Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, business had never been better for Japan¡¯s climbing gyms.
¡°The inclusion of climbing in the Olympics brought a lot of good things,¡± explains Yuji Hirayama, a climbing legend and owner of Base Camp climbing gyms. ¡°People started to see climbers on TV and in advertisements, which brought many new customers.¡±
Hirayama has won the climbing World Cup twice ¡ª in 1998 and 2000 ¡ª and is widely regarded as the greatest Japanese climber of all time. ¡°In the 80s, when I started climbing, there were no gyms. I had to train on castle walls,¡± he laughs.
The climbing scene in Japan has come a long way since then. Whereas in the early 2000s there were just over 50 gyms, there are now around 600 spread across the country.
In addition, Japan¡¯s climbing team is widely regarded as one of the strongest on the International Federation of Sport Climbing¡¯s (IFSC) World Cup circuit ¡ª with both the male and female athletes regularly contending for silverware.
But with the cancellation of numerous international events and the delay of the Olympics, the pandemic has put the aspirations of Japanese competition climbers on hold ¡ª and affected the operations of climbing gyms that have had to adjust to government guidelines to prevent the spread of infections.
The secret to success
Japanese climbing gyms are considered some of the best in the world and have played a central role in the rise of Japanese athletes.
So what makes them so special?
¡°Due to high rents, Japanese climbing gyms are often small. This forces us to come up with new ideas on how to use space and make things fun for customers,¡± explains Naito Naoya, founder and owner of the Pump climbing gyms, which he started in 1993.
Naoya was one of the first to recognize the potential for gyms that focus specifically on bouldering rather than rope climbing. When he opened B-Pump Kokubunji in 2002, it was one of the first bouldering-only gyms in the greater Tokyo area.
¡°It was a great success, and many people soon realized that bouldering gyms require less space, are easier to make and are a good business,¡± he says.
The lack of space also forced gym owners to focus on the quality of climbing. This meant training and employing dedicated professionals known as route setters to create routes, or problems, by placing holds in such a way as to force climbers into specific sequences of movements.
¡°Most Japanese gyms understand that route-setting is important and they spend...
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