Interview with Ao Yurikusa (JPN)

Hi Ao, could you briefly introduce yourself to the readers of the OCÚN blog? Who are you, where are you from, and what are your biggest passions?

Hello, my name is Ao Yurikusa. I am a 23-year-old Japanese climber representing Japan in sport climbing. In 2019, I won the World Youth Championships in bouldering and combined, and joined the Japan National Team the following year. Some of my biggest achievements so far include winning the Lead World Cup in Jakarta and taking the silver medal in Innsbruck. Every day I train to push my limits and achieve the best possible results in international competitions.

You're part of a new generation of competition climbers. How do you see the climbing world from your generation's perspective compared to previous ones? What are the main differences in the approach to climbing and training, and what style of climbing is the most popular today?

I come from the Japanese region called Aichi Prefecture, and very close to Aichi is the city of Toyota. Toyota (besides the world-famous car company) has a large outdoor bouldering area in the woods.

My first experience with climbing was when a new gym opened near my home. The older climbers told me they climbed in the gym on rainy days, but on sunny days they always went bouldering outside.

I started climbing when the "climbing boom" began in Japan and gyms were opening one after another. However, many people had been climbing outdoors at crags for more than 30 years before there were hardly any gyms. For these older climbers, climbing was a part of their lives, and even on rest days they would go to check the crags, clean them up, help other climbers with their projects, or simply look for their next challenges. They naturally formed a climbing community and enjoyed climbing together.

Gym climbing is a place where you can develop your climbing skills, with all the new types of training equipment available. The gym environment and climbing routes can be adapted to make climbing safer for children as well as older people. This has made climbing more accessible to a wider community than ever before.

With the rise of competition climbing, people have become divided into those who compete and those who don't (outdoor and recreational climbers). For me, climbing outside is a place where I meet friends and heal myself, but climbing in the gym is where I train hard for my goals, explore myself, and grow as a person. Both are necessary, and I want to keep a good balance between the two.

What does competition climbing mean to you? What motivates you to compete? Do you ever feel that athletes lose their passion for climbing when they focus purely on performance?

At university, I study sports from various perspectives, including medicine, training, business, education, culture, and health. The knowledge I gain about how to train, sleep, eat well, and coach myself helps improve my climbing performance, and I can test everything on myself, which never stops fascinating me.

I believe that sport climbing is very different from climbing outdoors. In sport climbing, you have the opportunity to explore the limits of climbing and push them even further. I was never good at competing against others, and I like to think of climbing as a sport where you face the climbing wall, not your competitors. Climbers are your friends who love doing the same thing as you.

What do you do to maintain balance in your climbing training? Do you take a holistic approach to climbing and include other sports or at least compensatory exercises in your training?

My first international competition was the 2019 World Youth Championships. I won both the bouldering and combined events, and although I was happy with the results, I felt very anxious when I returned home.

The reason was that I broke my wrist in the second round of the bouldering semi-final and managed to reach the final despite enduring a lot of pain. The night before the final, I could hardly sleep because the pain wouldn't go away, even with the painkillers I was allowed to use.

I had been overtraining for a month before the competition, and I was dealing with injuries to my fingers, toes, and shoulders, so I went into the final with a lot of physical problems. I thought I probably wouldn't be able to climb properly because the intense pain hadn't subsided.

However, once the final started, I focused only on climbing. For a while, I completely forgot about the pain, and in the end, I won. It wasn't until after the competition that all the pain came back, and I started wondering whether my wrist would ever fully recover.

When I got home, my family took me to a specialised orthopaedic sports clinic. The doctors reassured me that I would recover completely as long as I gave my body enough time to heal. Since then, I have worked regularly with a physiotherapist and have become much more focused on injury prevention.

Before I started climbing, I had a very small build and was always trying to catch up with the people around me as quickly as possible. Eventually, I realised that wasn't the right approach. It took about a year for my wrist to heal completely. My coach, who specialises in body mechanics, played a huge role in that process. He taught me how to better understand my body and adapt my training to it. Thanks to that, I can now climb every day without limitations, and I'm very happy about it.

You climbed a French 9a route, a major milestone among elite climbers. Besides competition climbing and bouldering, are you interested in any other climbing disciplines?

I live in Tokyo, where I train strictly for competitions, but in Aichi, bouldering is very popular and not many people go for rope climbing, so the same goes for me. I didn't have many opportunities for outdoor rock climbing.

However, I like route climbing more than bouldering, so I am interested in outdoor sport climbing as well as multi-pitch climbing. I just don't have enough skills and experience to do it safely. So first of all, I need to learn the proper techniques to be able to climb outdoors safely.

Can you recommend a few climbing areas in Japan? Where would you send beginners, experienced climbers, and those looking for really hard challenges?

I can only recommend the crags I know well, and those are the ones close to Toyota. They are easily accessible, and it's a large area where every climber can find something that suits them.

Recently, many new crags have been developed in Japan, and the number of high-grade climbs has increased. If you're looking for hard bouldering problems, I recommend areas such as Yaendani and Mizugaki.

I've heard you're interested in climbing in Europe. Are there any particular areas you'd like to visit?

As I don't have much experience with outdoor climbing yet, I find all climbing areas in Europe fascinating. If I get the chance, I'm always willing to start from scratch and learn step by step. I am especially interested in climbing in the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

You travel to competitions all over the world. Do you notice differences between Japanese, European, and American climbers? Do they approach training, competitions, or climbing culture differently? And do you see differences in route setting or the types of holds used in climbing gyms?

Many young Japanese climbers see climbing as a sport, and they are very competitive. They are more like rivals than friends. Of course, that's not true for everyone, but many of them train hard and compete from a very young age to achieve good results in competitions.

European climbers see climbing as an important and natural part of their lives, although the way they relate to it changes from childhood to adulthood. Climbers also seem to respect each other as friends.

I started climbing in a gym whose owner was a mountain guide from Chamonix. He told me that one of the greatest joys is to play and climb freely in nature. Through climbing, I went from being physically weak and shy to being able to talk to all kinds of people and broaden my world. I want climbing to remain part of my life in any way I can, so the lifestyle of European climbers and their connection with nature is something I would like to achieve.

What also impressed me about European climbing gyms is not only the diversity of the routes, but also how well-designed the holds are. I was surprised by how artistic the whole climbing experience can be.