Ninja Garden is a fun, movement based class that uses small obstacles to empower children, cultivating confidence, resilience, and the ability to assess risk (along with many other life skills!) It’s based on team building, creativity, and self-expression, not competition.

“All learning begins with the body. The body is the brain’s first teacher and the lesson plan is movement. Freeing the body for movement unlocks the brain for learning. In early childhood, the brain is so hungry for information, you can see the senses in action all day — and especially in the things that encourage children to move. Experts believe about 90 percent of the brain’s neural connections are in place by age 5; a child’s preschool years are the pivotal period for growing critical, lifelong neurological capabilities.” A Moving Child is a Learning Child  by Gill Connell and Cheryl McCarthy

Led by American Ninja Warrior, personal trainer, and father Jonathan Angelilli, the class emphasizes self-directed play, developmental movement, and exploration. This unique experience helps children develop essential life skills while having a blast.

Ninja Garden empowers the whole child and can be adapted for various settings. Implementation is guided by the following ALC principles:

  1. Learning: Learning is natural. It’s happening all the time.
  2. Self-direction: People learn best when they make their own decisions. (And children are people.)
  3. Experience: People learn more from their culture and environment than from the materials they are taught.
  4. Success: Accomplishment is achieved through cycles of intention, creation, reflection, and sharing.

Essential Life Skills Kids Develop at the Ninja Garden

  • CONFIDENCE AND COURAGE: If you’re strong and confident in your body, you’re strong and confident in your mind. Bravery is an essential life skill, and obstacle training provides a unique opportunity for kid’s to practice being brave.

 

  • IMAGINATION AND CREATIVITY: Movement and obstacle training give kids a way to express their creativity and imagination. They develop their own games, add or adjust rules and use their imagination to turn a big log into a troll cave or a tall tree into a magical giant. And as Einstein said, “Imagination is the highest form of intelligence”.

  • ENGAGEMENT: “Kids learn through sensory experience, the more senses they engage, the more they learn.”says Adam Bienenstock, who designs world class natural playgrounds for kids all around the world. Sensory engagement coupled with physical movement develops children in a way that is holistic, balanced, and healthy.

 

  • RISK ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT: Giving kids the opportunity to develop themselves through physical play increases their ability to assess and manage risk. The more interpretive and natural the element, the higher the cognitive engagement and the less risk. Kids learn best from other kids, and Ninja Garden creates an environment where observational skills are essential and constantly being strengthened.

“It has been repeatedly found that when cultures let even very young children explore their own boundaries, for example even with knives, they have fewer injuries and accidents than those that don’t and the children grow to have great facility in navigating dangers when they are adults.” Thomas S. Cowan, MD – Paraphrasing research by Liedloff J.

  • AWARENESS AND FOCUS: Dividing your attentions just isn’t an option when you’re balancing on an obstacle off the ground, and that focus can transfer to other skills and environments.

  • PERSEVERANCE AND RESILIENCE: Falling is a unique opportunity to learn how to deal with adversity, and how to get back up. Learning through failure is a universal and essential life experience. Everybody falls, but not every body knows how to get back up gracefully. It takes practice!

 

  • INTELLIGENCE: Exercise makes your brain work better by creating new neurons in the brain, in particular in the areas of the brain that deal with learning, concentration, memory, and survival. This is an absolutely crucial and yet widely overlooked aspect of child development. Read “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” if you want to learn more about how deeply movement develops the brain. Crawling is especially important for optimal brain development, as the contralateral (opposite upper and lower extremities working together) forces right and left hemispheres of the brain to communicate deeply.

“The real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important − and fascinating − than what it does for the body. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects… the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain.” John Ratey, M.D. Harvard Medical School

  • EMPATHY AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: The language of movement is written in feeling, so any movement done consciously develops our ability to feel, which is the foundation of empathy. Many physical games require high levels of social awareness in order for them to be fun, which helps kids connect to each other in various meaningful ways and develop their emotional intelligence. Obstacle training provides unique opportunities for creating a “culture of care” while also developing leadership skills.

 

  • GOAL SETTING: Exercise goals are a highly measurable way to teach people – and kids – about the power of mastering goal-setting. And obstacle training provides immediate goals, feedback, and repeated opportunities for adjustment, refinement, and success. Sometimes, success is as simple as accepting one’s current limitations.

The struggle is real. #Goalz

 

  • JOY: It’s actually joyful to move and don’t our kids know it. The body heals itself through movement so it’s built into our design through millions of years of evolution. Happiness is a natural side effect of self-mastery and self-expression.

“Happiness and well-being are best regarded as skills that can be enhanced through training.”  2017 World Happiness Report

 

  • EMOTIONAL REGULATION – Ninja Garden challenges kids to share space, be patient, constructively channel frustrations, and resolve conflicts. Constantly! This generates many “teachable moments”.

Traffic on the obstacle highway create’s opportunities for empathy, conflict resolution, patience, and sharing.

 

  • GRIP STRENGTH AND LONGEVITY – the latest research now indicates that grip strength is a better indicator of longevity than blood pressure! Climbing obstacles helps kids “get a grip” – mentally and physically – and ensures that they develop the strong foundation for  a long, vital life.

 

  • COLLABORATION AND RESPONSIBILITY: “Team work makes the dream work’ is one of our favorite mantras at Ninja Garden. The kids help design the course and clean it up.  This provides many opportunities for working together, asking for help, and developing trust, and teaches the kids to be active creators rather than passive consumers.

 

  • TRANSCENDING UNHEALTHY GENDER ROLES: Obstacle training at a young age is especially important and empowering for young girls. It develops their strength and physical confidence before socially constructed gender roles begin to shape them in ways that are superficial, unbalanced, and unhealthy.

#GirlPower

What Do Parents and Teachers Think About Ninja Garden?

“The children love the obstacle courses. They are very fond of him and truly look forward to Ninja Garden every week.  Jonathan is always so welcoming and the children are very comfortable around him. He always encourages them to interact positively. From the oldest to the youngest child, it’s fun to watch all of them try the obstacles together. It’s such a great program and we’re so lucky Jonathan chose to develop it at our day care center.” Erika Delacruz – Day Care Educator

“Our daughter loves Ninja Garden and especially the clean up! It’s built more confidence in her than gymnastics class and I think that’s really cool.” Morgan Glaser – Parent

“It’s been great for the children, having you set up those obstacles courses.  They learn a lot from them, particularly balancing and feeling proud of their accomplishments.” Christine DeAngelis- Grandmother

“The Ninja Garden program you brought to the children is an extension of that special culture and teaching philosophy of the Children’s Garden. We are truly fortunately as parents to have had the opportunity to let our children grow up in this amazing place. Musa has certainly grown in his confidence and his agility. In the beginning he was a bit apprehensive about it; you should see him now at home with his 7-year old brother.  One of their favorite games is to turn our living room upside down into an obstacle course – piling all the pillows and free jump on them, lining up the sofa cushion into “forts” and going high and low and around them. It’s messy all the time, but it’s all worth it 😊.  I am certain that all the parents are as grateful as I am with this gift of talent you’ve brought to them.” Sim Zaman – Mother

“Laura and I are so appreciative of Jonathan’s investment in the kids, it’s really wonderful.  Jonah’s grown so much physically the past year and I think Ninja Garden has pushed him to be much more connected with his own body.  It’s been great to watch “ Sam Kaplan- Father

“I really think the ninja garden is a fantastic experience for the kids! We were able to see the confidence of Charlotte growing every week a little bit more, and I’m sure it was also because of the obstacles activities. We’re very grateful of the time you’re spending with the kids, and it’s always a happy time when we look at the pictures!” Caroline Egasse – Mother

“Witnessing the positive effects of Ninja Garden on the children and even the teachers was beyond my wildest dreams. So much of what Jonathan creates are things I deeply believe children need to learn and thrive, not only for themselves but as part of a community. To see their almost instantaneous joyous responses to the challenges was immensely satisfying.  The kids have benefited in many ways. They are more willing to experiment, take risks and have better spatial awareness. They are also more confident and comfortable in their bodies. It give the them a great opportunity to collaborate, have deeper interactions, and learn how to give and take. The kids build and re-create their world out there on the playground, a world that speaks to their fears, joy, and interests, giving them a way to express themselves they couldn’t otherwise. The trust, communication, and collaboration on the obstacle course gets brought into the classroom. Right down to the smallest baby, the program is deeply engaging because Jonathan let’s the kids “drive the learning process”. He guides them yet lets them express what and how they want to learn. I see them taking the inner confidence they create into the classroom and outward into the world of ideas and socialization. Even the teachers have benefited from the program; they’re more willing to trust the children’s ability to assess risk, and it also inspires them to be more creative. The most surprising thing is how the kids automatically create their own obstacles when Jonathan is not around. They use the same materials in new ways and are generally better at channeling their creativity. It’s the gift that keeps on giving! Some of the smaller girls have gone from very tentative to physically quite bold and confident too. Jonathan is supportive, affectionate, instructive. The kids feed off of his energy.  I love the program he’s created for us.” Susan Stein – Early Childhood Director with 20+ Years Experience

“The girls clearly love Ninja Garden!  We know this because they tell us. They are so proud of what they have learned to accomplish on their own on the next obstacle. Paul and I have definitely noticed a change in the girls since they started Ninja Garden.  They both have gained tremendous confidence in their physical abilities, which has made them more adventurous and creative in their physical play.  We have seen a definite correlation between what they learn in Ninja Garden obstacle courses, and what they try on their own at the park.  It’s has taught the girls how to be adventurous and creative, while still being safe. It has taught them what they are able to do themselves, and helped them practice those things, making them better and safer climbers and jumpers and scramblers, and, it has also taught them what their limitations are, when to ask for help, and what types of movements are unsafe, which we think has helped the girls avoid injury .  It is obvious to us that they get so much enjoyment and satisfaction from all that they have learned to do in Ninja Garden, and that this has really boosted their overall self-confidence. “Louisa Olds – Mother

Who is Jonathan Angelilli?

Jonathan’s been coaching movement for 20+ years and working with kids for the last decade. He’s had the privilege of presenting at the Alternative Education (AERO) conference twice, alongside Ken Robinson and Sugata Mitra. He’s deeply passionate about the power of movement to empower all human beings, big and small!

For more information, email us at MyNinja@TrainDeep.com 🙂