A Conversation with Mr. Tajima Brought on by the No-Mat Climber Issue
I had a chance to chat with Ippei Tajima, a local climber who "puts eye on"...a sort of.... yes, climbers watch each other for security... in this area, Kusyu's climbing... Kyusyu is one of the 4 large island of Japan, a far away from Tokyo, so it is quite countryside. That means "climbing culture" comes in late compared to Tokyo. Tokyo is a world class big city so everything is "up to date"... but Kyusyu? Everything is so out dated and it is more like 40 years behind of Tokyo. Imagine, Irland to London. I have never been to Irland so I never know what's like, but the point is this illustrate how the climbing of Kyusyu island is, not of Tokyo.
This conversation with Tajima gave me something of a summary of the past four years.
Gym are competing...
Looking back, my climbing trip started with a visit to a climbing gym in my neighborhood....run by Tajima.
At first, I thought I would be a gym climber in Fukuoka because, unlike Yamanashi, Fukuoka is a city, the crags are far away. So I imagined that there would not be as many good quality crags as in Yamanashi. (Yamanashi is one of the best climbing destination in Japan.)
So, I was willing to be a gym climber in Fukuoka, instead of ice and alpine climbing, which is stepping down to me, but that was OK with me.
In my Yamanashi days, I had no reason to go to a gym because the outside rock was so good. Whenever I went to the gym, I would ask Mr. Tokio Muroi one of the founder of Japanese climbing, on the move I couldn't do on a crag, "Excuse me, is there any problem to get a far jag after underhold?" I was asking such question.
In short, I was using a gym completely for outside rock climbing. And to begin with, ice climbing cannot be done indoors.
So, in Fukuoka, I felt that I finally come to the city! I thought I would go to a gym and try to get a new style, get better with my sport climbing.
But things were not that easy...
When I told Tajima's gym that I had applied for a part-time job at Bravo, another climbing gym, he banned me from the gym on the second day. I had already paid my monthly membership fee and it was the second day. So I was ripped off. (I want the monthly fee back...seriously.)
And, it was a false accusation. His policy was " Do not teach a move" (I think that a gym that doesn't teach climbing move is not a good gym. Any gym that doesn't teach, may not be fulfilling its duty as a gym.) At that time, a group of college boys I met at his gym couldn't climb the problem I climbed, and asked me, "How you did it?" I simply replied, "If you can get that hold, it's the end". I don't know what part of this is teaching.
A record of those days : https://allnevery.blogspot.com/2017/08/blog-post_13.html
His wife was not a climber by any stretch of the imagination. The gym was not very clean, and I felt that the management is not well done with this gym.
However, I was pleased to see that they had a magazine called "Climbing" which listed serious climber's name. Then, I wanted to know about the climbing situation in Kyushu...so I wanted to go there just to see him and have a information for a while until I got some information...for example, that Azumaya crag is said to 2 grades harder...and such. Risk information is hard to get.
But, for the above reasons, I can no longer go to the gym.
(So, I didn't know the previous reputation of any crags in Kyusyu and had to go to climb with a blank knowledge.)
Moreover, Bravo was again very bad.... Bravo is a gym whose owner does not climb, he was out of climbers network, so when you talk about climbing to him in the interview for a job, he had no idea what I was talking about.
He does not know past Kazumasa Yoshida. I told him I used to climb in Yamanashi, will he understand? No. I tell him I climbed in Laos, would he understand? No.
In short, he is just an amateurs. (I heard that this person became the president of the Fukuoka Prefectural Federation.)
I managed to get hired, but on my first day of work, I saw a blacklist behind the counter and asked, "What's this?" I asked, "A list of people who are dangerous of belay". However, the person who told me this, demonstrated to me, "These people don't hold ATC like this when waiting to belay," and that hand...it's an ATC, but with a grip belay... (sweat).
so I turned blue and quit the job that day. The rule of climber No1 is, "Don't go near anything that stinks".
After all, there is no such job in modern Japan that you should cost your life.
I pointed out this mistake, and later received an apology...but if this was the case about the belay, I could imagine that it was likely to be "old-fashioned" from top to bottom, and that I would have to keep correcting it...
And if a young man below my age was the manager. So he will be my superior in the gym I work for...? I could only think of nothing but a long and arduous road, so I did not think it was necessary for me to make such a personal sacrifice to work there.
At the time, it was only my first year in Fukuoka, and I was dreaming of a rosy life in Fukuoka. It was like taking a deep breath in a city for the first time in a long time.... I thought that, as hobbies, yoga and climbing would be more advanced in the city of Fukuoka than in the countryside of Yamanashi, because of its larger population and more urban setting. I expected that the city of Fukuoka would be more advanced in terms of both yoga and climbing as hobbies than the rural Yamanashi Prefecture.
I can go climbing expedition once a year I would be satisfied..., I thought.
To be honest, there was no difference in cost between going to Ogawayama and going to Taiwan or Korea. So, it seemed more reasonable to go to Taiwan or to Korea every year for trad and ice climb than to go to Ogawayama.
Goto next page.