(The Advertiser)- Chris Cambre wears a T-shirt, jeans and white rubber boots, not uncommon for his home state of Louisiana.
What’s unusual about his attire is that he’s about to scale plexiglass walls, swing from poles and climb a rope ladder.
Cambre, 31, calls himself the Bayou Ninja. The New Orleans native is part of season 10 of NBC’s TV show “American Ninja Warrior,” which kicked off May 30.
He admits the boots are a gimmick, but they’re true-to-life.
“I grew up crawfishing and deckhanding on boats,” Cambre said. “… I grew up wearing them.”
Plus, his family owns Professional Sports Shop in New Orleans, selling and repairing hunting and fishing equipment like rubber boots. He works there as a sales manager, doing a little bit of everything.
The idea to compete in the boots came one day a few years ago at the gym where he trains, NOLA Muscle Park in the Crescent City.
He had the shrimp boots in the back of his truck and tried out the course with them. It wasn’t too bad.
The boots were made for slick boats, he said, so they get good traction on the glass walls.
But he has to make sure they’re secure. He wears wool socks and stuffs his jeans inside when he tackles the course.
He didn’t wear the boots when he tried out for the show in 2017. But this year he went for it, having trained in them for years.
The boots slow him down a little. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
It forces him to pace himself, which has been hard to do on previous runs through the obstacle course.
Cambre was among more than 100 people competing in Dallas in the spring. The course is run at night only. He didn’t go until about 3:30 a.m.
He placed 18th at the city qualifier and advanced to the city finals, which will air in July. In the meantime, you can follow him on Facebook with his athlete page Chris Cambre “Bayou Ninja.”
He can’t talk about the obstacles because the episode hasn’t aired yet.
He doesn’t know for sure if he’ll be featured on the episode. But a film crew came out to New Orleans to get shots of him and his family on Easter Sunday.
“My kids absolutely love it,” Cambre said. “I can see that they’re proud of me; that in itself means the world to me.”
His wife supports the journey, too, even as he spends extra time training at the gym, he said.
“It’s exhausting but at the end of the day totally worth it,” Cambre said. “… I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
In fact, his wife and kids — ages 11, 9 and almost 4 — usually join him at the gym, and he likes that it keeps them active and together.
“It’s something the whole family can do,” he said. “Nowadays you don’t get a lot of family time.”
He says he’s not the best or strongest, even at his gym, and admits the gimmick helps.
“There are some more talented that I am,” he said. “But at the end of the day it is a TV show. … So many in the Ninja community never get a call or those who do never get shown (on the episode).”
But he likes that the show is exposing more people to the sport he loves.
