My Audition Video for American Ninja Warrior

By Jackelyn Ho

A few nights ago, Season 8 of American Ninja Warrior premiered. We had just finished filming for the show in April and it was so exciting to see the whole night replay on my television. Unfortunately, they didn’t show my run, but the final takeaway is that I had an AMAZING time.

This is what I have to say about the whole experience, as shared on my Facebook:

Thanks to everyone who tuned into Ninja Warrior last night! What an amazing display of talent and bad-assery. I am so lucky to call some of those athletes my friends and it’s a bummer that it wasn’t even the half of them.

Unfortunately, they didn’t show my run but it was such an epic experience. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to do something like that, but it goes to show that you must always try. For those of you who have been waiting patiently to find out what happened, I competed at 3 am and fell on the final floating step of the first obstacle, right before the rope jump. I spent a lot of time after that feeling pretty stupid. I worked out for a living!!! What in the world?! What was wrong with me?! I felt soooo lame. But then I took a step back and thought about everything that this experience represented. For me, I accomplished a few things:

1. Getting over my fear of heights/falling
2. Getting out of my comfort zone
3. Believing that anything is really, truly possible

The course is hard. That’s why so few people make it through and those who do are really something special. I know that given a second opportunity, I could definitely go further. But sometimes, we don’t get that second chance. Looking back, I know that I gave everything in my first chance… and that is enough for me. I think it’s so important to know that this all started as an idea. A silly little idea that I was shooting back and forth with my co-workers and somehow it came to fruition. I just think that in life, in anything, if you have a silly little idea that also ignites a fire in your heart, you have to follow it. You never know what will happen.

So will I compete again? Maybe. Maybe not. I guess we will see. Thank you so much for following this crazy journey of mine! Whether you came down to LA to see the run in action or kept tabs on it from afar, I am so thankful for you. I couldn’t have done it without you. And now… I’m taking it back to the roots. This is the ridiculous audition video that got me on the show in the first place.

Big time love to my best friend Alex Royea for making sure I stayed sane and didn’t eat carbs. My fam and sis Cassey Ho for always being there for me. Caitlin Low (aka producer C-Low)/Molly Goodson/Heather Caplan for tornado-ing from SF-LA-SF in 12 hours and pushing me every single day last year. Billy Polson for telling me it was a good idea and giving me a space to train at DIAKADI Body. Sean O’Brien for being my awesome trainer. And you, for getting to the end of this post!