I Threw a Windmill Over Isaiah Rivera

There’s a clip on my page I still can’t believe is real. It’s a 9-foot windmill — and the person standing under the rim, the one I’m going over the top of, is Isaiah Rivera. My coach. One of the best dunkers on the planet.

A year ago I was just a short kid trying to touch rim. The fact that I got to throw a windmill over Isaiah’s head tells you everything about what the right coaching does.

What THP Strength actually is

THP Strength is the vertical-jump system I train in. It’s not a workout you find on YouTube and copy — it’s a structured program, coached by Isaiah Rivera and John Evans, built around getting you off the floor as high as humanly possible. It’s the program behind some of the highest verticals ever measured, and I get to train inside it.

What that means day to day: everything is measured. My vertical, my touch, my flight time — all numbers, all tracked. When you can see the number move, you trust the process even on the days it doesn’t feel like you’re getting better. (And there are a lot of those days.)

Being coached by someone that good

The biggest thing isn’t the drills — it’s the standard. When your coach can do things almost nobody on Earth can do, “good enough” stops existing. You stop comparing yourself to the kids at your school and start comparing yourself to the best in the world. That’s a different kind of pressure, and it’s the kind that makes you better fast.

It also keeps me honest about my size. Isaiah and John never treated 5’7″ as an excuse. They treated it as a starting number to beat. That mindset is half of why I can dunk at all.

The Dunk Camp 2026

This year I got selected for The Dunk Camp — I’m on Team 6. The Dunk Camp is days with the best dunkers and jump trainers in the world, all in one place. For a kid who started out just trying to touch rim, getting picked means someone with authority looked at my tape and said yeah, he belongs here.

That’s the thing about this whole world — it’s small, and the people in it vouch for each other. I train and fly with a crew of dunkers who are all chasing the same thing, and we push each other. Some of them you’ll find linked on my homepage.

I’m 16. I’m 5’7″. And I throw windmills over one of the best dunkers alive. If you’d told me that two years ago I’d have laughed. Now it’s just the next clip.

▶ Watch the windmill on Instagram