How Oliva Keyes Overcomes Obstacles

She jumps, swings, runs and climbs

In 2009, G4 aired the first episode of “American Ninja Warrior,” a competition show based on the Japanese show “Sasuke” that’d begun airing on the now-defunct network a few years prior and began in Japan in 1997. Over the years, the show’s become a mainstream hit, moved to NBC and had thousands of competitors run its many courses.

Olivia Keyes didn’t start out as one of those people, but she wanted to be. When she told her sister-in-law about her wish, she learned it wasn’t a farfetched idea. Her sister-in-law went to college with Lucas Reale, a regular on the show from the past few seasons who worked at Team Awesome Fitness, commonly known as TA Fitness, in Weymouth, Massachusetts. In early 2020, she got her first experience with ninja, the common name for the sport.

“One day, we were at the beach and then I was like ‘we’re going right now,’ so I dragged like my whole family to the gym and we tried it for the first time.”

Keyes saw it as a natural fit for what she was doing every day. She calls it “fun gymnastics” because it’s less about form and precision and more about swinging around and getting things done. After a year of training interrupted by the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, she applied for the NBC show. She’d already run courses before as a tester thanks to her connection at TA, but now she was gunning for the real thing. After a long application process that included completing a questionnaire and filming a short introduction video, she got the call that she’d been accepted to the show and would be filming in San Antonio, Texas.

A typical episode of American Ninja Warrior cuts out more than two-thirds of the runs that get taped on a given day. Keyes went and found out that she was one of about 180 runners competing that day. One of them just so happened to be Lucas Harmer who was accompanied by his wife and Olympic gymnast MyKayla Skinner. That meeting couldn’t stop the long wait to compete though. She arrived at 8:00 a.m. and wasn’t called to compete until 9:50 p.m. She never even made it on TV.

“I made a silly mistake. I was doing good and it was the dismount of the obstacle I fell on, so I did the hard part and fell on the easy part.”

The irony that she, a gymnast, could not make a landing on an obstacle that happened to involve swinging off a bar is not lost on her. However, that didn’t stop her from continuing to compete ninja. She’s continued to train and compete at TA, but she decided to switch to the new Plymouth location when Reale became head coach and part owner of it in August 2020.

Keyes competes in the adult female division and has done very well recently. In late June 2023, she traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina, for the 2023 World Ninja League Championships. The competition took place over three stages and the winner was the one with the best combined finish across all three. She won the first two stages and finished second in the third stage to claim the world championship in her division, the first world title by anybody in any division who trained at TA Fitness.

That success has been great, but ninja’s brought plenty of positives to her life that can’t be measured by a trophy. She was already part of a close community by being a high-level gymnast, but the ninja community has given her the opportunity to connect with even more amazing people. It’s also helped her become a better gymnast both physically and mentally.

“I am in the best shape of my life because a lot of ninja is conditioning, so it’s made me super, super strong which only makes gymnastics better and easier. I also think that it helps take my mind off of gymnastics a little bit. I’m someone who can get in my head a little bit, so when all I’m focusing on is gymnastics, it overwhelms me and I end up doing worse.”

Most importantly of all, it’s helped her find a way to navigate her life after college. She’s decided to put off applying for the next season of “American Ninja Warrior” to focus on her final season at Rhode Island College, though she’ll still train ninja. After all, it’s become the bridge over the gap many gymnasts seem to feel when they retire.

“All we know is gymnastics for the longest we can remember, and then one day, you’re just done with it. That’s very hard for some people to handle. I’m very thankful that I found ninja because it is very similar to gymnastics and it keeps that competitive spirit alive so I know that after gymnastics, I have something to look forward to.”

Sometimes the only way to cross a gap is by swinging over it with hanging bars.