Adventuring Up & Outdoors #236

Holly Twining:

I had injured my knee so I had decided to give up dancing. In quotes, give up, it's always in you. And so I moved on to get a master's at nyu and after that I was just done. I was done with the city and I wanted some quiet. I wanted to reconnect with nature because it's always been a part of me.

Tino Fuimara:

You can do it indoors together, you can do it for fitness, you can do it for relaxation, and then you can travel the world because there's really no place in the world that doesn't have some form of climbable stone.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio show number 230 36, adventuring up and outdoors, airing for the first time on Sunday, March 27, 2016. Where do you find your adventures? Maine offers something for everyone in the realm of adventure. Today we speak with Holly Twining, founder of Maine Yoga Adventures, and Tino Fuyamara and Taki Miyamoto of Salt Plum Climbing about the ways they are helping people get up and out in search of adventure. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

today I am so privileged to have a conversation with an individual who has combined a variety of different and interesting things into one really great new adventure. This is Holly Twining of Maine Yoga Adventures. Holly began her own exciting creation, Maine Yoga Adventures, after 10 years with Maine Audubon as a naturalist and communications coordinator. Started In July of 2015, Maine Yoga Adventures brings community together through adventures that include yoga practices, outdoor explorations in every season, healthy vegetarian food, and more diverse activities are tossed into the mix, such as wine and beer tastings, climbing, skating, and paddling. The adventures are statewide and are beginning to expand outside Maine's borders. Thanks for coming in and sharing your adventure with us.

Holly Twining:

Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I do love that it's not just yoga, it's yoga plus.

Holly Twining:

Yes. Yoga and a little extra. Yeah. Always different, always exciting for me. Often things that I've never done before.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you're leading and teaching things that maybe you're kind of experimenting with yourself.

Holly Twining:

I am. So I'm experimenting with them, but I have professionals leading. Yes. The activities that I don't really know how to do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well. Why yoga? What was the thing about yoga?

Holly Twining:

So yoga brings us into a real special place right away. It brings us together as a community. We come together with our breath and with our movement, with our smiles and laughter. It's such a truly a nice way to bring people together. It's a comforting place, a place where I think people can feel really safe and supported. So it's a great place to start from and then leap into other places from there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you're right that the fact that it is nice and comforting and safe enables us to feel better as we. As we jump outward and feel maybe less safe as we adventure.

Holly Twining:

Yes. I think a big part of this company for me is jumping over fear. I have. You know, we all have fears. And I find myself doing things that I never thought I would do. And I feel so supported by my. By the community that's come together through the adventures that I can do anything.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you've been. You've been working with fear, I'm guessing for quite a while because you lived in New York City as a performer and you were the art director of Delicious Biscuit.

Holly Twining:

Oh, yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And a performer for an experimental theater pioneer named Richard Foreman and a performance artist named Penny Arcade.

Holly Twining:

Yes. So these are two huge personalities. I was very lucky to actually end up with them in New York City. It's really hard creating a life for yourself there as a perform a lot of competition. It's expensive to live there. Yeah. So I was really lucky to be picked up by Richard Forman in the experimental theater world. And I got to go on a European tour with them, which was really fantastic. Penny Arcade is a super fabulous performer. She's big. She is a big person, and she just goes and does everything that she's just. That she's feeling. Yeah, she's just. She's so alive. And she. She had a big impact on me, but it was hard. It was hard to get to those places. And having my own company, that was really scary. I mean, a friend of mine started one with me initially, and I was like, how do we do this? Really? We can do this. Are we good enough to do this? And she's like, yeah, you just do it, Holly. And you see what happens. And so I was really taken by that. And then I did. I started my own company there. Had a lot of friends supporting me as I do now. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You also spent time at Maine Audubon, actually 10 years as a naturalist and communications coordinator. It seems like there's. It seems like you have a lot of interest in a lot of different areas. I do. Did any of this start when you were younger, when you were growing up? Yes.

Holly Twining:

So my father was an English professor and a birder, so he was really tied into nature. So we would also try out some cultural things as well. We'd go to museums, we'd go birding, we'd go on hikes. My mom was the other side. She was very active. She liked to go to the gym, and her hikes were speedier. She wanted to take the dog and really get out there. So I think we like to mix it up as a family. From lying on the couch and listening to whale sounds to going out on a brand new trail. It was a neat childhood. Absolutely. But that. It really did. My interests are so far and wide, and I found that in college that I couldn't focus on one thing. So I was trying out several different things all the way up into grad school. I had an interdisciplinary degree at nyu. Yeah. So I've always loved to mix it up. Maybe it's because I don't feel comfortable having one expertise. You know, maybe there's something about that for me that brings a little anxiety. But having interests in a lot of places and being able to do some of those things quite well, then that feels better to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, well, you know, I'm going to have to ask you about that now that you said that you don't feel comfortable having one expertise. Why? Why is that?

Holly Twining:

Well, I do find that my expertise now is. Is yoga and different aspects of yoga, different varieties that I teach. And again, I feel comfortable having that expertise because it's in different ends. Like, I teach children's yoga, I teach aerial yoga, I teach chair yoga, gentle intermediate. It even comes into my very own expertise that I feel like I have to spread it out into different places. Yeah. It's odd, but it's. That's just how it seems to work out for me. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I actually don't think it's a bad thing. And I wonder, because as a family doctor who has a master's in public health and an acupuncture background, who also does a radio show, writes for magazines, wellness editor, you know, I'm not that different than you are. And I think that sometimes the way that our society has gone sort of educationally has been more depth. So you have to get really, really, really good at really, really specialized things. And so those of us who were. I guess we're more horizontal than vertical. We sometimes wonder are we doing the right thing? But everything seems connected somehow.

Holly Twining:

It does. It absolutely does. And I think that's why. I mean, I think everybody has an interdisciplinary force in them because you are. We're all naturally drawn to different things. And you don't want to get yourself too caught up, I think, in. You want to be open. Open to new experiences, new ideas. Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Where did you grow up?

Holly Twining:

I grew up in Rhode island, the biggest little state in the Union.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And so what was that like for you? Because I've been. I really have only been to Providence, and just outside of Providence, it seems in some ways similar to Maine, but in some ways very different.

Holly Twining:

Yes. So I lived in a small town outside of Providence, not far. Suburbia, actually. I did see our town develop a little bit more than I wanted to, but that happened to Rhode island, and it happened to everywhere. But it's a neat place. We weren't so coastal as everybody thinks that you are. You know, we were a little bit away. But it's funny, when you live in a little state, there's people think that driving 15 minutes is a long way. Yeah. It becomes that. So you live in California. Driving four hours to get somewhere and then driving back is no big deal. But in Rhode island, it seems like, oh, man, we have a half hour. We have to drive to the beach. I don't know. It's a funny little place. But I have to say, Providence, Rhode island, is one of my favorite cities. It's laid back. The people are fantastic. They'll just stop and sit and talk over coffee and be with each other. I love that about Providence. Yeah. And Rhode island itself.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I was just down in Providence for my daughter's 20th birthday, because she goes to school in Providence. And she brought me to this really great little restaurant, I think, called Red Stripe. And I was struck once again, as I have many times, because I've been down there a few times now. The food is fabulous. It's not that different than Portland, actually.

Holly Twining:

It's really great. I love the Thai food I used to have there and a brunch I used to go to on Sundays.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it's also got an interesting mix, not unlike Portland and Maine, of people who are kind of laid back and curious, but also creative and intellectual. And, I mean, it really. It really does have a little bit more of a Maine vibe than I might have expected.

Holly Twining:

Yes. It's a very artistic place. Absolutely. And all different types come together there, and it's a really neat space. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But you're in Maine now.

Holly Twining:

I am. I'm in Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So why Maine?

Holly Twining:

Yeah. So after being in New York City for quite a long time, and I won't speak on it much, but I was part of the 911 experience. I was right. I was very close to the buildings that changed my life, as it did many people's lives. But I had injured my knee, so I had decided to give up dancing. In quotes, give up, it's always in you. And so I moved on to get a master's at nyu. And after that, I was just done. I was done with the city, and I wanted some quiet. I wanted to reconnect with nature because it's always been a part of me. Even in the city, though, I always found it there. And it's easy to do. But the big move to Maine. Yeah. I thought I was gonna come actually for a PhD program, but we ended up coming for my husband, who ended up getting his master's at U Main. Yeah. Funny turn of events, but it worked out so nicely. We walked into this house, right? It's across the street from the Stillwater river in Orono. And it just spoke to me immediately. Okay, this is. This is great. We're gonna take this. We're staying. Yeah. So that's how we came to Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, isn't that funny? Cause my other child is at school at Orono, so he actually has lived in a house right across from the river. So it's like my family is, like, following you around somehow.

Holly Twining:

Neat. Very neat.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you also have. You have two children. I do. Which is interesting, because in addition to having your two children, this husband who's gotten his education. You also play tennis on a competitive. I mean, like, how do you even find the time for all this stuff?

Holly Twining:

I know it seems so silly. How do I find the time? I don't even know. I played my first two matches of the season on Sunday morning, and Sunday morning was right after the opening night of my husband's play, Hair Frenzy at. Yeah. At Penobscot Theater. And I did win those two singles matches, but I really had to pull it out. And then, you know, then I'm right on to. The next thing you know, I had to get a couple new adventures on the website and hug my kids on the couch. You know, before that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's. It's.

Holly Twining:

There's a balance. Absolutely. Trying to be there for the family, and I'm trying to keep myself well and physical. Those are things that I love to do, you know, Playing tennis helps keep me sane, I think. Yeah. So I can make space for it. Yeah. It's funny. I also teach. I teach five yoga classes a week, which keeps me busy as well. But I find that I have more time to spend with my children, and I'm a little happier having my own business. It's a huge challenge, and it's hard, but it's so worth it in so many ways. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems as though the combination of yoga and adventuring is really an idea whose time has come. It seems like this is the type of thing that people. And I guess you're hoping that that's so because you launched this business, but it seems like people are really drawn back to understanding their own bodies, but also understanding their interplay with nature. So how do you read that within our culture? Why do you think that that is so.

Holly Twining:

Yeah, I feel like we've gotten so sucked into our phones, into technology. You know, being at dinner with people and you see people on their phones and you just want to bring people back to sitting together, to talking to each other, to looking at each other. I think part of ourselves, I think we're really seeking connection again, that we've drawn further away from it. And I'm not just blaming technology, you know, I'm not. It's just the way that I think we've grown as a society. We've grown real busy into maybe careers or just our own paths, what we're doing and just driven and we gotta, you know, still take moments and connect. I think it's really important now. And I think a lot of people are seeing that you can just sit at home all day and all night. You can work from home. You can watch your TV or your computer screens. It's. You can do that easily. So I want to pull people out of that. I want them to come back outside. I want them to come enjoy trails and all the things you can do outside in every single season. You can do it with your family, you can do it with a couple friends or people you don't even know. Yeah. I think we're craving it now. It's a good time. It's a good time for it. And you should see the faces I see on my adventures. And the people are just elated. Often we don't know each other and it's thrilling. It's exciting getting to know each other. These blissful faces. Yay. When's the next adventure?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, tell me about some of your favorite adventures.

Holly Twining:

I've worked with mainbound for a second time and they're the climbing wall over at U Main. My first time I was conquering my fear of heights.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah.

Holly Twining:

So this second one that I just did, it was a climbing and snowshoeing advent. We hit the wall again. Brand new people, different, totally different group. And I just charged right up this time. And that was really neat. It just, it wasn't in my head anymore. It was just my body traveling up. It was so neat. It happened to be snowing that day, which was absolutely perfect because we needed it for snowshoeing and being outside with the ladies in the snow and playing in our snowshoes and practicing snow, some yoga poses and it was gorgeous. Oh, it was. It was pretty perfect.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah.

Holly Twining:

And then we got to the beer part. We went to a local brewery and everybody loves that. Well, everybody seems to love it. And my famous soup too. I made my famous coconut curry tofu vegetable soup. Yum.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, that sounds great actually, that last part especially.

Holly Twining:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I like the. I mean probably everything but the beer. I don't love heights, but I can do them. But I like, you know, those all sound like a really good combination, which I think is great because you're really kind of appealing to people's different sensory features, I guess.

Holly Twining:

Yeah. And I will say, if you're not into beer, I had a couple gluten free friends on that adventure and they got the cider. Not that you all have to drink with me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

No, I like cider is good too. What other types of adventures do you go on and who usually does these adventures with you?

Holly Twining:

So I have targeted all kinds of ages. I have family adventures which can be really fun. I had one this summer where we spent most of it outside. We started with the yoga practice outside. The kids went in for an art lesson with our local artist, Valerie Wallace, which was fantastic. And then we went outside again and walked along the river. And some of the kids went swimming, jumped in with their clothes, which I thought was really sweet, wild, and free. And then I'll have an adventure with my chair yoga ladies. We'll have a chair yoga practice. Go eat some yummy food. In one of the adventures, we went to our local Thai restaurant, Thai Orchids, and they seemed to really love it. And then we went to a presentation at the library, which was really neat. So all different kinds of age ranges and experiences. So physical experiences. So some of them I have to take down a little bit, and some of them might pump up a little bit. Like, my next very physical, fun adventure is March. Well, outside of all my cross country skiing ones, I have two cross country skiing adventures coming up. But I just put into place a main warrior gym adventure. Right. So we're gonna get our ninja warriors on, and that'll be for kids and for adult like me, who just really want to do it. I want to try that stuff. I want to try the obstacles as well. So there's a. Yeah, there's such a diverse group of people that I'm trying to bring together and that end up do. Coming together. I have noticed, though, there are primarily ladies that are coming out so far. Yeah. My first adventure, I had three gentlemen, and that was a kayaking. Well, a paddling and wine tasting adventure. My very first one in July. Oh, that was great. So I'll be back to paddling, of course, as the weather changes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what lessons have you learned as a small business owner who's really, you know, starting this from the ground up?

Holly Twining:

Yeah. I've learned to avoid holidays. I tried to schedule a paddle boarding and tennis adventure that just seemed super fabulous.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah.

Holly Twining:

And it didn't work out because it was on a big holiday and I didn't realize it was on a until

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

it was too late.

Holly Twining:

So some funny things like that. I did learn not to cancel if there's snow, because we want the snow and the adventure and people still came, and that was great. Yeah. I'm learning so much along the way, and I'm trying to actually do a couple adventures a month, like a bigger one and then a smaller local one. So so far that's worked. But we'll see.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We'll see.

Holly Twining:

Yeah. So much to learn. And I'm just going at it. I don't really know. I'm just trying things and I want to keep it really creative and I want to be able to inspire people and myself, you know, keep it interesting for myself. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What is your one hope for the upcoming year or if you have one with regard to your life or with main yoga adventures? Pick either one.

Holly Twining:

Oh, gosh. I just hope I can continue to spread the word about getting people outside, getting them connected to a yoga practice. I'm not flexible enough. Well, you should probably come to yoga class or come on an adventure. I hear that a lot. I want to bring the hordes out with me. Outside, anybody? Everybody? Let's get outside. Connect to nature and connect to your physicality. We'll do a lot of things that are different and maybe scary. We gotta jump over our fear together. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to a year of surprising adventures. Creative adventures.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Holly, how can people find out about your surprising and creative main yoga adventures?

Holly Twining:

Well, they can go to my website, mainyogaadventures.com and anybody can call me if they just want to talk and come up with their own adventure. I'm really happy to do that. And that's 207-299-0082.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been speaking with Holly Twining from Maine Yoga Adventures. Thanks so much for coming in and spending time with us today and also for the work you're doing bringing people back into their bodies and back into nature.

Holly Twining:

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

so long ago, I was driving down the road in Scarborough and I saw this new building and it said salt pump climbing. I said, huh, I'm really intrigued by this, because I know that climbing has become much more popular. It's not something that I do a lot of myself, but anybody who's interested in bringing this sort of thing to the state of Maine is somebody I want to talk to. So today we have with us Taki Miyamoto, who is a partner and general manager at Salt Pump Climbing, and Tino Fiumara, who is the head root setter, an assistant program director at Salt Pump Climbing. Thanks so much for coming in.

Taki Miyamoto:

Thanks for having us.

Tino Fuimara:

Indeed.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why is it called Salt pump Climbing?

Taki Miyamoto:

What do you think of when you hear salt pump?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Oh, my gosh. Questions asked back. I don't. I don't know.

Taki Miyamoto:

Yeah, I think that's part of the idea with it. So that it sticks in people's minds and gets people thinking about what salt pump means from our perspective. We wanted to tie it back to Maine somehow, a name that ties back to Maine. And so we thought about the ocean and the salt. And at one point, salt was one of the most valuable minerals in the world. So we like those connotations. It's still an essential mineral. So we like that connotation. And the pump comes from. We have a pond behind our building, and so a water pump is where the community used to gather. So we like that connotation. And pump itself has a use in climbing. When you've climbed a lot or even you're feeling pretty good, you say, people would say, I'm pumped. So had a little bit of a tide to climbing. So we combined those two words. Sounded nice. It stuck. And then one thing we did do with the name is that we didn't include the word gym. And that's because we aspire to be more than a gym. At some point, we want to be at home, away from home, for people. So that's why it's Salt Pump Climbing Company and not Salt Pump Climbing Gym.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I will probably never forget Salt Pump Climbing. So you have done your job effectively.

Taki Miyamoto:

Great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tino, what is a root setter?

Tino Fuimara:

When you go into a climbing gym or any type of indoor climbing facility, you see holes all over the walls. And many people think that they're there just scattered about so that we can scale them. And really, they're kind of intricately designed routes, courses. And in a way to follow that, we actually set monochromatically. So you follow a certain color up. And per the terrain that you're climbing, you can have a different style, different difficulty, a different feel. And you're creating all these different experiences all on the Wall. So I kind of, I'm an experience creator.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did you get to be experienced in this and what's the skill set necessary?

Tino Fuimara:

A lot of movement. It's 20 years of climbing in different places across the world and lots of different types of stone. And then on the inside aspect, thinking about your entire possible client population, from 2 year olds to 80 year olds, and body styles and morphologies, tall people, short people, how you can make something accessible to everybody, fun for everybody, yet also kind of true to grade and true to a certain sense of, you know, as we understand climbing to be from outdoors.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tino, I'm interested in your background because you've done a lot of different things actually both of you have done a lot of different things. As I'm looking through, looking through your background information. But you've climbed kind of consistently in your life, correct? Is that a thing? Once people start climbing, do they, do they just keep doing it because they can't stop for some reason?

Tino Fuimara:

Yeah. And it actually fits very well with why salt pump is not just a climbing gym. Climbing is a lifestyle and there's from the kids that come into it to like I was mentioning the 80 year olds who they're there regularly and you have these multi generational populations interacting enthusiastically about the exact same thing. And that's one of the more beautiful things about climbing is that cross generational approach. As well as you can do it indoors together, you can do it for fitness, you can do it for relaxation and then you can travel the world because there's really no place in the world that doesn't have some form of climbable stone.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How about you, Taki? You went to Bates, that's I believe one of your initial connectors with Maine. But then you practice as an attorney both in New York and also in Tokyo.

Taki Miyamoto:

Yep, that's right. Climbing has always been a constant since I started at Cellpah. We like to say that climbing can enrich our lives and the culture can make the world a better place. So I think once people start climbing, they see a lot of parallels, usefulness in their daily lives and they make climbing, they try to make climbing a central part of their everyday life. Whether it's just knowing people who climb a lot. So they come together at salt pump or go outside on the weekends or whenever. Once you get hooked in sort of not just the act of climbing, but in the culture of it and making your relationships, your whole life starts to revolve around climbing. So for me personally that's always been the case. It's Been a constant part. Whether it's just sort of centering myself at the end or beginning of the day, thinking about things to look forward to, sort of thinking about. When I think about traveling, more or less to the chagrin of some of my friends and probably my wife, it's always been around climbing.

[Unidentified voice]:

So

Taki Miyamoto:

it helps me get through everyday

Tino Fuimara:

life,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

help me through the transition from attorney to general manager. Climbing company.

Taki Miyamoto:

Yeah. So I started climbing at Bates, and then after that I was working for the National Outdoor Leadership School or Knowles for a few years. And then at some point I always wanted to be an attorney, in part because I always wanted to do something that involved Japan, which is where my family is still. So especially as they grow older, thankfully they're still healthy, but say they were to get unhealthy, I need to somehow be near them and they're not moving here. So I need to move back to Japan. So thinking about those issues is what got me thinking about law school and then wanting to do something conservation oriented. At the end of the day, law school allowed me to do something involving Japan. So I worked in Tokyo for a while. But at the same time I was in a relationship with my current wife. Now who's a Mainer, she's a soil scientist, she's not a city person. So we needed to figure out a place to live together. And through this whole 10, 15 years of dating, we were always in a long distance relationship. And when we would talk about work and we finally lived together, the choices were pretty limited. But where we knew for sure that would potentially work was Maine. So that's when I started getting thinking about trying to make a living here. And one idea that I've been sort of nurturing since pretty much the first time I was in a climbing gym was to open my own climbing gym. And so that brought me back to Maine. And that's sort of how it ties all together. The experience I had as an attorney, which was a more business transaction related attorney, helped me gain the necessary experience to open and to a certain extent manage a climbing gym. So that's all how it kind of ties together.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm seeing more and more that people need to exercise many different aspects of their personalities, that you can't just be an intellectual, you also have to exercise your physical nature. And more and more people are comfortable with saying, yeah, I am a complex individual. I can't go and pick one straight path and do that for the rest of my life. Do you see people coming into the. Into salt pump? I don't Want to call it a climbing gym, because you don't want to call it a climbing gym who are kind of. Who are like that, who are multifactorial, who are. Who are liking the intellectual aspects of their lives, but also emotionally, socially, they have needs they know they need to meet. And physically, obviously, yeah, it's a beautiful thing.

Taki Miyamoto:

And I'll let Tino answer this too, from his experience. But the great thing about Salt Pump, and I think a lot of sort of places where people gather is, and especially a place like saltpump, is that once you're in the facility or once you. You sort of come together as a group, your social status, your professional background, whether you're a student, you're a doctor, whoever, it sort of becomes an equalizer. The act of climbing becomes an equalizer. So for people to have that outlet is where we think we can. We're more than just a climbing gym fitness facility. It's sort of. It's a happy place for everyone. We had a girl who came in who's been coming pretty much since day one, and she had to write an essay at school about where's your happy place? And she kindly wrote that it was Salt pump. And so that's sort of what we're aspiring to be in terms of sort of the feel of the place. So hopefully people are able to express something they're not able to express either in their professional life or more of their genuine self, their genuinely happy self. And then, of course, there's always. You don't have to be social. People can come in there just to sort of reset their lives. I'm sure everyone has stresses and busyness in their lives, and they come just to be themselves or have a quiet moment. A lot of people come in and we say, how's your day going? And they say, oh, it's better now that I'm here. So that kind of stuff makes our what we're doing worth what we're doing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tino, you also have a business background and you are the editor at large for the Climbing Business Journal.

Tino Fuimara:

Correct.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you also worked as a carpenter on Orr's island, back a ways. So you have this. The same sort of multifaceted aspect to your personality. Do you feel like that helps you when you're working with the people who come into Salt Pump so that you can relate to what they're doing?

Tino Fuimara:

Yes, to, you know. You know, you're we. You're climbing partners in a sense, and be them clients or regulars or members. They're people that you climb with. And you share something with everyone you climb with because of it's a shared experience and be it a whatever walk of life somebody comes from, you're all there to share a good time, to learn and to challenge yourself. And the multifaceted background does help with that. You get to communicate with a lot of people in everyone's own unique way because everyone communicates differently. And it's kind of one of the wonderful things about salt pump and climbing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have been only once climbing because I, I still am dealing with a fear of heights. But the one time that I did go climbing as a college student, I was struck by this sense that everybody really did need to work together and everybody did need to pay attention and that you went up and somebody was always there beneath and in my case above. And that was interesting because I think we live in a culture where sometimes you can get very self centered and sometimes you feel as if, if there really isn't anybody who's kind of down at the bottom waiting for you.

Taki Miyamoto:

Yeah, you can't be on a cell phone, on a phone when you're climbing, which is I think, a good thing. It's so hard to get people's attention these days when you're at some. I rarely see people on the phone. So in that sense, people are paying attention to what you're doing, you're paying attention to what other people are doing and you're also paying attention to yourself. So in that way it's a good way to get in tune with yourself again. So I think people probably are attracted to that aspect of climbing.

Tino Fuimara:

People disconnect from social media and they connect with each other. Just because you look out for each other like you would like to be looked out for. And that's whether or not you're belaying for somebody or spotting somebody or even just watching somebody climb to learn a sequence and just paying attention to them in a sense.

Taki Miyamoto:

We try to. Our staff, myself included, try to be encouraging too. So not just staring at people, but you'll hear multilingual encouragement going on. In Japanese, that's gumba. So we try to say gumba a lot. And I hear people saying that, which is great. And then forzo being Italian, because Tino here is fluent in Italian, we try to get a few other languages in there. So in that sense it's not just paying attention, but also sort of being supportive of each other. And that I think is starting to. We've only been open for seven months, but that sort of encouraging, happy culture is starting to permeate through not just the staff, but then everyone else who comes.

Tino Fuimara:

There's actually even a two year old who's coming to the gym who has learned the vernacular. And when mom or dad climbing on the mall, we'll say gamba. It's great.

Taki Miyamoto:

Yeah, it's hilarious. She just picked that up. I guess the story is she was. She's been climbing at Salt Pump for a little bit as a two year old, Ken. And she went home, they went home for Christmas. They were opening presents, someone was struggling to open their presents. And all of a sudden she started saying gamba, Gamba. And Gamba means you got it, you can do it. It's just an encouraging word that people use in Japanese. So you hear that if you go climbing with Japanese people, you'll hear that a lot.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And forza, is that like strong or correct?

Tino Fuimara:

Yeah, as in like, you know, be strong, you can do it. There's connotation to it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've seen more climbing facilities in the past, I want to say 20 years or so prior to that. I don't remember there being a lot of. Except maybe an isolated climbing wall. I don't remember there being a lot of facilities like that in the state of Maine. And what is it that you attribute that to? Why has it become more popular lately?

Tino Fuimara:

It's become more of a business in the last few years as we watch industry stats pick up in the growth of the industry. But the first, might you say, recorded climbing gym in the US was I believe in 1987 out in Seattle for Vertical World. And it's just slowly grown, but it's people like Taki from one course of life who wanted to bring more climbing into the world. And they took their expertise and they took that energy and put it into a climbing environment. And it's slowly grown. And we're, I think in the US we're almost around 370 gyms. Every state has a gym now. But we're still behind Europe in that sense where it's just that much more regular, like a soccer facility, you know, climbing because of the multi generational aspect of just the, the fun that you're not on a bike or on a treadmill, that you're applying yourself. And it's mental problem solving and elation when you get through something and shared experience and you know, all these things make for an incredible experience that. I think one of the hardest things the industry faced at some point, probably about 15 years ago, especially in Mass, was people looked at climbing like an amusement. You know, oh, climb, ride. And that had to be monitored in a legal sense. But it's because it's not that. It's just, it's its own thing. It's a sport, it's a lifestyle, it's an experience. And as this has gotten more popular because of the true aspects of it, the empowerment cycle to it, the, you know, challenge by choice, you can tailor your sessions. You know, you don't look at each single time you go climbing like, well, I didn't hit that mile per hour or something. It's, it's its own thing and that, it's just, it's an incredible experience that people want to share. And so it has grown and right now, you know, climbing gyms are on the, the rise. But Maine I think was about 15 plus years ago when the first gym opened and really 4,000 square feet or so has serviced the entire state of Maine out of Portland for that entire time. And now there's, you know, there's two and many states, I mean, Boston has almost six or so and it's growing

Taki Miyamoto:

and it's still not mainstream by any means. It's great that Maine Magazine or main, Maine Radio recognizes that were out there. But for example, it's still not an Olympic sport. It will be for Tokyo in Japan. It's going to be not a full sport, but it'll be a spectator sport. So they're going to be, there's going to be climbing in the Olympics. In Europe they have, almost all high schools have their own climbing team. That's not the case here in the US if you look at stats of how many people are participating in more mainstream sports like soccer, baseball, all that sort of, we're far, far behind. So I hope there are more climbing gyms that come to Maine that come all over the US and people are climbing more, make it more and more part of their daily life. And it's not just indoors climbing. Indoor climbing is in and in itself, but there's also a lot of areas where you can take it to, especially in the U.S. especially in New England. So the world is, the world of climbing is pretty, pretty big. And I don't think people are aware of it. You know, what you see on mainstream media is usually people doing a little bit scary things, which is fine, but there's a lot more to it than just scary things. There are plenty of ways to manage the risk. And so we hope that it continues. I think we're just sort of at the baby stages of climbing in the

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

U.S. well, that led into a question that's probably obvious. To both of you. And that is with movies like Everest where you see that people do this extreme climb and then don't survive. How does that impact climbing facilities or the public perception of climbing?

Taki Miyamoto:

The public perception, I'm not sure what it is. I'm sure there's so many versions of that. But at the end of the day, when people come into Salt Pump, we try to explain that there are various ways of managing the risk. You're always going to be taking on risk just as you are when you're driving or doing anything else in life. You're always taking on some kind of risk, but with seat belts, similar thing. We manage that risk and that's what we try to impart into people. So when you see people who are doing Everest or who are doing climbing walls without ropes, all this sort of stuff, I like people to think that those aren't people who are taking extreme risks. But from their perspective, they are managing that risk. Whether it's watching the weather correctly, watching the rock, watching their physical ability, their mental health, their spiritual health. So they're all managing that risk. Risk similar to whatever you're doing in your daily life. Or the statistics are that there are a lot of other sports that are much more dangerous than climbing. There are a lot of other activities that are inherently riskier than climbing. So we like people to think that, okay, it does look risky, there are a lot of dangers involved, but there are ways to manage the risk. And where do I learn that? Either from friends or come to Salt Pump and we'll impart that knowledge.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You mentioned that travel is often centered around climbing. What are some of your favorite places to travel to? And more importantly, what are some of your favorite places in Maine?

Tino Fuimara:

One of my favorite places would probably be Sardinia, just off the west coast of Italy, for culture, for stone, for that life. And in a way, almost some of the rural characteristics personify well here in Maine. And it's hard. My wife and I just moved back to Maine over the summer and we moved back because it's got a bit of everything. You have seasons, you've got great people, you have mountains, you have coast, you have places where there are no people. There's so many wonderful things that drew us here and in essence that was our choice. We lived in a couple places and Maine has it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And does Maine have places to climb outside?

Tino Fuimara:

Maine has fantastic stone. And from a longtime climbers perspective, there's a lot of stone in Maine that hasn't been found in bin climbs. And it's not that you're looking to conquest. You're just looking for new experience and perhaps, you know, help open new things to more people and have good land management and good practices and just be able to create more experiences.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Taki, do you have favorite places that you climb in Maine?

Taki Miyamoto:

I do. One of the favorite. My favorite places is a place called Shag Crag. It's on Shag Pond near Woodstock, Maine, so just north of South Paris. It's. It's gorgeous. In part, our. Some of our climbing terrain at Saltpump is inspired by that. That piece of rock there. It's a unique stone, it's granite, it's overhanging. So it's just where I love to go. It's hard to describe exactly our love. It's sort of like anyway and then. But in terms of other areas in Maine, Acadia is a world class destination. There's a lot of climbing that goes on there and the setting is hard to beat right on the coast. So that's probably Maine's world class destination for rock climbing.

Tino Fuimara:

And even though Maine has a lot of granite, you have this kind of pink Conway granite. A lot of the stuff in the mountains is a metamorphic granite. So even though it's granite, it looks completely different and thus it climbs different and has a different aesthetic. You can have all that variation all within the same place.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So given that I have admitted that I have this fear of heights, how would you work with somebody like me? Because I can't be the first person that you have come across that has said, hey, I'd like to have a rock climb, but I don't really want to get up in the air where there's stuff, there's nothing underneath me.

Taki Miyamoto:

Sure, I have a fear of heights. And my fear of heights is this isn't too bad. But say this is in the second floor isn't too bad. But say in New York they have these buildings that are 70, 80 stories high with big windows. That scares me a lot. I cannot go close to that window because I have no idea whether this window is secure. Same thing with climbing. If I'm not tied into something or if I don't know how I got up there, it scares me. If I drop something and I feel the height, it scares me. So what helps, I think, with people who have a fear of heights is to know how you got there, where you are and what the risk is. So if you were to fall, what's going to happen? To have that knowledge, I think is first step in quote unquote, conquering your fear of heights.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me how people find out about Salt pump climbing.

Tino Fuimara:

They can, you know, just like you saw it driving by, you know, a lot of people have stopped in and they've driven the hagus for a while and never seen, you know, a building there. Now it's lit up at night with large windows and super colorful. A lot of times, most of our marketing has happened, really word of mouth, which has been fantastic. People enjoy the experience. They love it, they share it. And we hear that through day in and day out through clients. Then saltpumpclimbing.com on the web, we have a Facebook page. People definitely find us through those sources. But most of it is word of mouth. And it's amazing coming from areas that with larger urban gyms where people do search you out through normal marketing means that to be recommended from a friend is the best form of advertising we could ask for. And with that, we actually get to share the experience with more people because a lot of people who get it recommended to aren't climbers. And so we have this incredible population of people who their first time climbing was at Salt Pump and they have grown into their own in climbing at salt pump, even just in seven months, you know, watching people kind of blossom in that capacity and, you know, to share that experience is. We're psyched that people are, you know, consider us that close to them to share that.

Taki Miyamoto:

Have we been able to convince you to come to saltpump?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think so.

Taki Miyamoto:

Good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, we'll see. I have to not think too much about this. Someday I'll just have to, like, drive over and not.

Taki Miyamoto:

Yep.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But it sounds like what you're doing is pretty great. So I'm. And I actually really enjoyed the one time I went climbing to get to the top. And knowing how I felt about heights, it really is. There is some sense of empowerment to sort of push through something that doesn't feel that comfortable. We've been speaking with Taki Miyamoto, his partner and general manager at Salt pump Climbing, and Tino Fuyumara, who is the head root setter and assistant program director at Salt pump Climbing. Thanks so much for coming in and I hope people will check out your facility and see what you have to offer.

Taki Miyamoto:

Thank you, Lisa.

Tino Fuimara:

Thank you. We look forward to seeing you there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 236, adventuring up and outdoors. Our guests have included Holly Twining, Taki Miyamoto and Tino Fuyumara. Follow me on Twitter as DrLisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Adventuring up and outdoors show. Thank you for allowing me to be

Holly Twining:

a part of your day.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's really fun to have people in the studio with me who I just I just like as human beings and who are also my friends but also I know them to be pretty high quality community movers and shakers. And I think this individual, you will listen to her and you'll understand why I feel so strongly about her. This is Emma Wilson. She is a managing director of Art Collector Maine and also fellow Yarmouthian. I don't know that that's actually a word, but citizen of Yarmouth. Of course it is. Thanks for coming in Emma.

[Unidentified voice]:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So Emma, you and I have known each other for quite a while and I've always been interested in your background and how you came to be doing the work that you're doing with Art Collector Main. Because you've done a lot of other things, social work, you've worked within the psychiatric field, you've moved around a lot as a military spouse. Walk me through the process of how it is that you came to be the managing director at Art Collector Main.

[Unidentified voice]:

That's a great question. So I think that the so where do I start my journey as you referenced, you know, definitely starting in the social work field and Then moving around the country quite a bit, you know, through a period of time over the course of 12 years. And when living in almost every part of the region and really always valuing my work with kids and with youth and children and their families. But then when I was living in the south, in the Bible Belt, I got sort of reconnected with the arts in a way that was very important to me, was going back into the work field after having three young children and being with them. And the arts were just always a place where it felt safe. I felt comfortable. I felt like there were people that were interested in having dialogue about things that were relevant and meaningful in their life that I agreed with or disagreed with, it didn't matter. And actually have family members who are artists and living, supporting artists. So I came to Maine and became very involved with the Portland Museum of Art, worked there, was part of their docent program, and it felt really good, but then was starting to miss the teenager population and sort of. And then it was offered an opportunity to do development work with Wayfinder Schools, which is a wonderful program that works with teen parents and kids at really high risk of not completing high school. So I found a lot of pleasure and satisfaction with working with them and also became more and more involved with the broader community of donors at that time. And just through the experience and being In Maine since 2007, everybody's connected, and it just constantly amazes me how that happens. And through having a conversation with Kevin Thomas, became aware of an opportunity around returning to work within the arts, but also be able to continue to work with. Making furthering connections and supporting the arts felt like a really good opportunity and a good fit in that moment in time. So that happened last August. And so that's where I am.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Emma, you're from New Jersey originally.

[Unidentified voice]:

I am Jersey girl.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You went to college in New York State. Your education was in social work. Why did you decide to do that?

[Unidentified voice]:

So I went to BU for social work. My undergrad degree was in sociology. Certainly relationships and connections were always, you know, connecting with people were always interesting to me how people, you know, think work together. Social work was a more interesting field for me because to me, it was all about systems working together and sort of strengthening the individual. And so how those systems work together was more in line with the way that I seemed to practice. And so that's how I decided to go to social work school and then from there worked in a psychiatric community and in the education systems as well. So that was why.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you started your education in New York State doing sociology as an undergraduate. And that worked its way into a desire to do some work in the social work field. It's not an easy field.

[Unidentified voice]:

No, it's not. There's a lot of challenges that are prevalent in our society still, and that were there then, and so. But I really am drawn to trying to help when I can, try to become civically engaged and really wanting to participate and not just watch it happening around me, but wanting to participate. So that is definitely what compelled me, I think, to stay with it. People are amazing. They have amazing stories. They're just so. It's just an honor and a privilege when you get to know somebody's person, you know, to know their life. So that was.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Was there anything in your family that any sort of. You said you have artists in your family.

[Unidentified voice]:

I have artists in my family, sir. Yeah. I come from the most dysfunctional family in the universe. But, no, I definitely have. And you can leave that on the tape. We all know it. So, no, it's not the most dysfunctional, but we definitely. I had an interesting upbringing. I'm one of four girls. My parents split when I was in third grade. They finally divorced when I was in ninth. There was a lot of. A lot of challenges that we encountered during that time period. So I think that certainly there were people in my life that were very helpful. It wasn't formal as a therapist or whatever it might be, but it was a youth group or a teacher or some adults in my life that were making sure that I knew that I was cared about. My parents, of course, as well, to the best of their ability. But I think that certainly influenced me, wanting to be able to be an adult in another person's life, to be able to show them that they care about them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's interesting, as I asked that question, I was thinking she's gonna say, like, all my siblings were social workers. I've never had anybody say, I have the most dysfunctional family in the world.

[Unidentified voice]:

That's a strong statement. I shouldn't retract that. But, no, my sisters and I, interestingly, one's an artist, one's a lawyer, one's a journalist and a social worker. So it's just. We're an interesting combination. So.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, well. And actually, I think the fact that you can say that we're dysfunctional, but you seem to still have a lot of love for them, and I know that you're very close to them.

[Unidentified voice]:

Oh, absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I like the fact that it doesn't have to stand as being negative. And rooted in some sort of dysfunction.

[Unidentified voice]:

It really doesn't. It doesn't. And we all have, you know, I always, I've said it already once today, but, you know, we all have these stories, and I think that in order to embrace it and the more that I tried to push away from my story and who, the further away I became from who I am. And it just, I don't think in the end that that's necessarily the way that I'm the most healthy, you know, that where I'm, you know, in my best.