Augusta’s Flying Squirrel is an American Ninja

Ninjas exist. 

Not only do ninjas exist, but we have a training facility for them right here in the Augusta area.  

Johnny Brown has been training ninjas at Hayden’s Gymnastics in Evans for 10 years. A skilled ninja himself, Brown has competed on the popular NBC reality show “American Ninja Warrior” twice, with a third appearance on the horizon.  

Admittedly, the ninjas Brown trains are a bit different than history’s mysterious Japanese warriors. In 2025 Evans, Georgia, ninjas focus less on espionage and more on tumbling and flips. Brown, for his part, has been training his whole life, starting as a kid on a trampoline in his yard 

“I spent pretty much all my days just out there doing flips,” he said. 

When Brown was in middle school, he found “urban ninja” videos online. They inspired him to mimic those tricks on his own. 

“It was more so to show off,” he said. “Back then, you were cool if you could do flips.”  

Those flips led to an interest in urban freerunning and parkour. Brown, 29, has been competing internationally in parkour competitions for the better part of his twenties. The skills and strength he gained competing in parkour and World Chase Tag competitions helped him fulfill a childhood goal of competing on “American Ninja Warrior”.  

He got his shot about three years ago. Brown saw an ad for an audition on the show and thought “I need to go for this.”   

“I shot my shot, put an audition out there and got the spot,” he said.  

Brown says that it was his social media presence as well as his skills that attracted the producers to him. 

Brown is also known as the Flying Squirrel Guy.  

A quick look at his TikTok account @jb.ninjaboy, finds Brown performing stunts while wearing a flying squirrel suit. It’s a gimmick that has garnered him more than a million followers. He even wore the squirrel suit through the “American Ninja Warrior” course. 

Brown made it to the finals on his first season of “American Ninja Warrior” in 2023 and returned for a second season in 2025. His appearance as a semi-finalist airs on July 14.  

He is eying a return for a third season as soon as the opportunity arises and says that he’s training now to ensure that his endurance is up to the task of mastering the American Ninja Warrior course.  

In the meantime, he’s enjoying bigger class sizes, encouraging younger generations to explore flips, gymnastics and parkour while competing in parkour competitions himself and, yes, posting more Flying Squirrel Guy content.