EMMA GROSS
Assistant
Since a young age, Emma has always been athletic and energetic. She did gymnastics, dance and swimming before finding Ninja and Parkour. Emma and her family would always watch American Ninja Warrior together. She thought the obstacles looked fun and challenging, but never believed she’d be able to get involved in the sport.
In 2019, she got the chance to try it out when she and her sisters attended one of the first ever open gyms when The Depot opened. They all fell in love with it, and began regularly taking classes and attending open gyms.
Emma lived at The Depot. She would come to every class that she could and would stay for as long as possible each night that the gym was open. She spent more time at The Depot than any other student at that time. Her hard work and dedication paid off as she quickly became one of our most talented students. She attended our first Ninja Team tryouts and effortlessly made the team. Her skills continued to grow as she fell more and more in love with both sports.
Emma was forced to put her journey on hold when, in January 2020, she had spinal fusion surgery to attempt to fix her worsening Scoliosis. She was unsure if she would ever be able to return to the sports that she so deeply loved. Emma was determined though, and through hard work, patience, and lots of perseverance, she was able to not only make a full recovery from her surgery, but come back stronger than ever.
In November 2021, Emma attended her first Parkour competition. She won the Speed competition for her age group and was looking strong. Tragically, during the warm-ups for the style portion, Emma had a bad landing on a trick and tore her ACL. This came as a huge blow to Emma as she had just overcome her battle to recover from her Scoliosis surgery. Reconstruction of her ACL was performed on December 1, 2021.
Emma thought she would be able to recover, but this time around she not only had to battle the physical side of things, but also the negative thoughts and depression of having to come back from another injury after putting in so much work the first time.
Gratefully, Emma was able to make another full recovery. These setbacks could have stopped others, but not Emma! Her ability to come back after not one, but two major surgeries, speaks volumes about her character. She is resilient and determined.
Emma found the support from her friends and coaches to be extremely helpful in her recovery process. Even though she could not do any movement herself when she was in the recovery process, she still came to the gym almost every day to support her teammates and other students at our facility.
As a coach, Emma hopes to encourage and support others just like her coaches and peers did for her. We are glad to have Emma on our staff!