teachings and hone their skills.

Ninja is a sport that tests the limits of one’s athleticism and quick thinking. Athletes are thrown into an obstacle course with one goal: to reach the end as quickly as possible. Obstacles range from running over a rotating beam, climbing, jumping, lifting a bar to a higher rung, and running up a near-vertical wall. Conquering the course takes hours of practice, but racing through it is an entirely different ordeal.

Popularized by the TV show American Ninja Warrior, the sport of ninja has steadily grown over the past few years, gaining a rapidly expanding and incredibly passionate fanbase.

While ninja isn’t the most well-known sport, Erdos got hooked at a young age. “I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t the coolest and most fun thing in the world for me,” said Erdos. “I can kind of let my imagination run wild while still having, like, the greatest time meeting amazing people.”

When Erdos first started his training, he went to The Gravity Forge, a local gym in Hatboro, PA. He’s stayed consistent ever since, training there often.

“I was there the very first day it opened,” he said. “And as I grew up, I started kind of taking the reins in terms of, like setting up, managing, coaching.”

Erdos’s talent soon began to blossom, with his big break coming after being on American Ninja Warrior Junior, where he breezed past his competition to claim a title.

Erdos described the feeling of winning these awards as “living the dream.” He said, “I [didn’t] have to worry about all these things around me. Just like doing my best was what I enjoyed, and my best led me to the win.”

Quickly, the other coaches at Gravity Forge took notice. Erdos soon gained more and more responsibilities. He set up practices, and then later was named a coach. And while some may lament having to spend their time training younger students, Erdos loves it.

“It’s such a good experience for me,” said Erdos, speaking on his time with his students. “I actually like coaching more than I like competing.”

“If you can tell someone how to do 100 obstacles, then you know how to do 100 obstacles, so you can kind of overcome anything that comes your way if you know how to get other people to overcome those things.”

However, practice is more than just setting up obstacles and watching his students make their best attempts at completing them. Erdos has to set up lessons for a wide range of students. Some of them are still working on multiplication, and others have just purchased their first home.

“Practices are definitely split up so that, you know, there’s not the adults training with the six- year-olds, but it’s just being able to kind of change the way you talk to people, but displaying the same message,” said Erdos, as he broke down his practicing schedules and plans.

One of those students is ten-year-old Kieran Martin, who ranks seventh in the country and second in the region for his age range. Erdos calls him one of the most talented students under his tutelage.

“At the end of the day, some of the ten-year-olds that I train are the strongest on the team, like they’re so incredibly strong.” Erdos elaborated with pride. “So it’s not that they’re doing anything significantly easier, but they’re not going to understand it the way an adult would understand it, because it’s just different intelligence levels.”

According to Martin, practice consists of a run-through of a mock course, followed by going through the technical skills, and then finishing off with conditioning, for roughly about two hours, and the majority of the training is led by Erdos himself.

“Jackson is a really good coach,” said Martin, smiling as he talked. “He pushes me to my limits, which I really like, and I think it helps me a lot.” Erdos has helped Martin unlock his potential, slinging his smaller build through obstacles that most adults struggle to understand the workings of.  With a smile still plastered on his face, Martin commented on Erdos’s impact. He considers his trainer to “be the reason he got here today.”

Martin isn’t Erdos’ only star student. Erdos also trains fourteen-year-old Gavin Markowitz, who is first in both his region and the country. Just like Erdos, his inspiration came from watching American Ninja Warrior.

“I saw it on TV,” said one of Erdos’s students, fourteen year-old Markowitz. “Then, I started practicing on the monkey bars in the backyard, and then my mom introduced me to Gravity Forge.” Markowitz, whose frame is relatively average, trains like a collegiate athlete, spending four days a week at Gravity Forge training under Erdos, improving his skills.

“It’s usually whatever [Erdos] has up,” said Markowitz. “He always puts up these cool obstacles and always gives me challenges to try on them, and we usually do a bunch of conditioning too.”

When asked about the challenge of Erdos’s job, Markowitz grimaced, chuckling as he spoke. “Oh, it seems horrible … He’s always up  there, like, doing all these tools and, um, putting up all these obstacles and stuff … but we’re always having fun.”

“He’s great with the students,” said Mr. Martin, Kieran Martin’s father. “There’s a whole generation of kids that are coming up watching him, and they’re all inspired.”

“He trains with me a lot, and when we go to other comps, he helps me get the nerves out,” said the younger Martin. “He helps me with everything at the practices, on and off.”

After talking to countless people and asking question after question about Erdos, none were more informative than a student who had been there for just six months – 36 year-old Mike Devlin.

“Jackson taught me all the basics,” he said while swinging back and forth on a set of obstacles, before tossing his massive frame forwards. “Including how to generate a good swing.”

Unlike the other students, Devlin’s interest in ninja did not start a young age. It came from soaring through Sky Zone, enjoying it so much so that he searched for a larger challenge.

“It’s the freedom of motion that you gain with your own body,” Devlin said, running through the course. “You’re in control, it’s not like a rollercoaster, its a ride of your own choosing, and that’s what makes it so awesome.”

“You’re never too old,” Devlin said, stopping his movement for a brief second to rest, “and you’re certainly never too young.”

Despite being 36, Devlin’s passion and excitement is similar to that of Erdos, who believes heavily in the future of the sport as not just a fun activity on a TV show, but a competition rivaling the popularity of the NFL and NBA.

“[It’s] so important to me, especially when in terms of the younger kids who can realize that if they take it seriously now, like, they could be going to college in ten years [for ninja],” said Erdos, passionately.

Erdos himself is continuing to push the limits of the sport, inspiring an entire generation.

“The world’s your oyster, in a sense,” he said, laughing. “I know it sounds cheesy, but, literally anything you want to do, even if it’s like, never heard of before…you can do whatever.”