ROCK CULTURE
TALK
Climbing. Creating.
The rocks. The old days.
And the culture that has grown around it all.
POWDER RADIO is our podcast about everything that exists around climbing, not just the act of climbing itself.
Climbing, route setting, what gyms can be, climbing cultures around the world, even English for climbers. The subjects are deliberately wide-ranging.
The more people we talk to, the clearer it becomes that climbing has never been made by climbing alone.
A podcast from TOKYO POWDER.
DRINK
We wanted to drink genuinely good coffee between climbs.
That simple idea eventually led us, many years ago, to bring in a La Marzocco espresso machine.
Climb, rest, drink coffee, then climb again.
The machine was a bit of a stretch for us at the time, but before long it became part of everyone's climbing day.
CREATE
Climbing has people who climb, and people who create the things we climb.
What kind of movement should a problem create?
How can it show a path toward greater strength?
And what should the climb communicate?
We used to bring setters together for study sessions devoted to thinking seriously about route setting.
We were just as interested—maybe even more interested—in creating climbs as we were in climbing them.
BREATHE
Think of standing on tiny crystals on a slab.
Sometimes, a single breath can completely change how securely your feet hold.
Breathing is not only about staying calm. When tension leaves the body, movement and balance can be felt at a deeper level.
Climbing sometimes makes us aware of just how closely breath and body are connected.
Stand in front of the rock and simply breathe out, slowly.
From breathing to climb, to breathing itself.
As we began learning more about Zen and breathing, we became interested in those moments too.
LISTEN
The shakuhachi has long been connected with Zen practice, not only as a musical instrument, but as a tool for breathing.
What interested us was not learning to play it beautifully. It was something much simpler: breathing out, and hearing that breath become sound.
Making a sound is not the goal.
First, settle the breath and exhale slowly.
Sometimes, that breath happens to become a sound.
We began taking flutes to the rocks simply as a playful way to practice breathing.
Delivery preferences
