Stroudsburg High School's Grace Carr talks about competing on 'American Ninja Warrior'

Grace Carr is working to make her dreams come true on national television as the Stroudsburg High School student is competing on the NBC competition show "American Ninja Warrior." Carr, 16, competed in a qualifying run on July 6 and it was enough for her to reach the Eastern Regional Finals on Monday, July 13. The broadcast will begin at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.

Carr spoke with the Pocono Record to share her experiences so far on the show, her ninja background, and what she's looking forward to.

*Questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

First question: How has the "American Ninja Warrior" experience been so far? From flying to Las Vegas, to meeting all the fellow ninjas?

The entire show has just been a dream of mine. So, living out that dream every step of the way was just amazing. And being a "television star" was actually really cool, and a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

How did you get into ninja?

I watched it since I was really little. Then a gym near me called Freedom Gymnastics and Obstacle Training in Brodheadsville opened up, and I was like, "Oh I want to try that." That was so much fun, and I just kind of kept doing it. Then I started doing local competitions, and I realized, "I'm kind of good at it." It was the only thing that I enjoyed. Like every kid does, I did soccer and basketball, but it never really clicked to me like Ninja did.

How did you get on the show?

Well, you have to have a good story — it's a TV show. But you basically fill out this four-page application and you have to film a two to three-minute video showing your personality. They pick people from that and you just hope to get chosen because hopefully all that training will pay off.

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Of course, we saw in your intro clip that you were playing the snare drum on the stage. When I saw you were in the marching band at Stroudsburg, I thought that was awesome.

Yeah, that was the best angle for me and I just love music. It's been my thing forever too, so being able to combine that and have my two highest interests combined into one was great.

I know you're a fan of ninja veteran Abby Clark. How did she go from someone you just looked up to, to her actually being your coach?

When I was younger, she was a staple on the show. And they own a gym, Next Level Ninja, in Flemington, New Jersey, which is more high-end and meant for people who are seriously into ninja. It's about an hour away from my house and I started going there about four-ish years ago.

I've met Abby before at local competitions and I used to go to a different gym called Center Court where Abby and Joe used to work too. The gym kind of imploded and once it officially closed down, everyone moved to Next Level.

She's an amazing person to look up to and I'm really grateful to have her in my life. She was really helpful with what to expect and everything with ANW.

Let's get to the qualifying run. You walk on stage, you play the drums, you see the lights. Walk me through your mind from hearing the horn to the end of your run.

My mind goes pretty blank when I'm actually running the course, I just get into that zone. But beforehand, walking onto that starting platform, I thought to myself, "Wow, this is it, this is what all the years of training have led up to." That's a really cool experience and I had a lot of my friends on the virtual sidelines. Seeing all that support was amazing.

I know you didn't finish the course like you wanted, but you still qualified for the regional final. Give us some context about qualifying. Did you know what the qualifying time was before you started the course?

I didn't because I ran really early in the night. I was one of the first 20 people to go. So, I had to wait almost the entire night to see if I was going to make it.

It was a little nerve-wrecking, more nerve-wrecking than the actual run because I saw people do better than me, but then I saw people fail before me. It was an emotional rollercoaster.

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Now that you have a ninja run under your belt, do you think you'll be less nervous about future runs?

When you care about something, the nerves will never leave. You're always going to care about it. You're always going to have nerves, but they will lessen, and you'll be a little bit better. It's a lot easier to go into it knowing what you're expecting.

What was the biggest takeaway from your first run?

Just have fun with it. During my first run, my only goal was to do good. But when I have more fun with it, it'll be more memorable and I could still do good while having fun.

Last question: is this the beginning of an "American Ninja Warrior" career for Grace Carr?

Oh, most definitely. I already applied for next season, so fingers crossed that I get on again. But yeah, I'm going to keep going.

This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: Stroudsburg High School's Grace Carr talks about competing on 'American Ninja Warrior'