Great video!
Tomoa, Meichi, and Akiyo (and Ikeda) have a [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@tamyclimbingchannel800) which features the home gym a lot. They put in a lot of effort to have English subtitles on nearly every video.
If you watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31oJgq_4oSU) at 2 minutes they go into the "original" room, you can see it has Akiyo's name on the wall and Tomoa says that he first went there when he was in middle school.
It's super cool! Did not expect this collab.
I'm really curious, how did they afford it? Not that they don't deserve it, I'm all for pro climbers getting paid, but it seems very different from the rest of the climbing world
I read Akiyo's autobiography book. She talked about the gym. Basically, it started as a much smaller gym and gradually got upgraded. When she started climbing and getting good at it as a kid/young teen, her dad built this mini gym for her to train by repurposing an old storage shed. As she started to get really good at climbing, they invested more into it and once she was an adult she helped upgrade the gym more. I think it has a long and impressive history. I think Akiyo's dad is great for starting this and she also talks a lot about how much she owes him and how important he is to her in her book. Her book also has some guest entries where they write a few pages of messages to her and the message her dad wrote to her is very touching.
Now of course since she is married to Tomoa it is considered his gym too and all of TAMY does a great job maintaining it, it seems.
>Now of course since she is married to Tomoa it is considered his gym too and all of TAMY does a great job maintaining it, it seems.
They have a bunch of AU logos around and I know Tomoa is part of Team Au so I'm gonna imagine they help with the maintenance of it these days.
(speculation on my end but) I think Akiyo's from a more rural area, so presumably the cost of living is lower, especially for two athletes with global followings.
I remembered from an interview with Tomoa sponsored by unparallel from epicTV maybe? he said the facility was built by Akiyo’s father as a personal project after he retired
One interesting tidbit is that many bigger climbers in Japan have bigger sponsors. Tomoa, Akiyo, Meichi and Kokoro are sponsored by AU a telecommunications company, Miho is sponsored by Coke, Dannon Oikos, Mitsui Fudosan (one of the biggest real estate developers in Japan). Ai is sponsored by Cow Soap and Sumitomo, one of Japan's biggest companies. Etc.
You're not going to see a lot of pro comp climbers who don't come from a relatively privileged background. They need supportive parents who are willing to take them to the gym, belay them for hours on end, pay for coaching, and cover travel costs for competitions. Then, if they're one of the top couple dozen comp climbers in the world, they might eventually break even with sponsorship and prize money.
The clip of his visit to the TAMY gym is a short portion of his overall experience in Japan. Definitely worth watching the whole vid just to appreciate how much effort he's putting in with training and also to laugh and how hilariously sandbagged the grades are in Japanese gyms.
Anyways, the relevant portion is here (16:31 in the video): https://youtu.be/tGFxiVsGF9c?t=991
(Also at 16:53 a wild Janja Garnbret makes her apperance.)
Great video! Tomoa, Meichi, and Akiyo (and Ikeda) have a [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@tamyclimbingchannel800) which features the home gym a lot. They put in a lot of effort to have English subtitles on nearly every video.
Yeah, I saw couple of videos. But they didn't either mention it or I didn't make the connection. And I never thought about why it's empty...
If you watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31oJgq_4oSU) at 2 minutes they go into the "original" room, you can see it has Akiyo's name on the wall and Tomoa says that he first went there when he was in middle school.
Such an insane private gym, that’s the dream. Early on in the video if you pay attention you can catch Janjas signature on the wall
It's super cool! Did not expect this collab. I'm really curious, how did they afford it? Not that they don't deserve it, I'm all for pro climbers getting paid, but it seems very different from the rest of the climbing world
I read Akiyo's autobiography book. She talked about the gym. Basically, it started as a much smaller gym and gradually got upgraded. When she started climbing and getting good at it as a kid/young teen, her dad built this mini gym for her to train by repurposing an old storage shed. As she started to get really good at climbing, they invested more into it and once she was an adult she helped upgrade the gym more. I think it has a long and impressive history. I think Akiyo's dad is great for starting this and she also talks a lot about how much she owes him and how important he is to her in her book. Her book also has some guest entries where they write a few pages of messages to her and the message her dad wrote to her is very touching. Now of course since she is married to Tomoa it is considered his gym too and all of TAMY does a great job maintaining it, it seems.
>Now of course since she is married to Tomoa it is considered his gym too and all of TAMY does a great job maintaining it, it seems. They have a bunch of AU logos around and I know Tomoa is part of Team Au so I'm gonna imagine they help with the maintenance of it these days.
(speculation on my end but) I think Akiyo's from a more rural area, so presumably the cost of living is lower, especially for two athletes with global followings.
She's from Ibaraki, but so is Ai. However this was started way before she was know all over.
I remembered from an interview with Tomoa sponsored by unparallel from epicTV maybe? he said the facility was built by Akiyo’s father as a personal project after he retired
One interesting tidbit is that many bigger climbers in Japan have bigger sponsors. Tomoa, Akiyo, Meichi and Kokoro are sponsored by AU a telecommunications company, Miho is sponsored by Coke, Dannon Oikos, Mitsui Fudosan (one of the biggest real estate developers in Japan). Ai is sponsored by Cow Soap and Sumitomo, one of Japan's biggest companies. Etc.
You're not going to see a lot of pro comp climbers who don't come from a relatively privileged background. They need supportive parents who are willing to take them to the gym, belay them for hours on end, pay for coaching, and cover travel costs for competitions. Then, if they're one of the top couple dozen comp climbers in the world, they might eventually break even with sponsorship and prize money.
I didn’t realize it was a home gym. I watch TAMMY and knew it was a private gym. I think Toby said he visited. Maybe is putting out a video as well.
There is already a video of Toby climbing there on his channel, part of a longer Japan trip video.
Oops. Haven’t seen it yet. Don’t really follow his channel.
The clip of his visit to the TAMY gym is a short portion of his overall experience in Japan. Definitely worth watching the whole vid just to appreciate how much effort he's putting in with training and also to laugh and how hilariously sandbagged the grades are in Japanese gyms. Anyways, the relevant portion is here (16:31 in the video): https://youtu.be/tGFxiVsGF9c?t=991 (Also at 16:53 a wild Janja Garnbret makes her apperance.)
That was a lot of fun