Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Episode 68: New Year, Same Goals: Local Ninja Warrior Shares How Failure and Consistency Are Key to Achieving Goals
It’s the time of year where the idea of setting new goals for a new year becomes a main topic of conversation. Are you setting goals? How do you keep your goals not just through January but all year long? Eastmont Middle School Principal Stacy Kurtzhals and her son Tyler have been working toward the same goal since Tyler was a little boy – Becoming an American Ninja Warrior.
When Tyler was 8-year-old, he saw his first episode of American Ninja Warrior, “It looked like a giant playground at the time,” says Tyler. “So as a kid, I was really interested and from there I just found stuff in my backyard to play on.”
Soon, Tyler’s father was building him obstacles to work with, and the family was traveling to competitions. “I was selected for American Ninja Warrior Junior about five years ago,” says Tyler. “After that I was introduced to this whole world of different competitions, different people, and it just turned into this community that I love.”
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyon School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us.
Speaker 2:Today we're connecting with our amazing principal, stacey Kurzall she's a principal over at Eastmont Middle and her son, tyler Kurzall. Now, tyler, you're an American Ninja Warrior. Yep, how did you get into being part of that? What made you interested in becoming an American Ninja Warrior?
Speaker 3:So I was eight years old and we were just scrolling through what was recorded on our TV and I saw American Ninja.
Speaker 2:Warrior.
Speaker 3:I had no idea what it was, I was just curious to turn it on and we flicked it on and I see this guy running through like this eight to nine obstacle long course and just tearing it up. It looked like a giant playground at the time. So, like as a kid, I was really interested. And then from there I just kind of found stuff in the backyard to play on. We had this dog kennel. I would throw big moves and stuff on and then eventually my dad built me a few obstacles. We found competitions. I was selected for American Ninja Warrior Junior about five years ago and after that I was introduced to this whole world of different competitions, different people, and it just turned into this community that I love and eventually I got to be on the big show.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so it started out with just playing in the background, but I'm assuming it takes tons of training to become the elite athlete that you've become. How many hours do you put into this?
Speaker 3:Currently I'm training five to six days a week. It's a mixture of hands-on training with obstacle equipment, as well as putting in time in the weight room just to train all the muscles to do what they need to do. So far, since I started that training regimen, I feel a lot stronger and I think I could do a lot of incredible things with it and you also work at a gym.
Speaker 2:That's kind of a Ninja Warrior playground.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's called Impact Ninja Gym. It's actually about five minutes from here. It's pretty much a building filled with a bunch of obstacles, both kids sized and adult sized. It's a lot of fun. Families bring their kids, they can burn a bunch of energy out and we do birthday parties. Even we get a few adults that come in here and there and they all just love it. It's such a good job, good workspace and just an all-around good time.
Speaker 2:So I've been a little bit of a Facebook stalker of yours, stacy, so I've seen that there's been a lot of travel and a lot of, like family effort that has gone into supporting Tyler's dreams Because this I'm assuming this is your dream to continue Absolutely. So this is a lot of support. How have you been able to support your son and how did it go from just playing in the background to, okay, we've got to support him. This is something that's important to him.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, we did. We gave up our family trips to do ninja trips. We turned them into family trips as we go. But we really saw that he was an elite professional at this and when he was making progress and able to make top 10 in world competitions and things like that, we knew that it was not something that we was just a hobby, that it really was something that he would do. We figured, you know, if he was playing a typical sport, if he was playing baseball, if he was playing football, those types of things. We put that same amount of money into it. It's just different because there's not the availability of the competitions locally, so there are few gyms on the west coast. The majority of the gyms and competitions take place on the east coast. So there is a lot of travel involved, which is fun because we get to see different parts of the world. But it definitely is more popular out on the east coast, so we have to go out there more often.
Speaker 2:My question for you, stacy, as a principal and as a mother when you see that potential within a student or your child, how do you help that grow without being overbearing and because there's helping a child with a goal there's? You can cross over into being the stage moms that we've all seen on, like dance moms, or you can be the kind of parent that really is an advisor that helps them grow. How do you advise parents to take the route that you have, because you've done a really great job of helping but not pushing too hard?
Speaker 4:Well, thank you first of all. But initially I think when we were going, I was out in the middle of everything. I videoed everything. I wanted to be involved, I would go through things, I would try to coach him. I can't do any of this stuff. I don't know what I'm talking about. So I would watch back those videos and all I could hear was myself and I'm like okay, if I'm going to video, first of all I need to shut my mouth because nobody who I'm giving that video wants to hear me. So that was the first thing.
Speaker 4:But then as I watched the way that they progress with each other, as far as athletes go, it's a different sport than anything else. So they actually work together. They're not out to beat each other, so to speak, they're out to beat the course. So they process with one another and they can get way more from that than me trying to think that I know everything, which I think is kind of a general rule for when you do any sport.
Speaker 4:I see a lot of parents, like when we were involved who was involved in baseball pretty heavy before that you know, parents on the sidelines are constantly yelling what you're supposed to do and trying to make that right, but really that's not gonna change what they're doing at that moment because their head's already set with what they're doing.
Speaker 4:But as far as moming him, you know to be the successful student that he is, on top of that and try to make that balance. I've had to make some really hard decisions as a mom and if he's not pulling his own, I've pulled competitions from him. He had a really really significant competition that he was supposed to go to Florida for and he didn't do his stuff. And this is even at a college level now. I'm still checking his grades. If I'm funding something, then it's on me to make sure that he's pulling his end of something, and it's probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do as a mom to watch the disappointment that he had in not doing that. But he won't make the mistake again, and the biggest thing that we've both learned from the sport of ninja is failure is an option and failure pushes you to do better the next time. So, whether it's failure on something that was happening at school or failure on something that's happening on the course, it makes him stronger, it makes him better.
Speaker 2:What's the biggest thing that you've learned from those moments, those failure moments? Because I'm sure that, yeah, when you've succeeded, you've learned things from that, but I've always found in life that the areas where I've learned the most are the areas where I failed, because those are actually the ones that I've gained, like the things that I can change to make things better. So what have you learned from failure?
Speaker 3:I'd say it's just taught me to persevere more than anything. The biggest thing with failure like I mean there's a quote from Sylvester Stallone that's like it's not about how many times you get knocked down, it's about how many times you can get hit and keep moving forward. So basically the biggest thing that's taught me is to just, whatever knocks me down, just get back up. You're not done, there's more things to do, you can recover. And failure is just mostly a motivator at this point. Every time I mess up in school or if I fail on Ninja Warrior, like last year on Ninja Warrior, I failed really early and I was devastated, just distraught for a good month or two. But once I wrapped my head around it, the off season of the show turned into the best comp season I've ever had in my life. So just using failure as a motivator has kind of always been the go-to and it's worked out pretty well.
Speaker 2:As a mom, when you see your son have a month of devastation after a competition like that. How did you help him cope with things?
Speaker 4:He's gotten to the point where he's pretty good about working through it, he'll push himself.
Speaker 4:He'll over push himself at that point.
Speaker 4:So I think that's what I've had to do as a mom is say, hey, you're not giving yourself rest time, you're not making sure that I can make sure he's taking care of his body, because if he's not, it won't hold up in the sport.
Speaker 4:Like there's a lot of joint issues and things that people have in the sport. But I think that watching his drive after those moments and one of the things that I think is really cool that he does is, with his social media posts and things, he films his failures. He doesn't just post when he does things well, he posts when, how many times it took him to get to that point. Because he is somebody who the younger generation of ninjas look up to and so as they watch, they need to learn how to fail too, and he coaches some of those and there's a pretty good kid at his gym that works really hard. But he gets devastated when he doesn't do well, and so for Tyler to model that that you have to fail to get better, it's helped that younger group be able to realize that they have to fail too.
Speaker 2:It's got to be a pretty heavy meant to realize that, with your social media and how many kids that you reach, that people really are watching what you're doing. How do you approach that?
Speaker 3:The model I go off of is what would I do to teach my younger self? So I look back into the mind of like eight-year-old me and I'm like how would this affect me as a kid? Or what would kid me react, or how would he react in this situation? Honestly, kind of just winged social media, to be honest, it's kind of just playing my ear, but we have had to have conversations about who his audience is and making sure that song choices are appropriate as background music, that's true.
Speaker 4:Making sure that all the things that he posts, even if it's not ninja related, are appropriate for everybody who's watching him, because his audience usually is younger than him. So, being that positive role model and that positive image, and also, if you want to get selected for the TV show, they're going to be looking at everything you post, all your social media, which goes for when you're getting a job We've talked about people use that as a tool now to do background information on people, so you have to always be aware of those posts, regardless of what you're posting for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so interesting to think of it both as a parent. But when you're talking to your students, do you often use Tyler as an example of I?
Speaker 4:do? I do a lot. We've had him come in and be a guest speaker a couple times at school so he could talk to them. But, really, talking about that role, we do a lot of digital citizenship things in our district and it's important for them to understand the things that they put out there now. They don't go away and so when you're now looking into a career as he is, as he's going through college, the things that he posted when he was 15 are still on that social media. So, making those choices right now for my students in middle school, they need to understand that those things will still be out there when they're this old.
Speaker 2:So your parents and your, you have a younger brother as well.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:We've been a big support system. What would you say about having that kind of support system in this drive for greatness?
Speaker 3:I'd say it's really rewarding, to be honest. I mean my mom's always been cheerleader number one. She's always been the driving voice, to the point where you can hear her on episodes of Ninja Warrior. I'm not kidding, you can go back and watch the show. You can hear her voice over everything. It's great.
Speaker 3:Cooper, my little brother, has always been really supportive too. He's gone through. It's been cool to watch him grow up because I've been able to kind of, I guess, life coach him a little bit too and kind of just guide him through stuff. Of course his experience is different than mine, but he's turning into a really upstarting kid and I'm really proud of him for that. And then my dad's always just been a really good teacher, a really good coach. I mean he's coached me through every sport I've played. He's done his best to give me input on this one.
Speaker 3:And I mean for a long time I was scared of my dad because he was always very he had this very angry demeanor to him. But eventually we were able to talk things out, overcome that and now we just banter all the time. My dad is one of my best friends and I'm really happy about it. So having a support system like that. Just knowing that, no matter how I do, I'm going to have a family to fall back on to help me out, it's just really helpful. It's really rewarding. You have a good group of people to help you, and it's not just my family. Everyone in the Ninja community has always been like that too, and, no matter what, there's always someone to fall back on and it's really really helpful.
Speaker 2:I've always been impressed with sports and on the life skills that it gives people. It seems like when people have that focus outside of your everyday life, it really does help you give the focus. It helps you in your everyday life to be able to switch that like OK, I'm struggling in school, I've been knocked down in the gym, I can get back up in this area too. What are your plans for your future? What are you working on right now?
Speaker 3:Well, my current plan is to get a bachelor's in kinesiology. If that falls through, I don't know what will happen major-wise but something will.
Speaker 3:And then with Ninja, the plan is just to keep doing it, keep being on the show. If they keep calling me back, my main thing is get a buzzer. I haven't finished a course on the show and it eats at me so bad Because it's like I can do so good everywhere else. And then the show I just fall through. I don't know if it's pressure or something else, but that's the biggest goal right now, aside from school. Other than that, really, that's kind of the only two ways my life goes.
Speaker 2:And Stacey. One of the things that I've always admired about you is your incredible ability to be a leader. Your school has had some rough times, Say the least Say the least in the last of a while, and it's interesting to see how you've mentored your son, but how you've handled all the things that your school plus you've been able to manage it all. How do you do that? Please tell me? Can I bring my children over so that you can do it to them too, Of course?
Speaker 4:I think one of the biggest things that I do and you know this about me because you did it with me for a while, but I don't know One of the biggest things I do for myself is I give myself permission to have time for me.
Speaker 4:So for me right now and for seven years, believe it or not, I do my workouts in the morning and that gets me in the right headspace to be able to move forward every day. And because of what I taught prior to being an administration, I taught some pretty high stress positions in special education. I worked with some of the hardest kids in the district and I love them every day, but the one thing that they taught me more than anything is every day starts fresh. So, regardless of what happened the day before, I have that opportunity to start over and the students have that opportunity to start over. One thing that I think that I do as a leader, the most important job I have is the people that I hire, and you're only as good as your team, and my team is amazing, and that's the reason why I can do my job as well as I can.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Now, tyler, I have one last question for you. So you have a lot of kids that I look up to you. What is your advice on how to set goals and how to follow through it? Because that is the thing that's probably the most, one of the hardest things that you have to do in life. It's really easy to set a goal that you're going to be a Ninja Warrior and that you're going to get the buzzer, but how do you keep going towards the goal? Because every January I set a goal and every February I think maybe next year. So how do you set your goals and keep going with it? Stay consistent.
Speaker 3:Just make sure what you're doing is fun, because if you're not, if it doesn't interest you anymore, it's not going to be worth it in the long run for you to keep doing it.
Speaker 4:I think when he was younger he had a goal board so he actually wrote them down and they were in his room and he had one side of the board and his brother had the other. But I mean it started with how many pull ups you did consecutively. He set small, achievable goals. He had his major goal of being on Ninja Warrior, but he set small achievable goals to get to that, so that you can have those stepping stones. I mean, nobody's going to go from zero to Ninja Warrior in one shot. You have to have little stepping stones that you know you're making progress towards that major goal. And so he was able to. You know he could actually cross them out when he made them and his brother crossed his out.
Speaker 4:And they changed them and they upped their numbers and different things so that the goal got bigger after they made that little stepping stone. So I think that was a big push for you at the beginning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I mean it can seem scary to set goals. Some goals can be extremely ambitious, super big, big things in your life. If you can. Sometimes if you can set those smaller goals and as you accomplish them, it just makes the bigger one seem a little less scary and it makes it a little easier to like stay on the path to whatever you want to do.
Speaker 2:That's perfect. Thank you guys so much for joining us and for helping us realize that you know big goals are achievable and for helping our students know that if you follow, you can get back up.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, facebook or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg. Adited-mediat. Ashigna Poetry.
