Gyms in Fukuoka are non-traditional
It was my first year in Fukuoka 2017, and to my surprise, the most difficult thing was to find a good climibing gym in Fukuoka, which is cosidered a capital, a sort of Tokyo, in Kyusyu island.
The quality of gyms are... to be honest, low in Fukuoka, or I should say, there is good one also bad one. One thing is sure is that, one traditional clilmber is running is going out of business and one the owner does not know anything about climbing is winning the market share.
In entire Japan, the core human resource in Climbing community knows each other and they are almost all the time near Tokyo, ie. Yamanashi. So in Kyusyu, there are very few people who know "what climbing is all about".
We just say, climbing, but climbing has so many sub categories, such as high altitude mountaineering, Sport climbing, aid-climbing, free-climbing, alpine climbing, cragging, multi-pitch climbing, trad climbing, ice climbing, and dry-tooling, and bouldering.
There are very few people who understand the whole picture of those climbing world and what's worth, Free climbers dislike alpine climbers, vice versus.
And in Kyusyu, there are very few "all-around climbers" who know wide perspectives.
For example, Tokio Muroi is the one of the founder of the Japanese bouldering, but of course he is not ignorant of alpine climbing. So, a climber like me, who loves ice climbing goes to his gym, and asked him, "Hey, I climbed a route called XX, but I couldn't do this move at all. Do you have an assignment with similar moves?"
Such questions is not rude. It is very traditional. He would never say this is my gym, climb my route!" They don't say, "This is my gym, climb my problem!" Instead, he will think how to train it with me.
There is no unprofessional gym staff like, "I've never climbed a crag before" nor do they say, "I've never been to the outdoor rock. (Don't be surprised, it's norm in the climbing gyms in Fukuoka).
On the contrary, there are gym managers who attack me, as a customer, to my face, saying, "I don't like people who go to cragging".
Perhaps they do so out of jealousy and sulking, but no one is stupid enough to go out of their way to pay money to go to a such climbing gym. (As a side note, young men who runs business like a arrogant attitude like kings are very common in Fukuoka. Why should the customers have to flatter them?)
So, I have no such desire to go to that kind of gym. No one will.
The quality of the problems are not as good as the gyms in my Yamanashi, and on top of that, they are more expensive because they are urban gyms, ignorant Fukouka citizen are just being taken advantage of.
Of course, there are few good gyms that specialize in different types of climbing.
Stump is a good gym for competition climber. I heard that Mr. Tokunaga is a good setter, but I am not interested in competition climbing. No wonder. I'm not going to become an Olympian from now on! There is no way I can be an Olympian. I would rather have problems that make me think than problems that make my finger stronger in competitions.
Most gyms don't have route setters for beginner level climbs. They rarely even switch routes. In other words, climbers of lower grades have no contact with good route setters.
Generally speaking, you only need a gym grade of about 3rd(5.10 to 5.11) to climb outdoor rock 5.9.
So, no matter how good the quality of the expert grade in the climbing gyms, it is useless for outdoor rock climber.
Ziploc also seemed like a good gym for becoming a boulderer, but my fingers were sore after just one day. The problems there are more boulder-oriented. It means very hard on the fingers. This is a good gym for people who want to be outside boulderers. But for me, hurting fingers = not good for a full-body workout.
I like their problems, very enjoyable, so I recommend it to some people who like to boulder, occasionally. But for me? No.
Free climbing is usually rope climbing. There are gyms that do exactly what the name implies, and there are also climbing gyms where you can lead... but the lead areas are too small, and it's dangerous because belayers might bump into each other. It seems that you end up settling for bouldering rather than lead climbing, which makes it seem pointless. The problems here, too, were basically good.
On the public wall, the axion is free but it was just a muscle training. Moreover, the belay is very scary. One handed belay. Very far belay. It was a showcase of bad belay. A muscle training with bad belay is a fear-resistant muscle training. Fear has been scientifically proven to be detrimental to move mastery. I don't think the problem were a good one.
So, well, it's not that there is nothing to gain by going any of them, but it's not worth the cost.
I don't really have to go out of my way to go any of there....
It would be more fun to spend the gym fees on transportation and go to outdoor cragging or save for the oversea trip.
There is a nearby crag in Fukuoka that is only 30 minutes from my house. If I wanted to go slab climbing, I could do it at a nearby park.
So, in the end, the cheapest thing to do is to climb the slab on my way to shopping, pick up a stance on a stone wall around the area, and practice foot placement. And, you can handicap with crocs.
Fukuoka is not exactly the Tokyo of Kyushu when it comes to climbing.
So, the serious climbers are moving out of the city looking for better climbing situation.
I think that's a good thing under this circumstances.