Residents of the region can be their own 'Canadian Ninja Warrior' with the opening of Obstacle Warriors in Winkler.

The new business offers aspects of Ninja Warrior obstacle courses and parkour, with a room designed to engage children of younger ages.

Owners Donna and Frank Klassen have been fostering high-risk teen-aged boys for six years, Donna says this new facility can be a way to engage these kids like other ways might not be able to.

"We have seen how so many of those boys were not interested in organized sports, so you try to get them motivated to do something. Of course, there's the non-stop cell phone contact, it's like their life force. So we want to get them interested in something else."

"It kind of showed us that we needed something for the teenagers and we didn't have anything," says Frank, "so that's where we were kind of going with this."

The Klassens say they hope having this new activity can interest the youth, get them engaged, and create a safe welcoming space where they can maybe meet some friends.

Donna says seeing the facility packed with interested families was an amazing feeling.

Frank has been doing martial arts for over 16 years and was always a fan of parkour, and often bringing his students to Winnipeg to experience parkour.

After meeting Team Ryouko, a performance Taekwondo and Martial Arts school, Klassen wanted to bring the sport to the region.

Frank says the course's layout was inspired by a video by Ninja Solutions, which designs the structures for Ninja Warriors.

"They had a video where they had shown a gym where they had put their equipment in there and was running through it, and I thought that looks like a good base, so I followed that base."

Throughout the afternoon people had the chance to try out the course, which Klassen notes is much more difficult than it looks, and meet Mark Selby, the highest qualified person in Manitoba who teaches parkour.

Plans are in place to hold Ninja Warrior competitions in the future.