WA contestant on 'The Floor' shares his experience on the show

Champ, are you? I was the victor at an international mushroom identification contest. It is very important to be able to identify your mushrooms. I did not once. No, what a mission! A new episode of the Forest Season six, hosted by Rob Lowe airing tonight right here on Fox 13. This season is full of champions. Joining us now is a local contestant from right here in Western Washington. We want to welcome Blake very Blake. Good morning to you. Good morning. How are you? I am very excited to be talking to a mushroom identification champion. How does one become an expert in this? A lot of practice. Several years of going out and identifying, checking with experts before ever putting anything in my mouth. Okay. You don't want to get that wrong. And during the break, you and I were chatting. I worked on a story about how popular foraging our forests is. This something that you have seen growing in popularity as well. I have. It's part of why it became a champion. Actually, is as it was growing, people were trying to hype it up and start having international contests. Oh, that contest. Okay. Let's talk about you being on the show. What category were you very confident in? I was right near chemistry, and prior to my current work, I was a chemistry teacher. I wanted that category so bad. I was so disappointed last week when we did not challenge me. Oh, darn! And you mentioned your history in education. You are currently a high school principal. You want to wave to the students, everybody. Principal's pretty cool. Okay. Is there anything when you're preparing for a show like this that you I mean, you just have to be ready for anything, or are you kind of fingers crossed hoping you don't get some categories? There's a little bit of fingers crossed. There's quite a bit of frankly just random luck. But really, in my day to day, I have to respond to all kinds of bananas. After that high stakes, pretty good preparation for being on the show. Oh yeah, that is amazing. And as you mentioned, I mean, anything specifically with with your job, also with having a hobby that you know involves needing to be very careful and precise. I'm curious how you work to keep your cool when it comes to like the bright lights and Rob Lowe and all of these champions. That's the thing though. The the the people was really how I kept my cool. You know, hundreds of strangers coming in, doing studios, spending a lot of time in a green room together. You'd think that there might be some tension or some competition. They were the most amazing group of human beings. There's not a one of them I wouldn't spend money and go out of my way to spend more time with. Oh, amazing! Just having 90 and a new best friends really helped everything stay calm. You know what? I think you also have a really great attitude, which really takes a person a long way. Now, I'm curious about this new invented called the power shot. How does that work? It's pretty spectacular. If you win three in a row, one of your options is to have the power shot where instead of the randomizer coming up when you go back to the floor, you pick who goes next. So if there's somebody that you're terrified of, you can maybe pick that and have them be forced to do or just get the heck away from you, like I did previously, to guarantee that 20K. You've got the most territory. Oh, my goodness. What do you think makes the show so fun to watch as well? Honestly, like any good television show, it's the sitting at home, shoveling it the TV, knowing maybe a little more, maybe a little less than the contestants, but really that sense of you know, I could do that and then I did. Okay. I love that. That is what happened for you, but I was going to ask, is it different if you were watching at home? Do you feel like there was less pressure? You did you know more answers, or did the pressure help you in this case? The pressure was so much more intense. In person, so that watching the show now, even at home on my couch, when I watch the randomizer, my heart spikes way more than it ever did before I was on the show. You know what? So I think it is so cool that you went out there did this thing and showed people exactly how it's done. Blake, thanks so much for hanging out with me today. Really appreciate the opportunity. Oh, my goodness, amazing stuff coming up tonight. Hey, you can watch the latest episode of the Forest Show on that TV, and then at nine it's 9:19, and you can watch that right here on Fox 13. Your time now is 9:17. We'll be right back.