“I’m actually pretty clumsy,” says Ashima Shiraishi, “I’ll always drop things like my pencil case or folders at school.”
This isn’t exactly what you expect to hear from someone who had just finished a record-breaking climb. In April, she became the youngest person and first female climber to complete the V15 climb on Japan’s Mt. Hiei. The V scale is a difficulty measurement for bouldering, and it stops at V16. Shiraishi isn’t just the youngest person and first female climber to make that particular V15, but any climb with that rank.
A little over a week later she turned 15.
Shiraishi has been making news for years now, showing up in TIME, The New Yorker and the New York Times as she conquered climbs that few humans had managed before her. Yet for all this she’s avoided getting a big head, like when she quickly corrected me when I called her one of the best climbers in the world: “I have so many things to work on. Like when it comes to technique I’m pretty good, but I need to work on power and I’m so short it’s really hard for me to reach some climbing holds. So big moves that need momentum are hard for me.”
Since she’s a full-time student, most of her climbing adventures happen while on break, and training is a five-day-a-week, after-school affair. Otherwise her days are pretty normal: lunch in the school cafeteria, baking banana bread at home. “I just love to eat a lot so I got interested in trying to bake banana bread so I can use my own healthier ingredients. I’ve been finding healthy version of cinnamon rolls, cheesecake, zucchini bread, birthday cakes for my parents.”
At home, Shiraishi’s family eats mainly Japanese dishes—like okonomiyaki, which is halfway between a crepe and an omelette—and leans more heavily on seafood than meat. But generally, Shiraishi has a pretty laid-back attitude toward food with one exception: no food before a climb: “I hate the feeling like I ate a lot and my stomach is all over the place. I usually eat more right after the climb to get energy back.”
It’s an understatement that Shiraishi has already accomplished a lot and has a promising career ahead of her. With the potential to be rock-climbing’s first breakout star, she could take on almost any challenge including (please, please let this happen) American Ninja Warrior.
“Honestly,” she says, “I have a lot of friends who competed in Ninja Warrior and I’m really interested in it. My friends have done pretty well. Do you know Isaac Caldiero? He’s a friend of mine who used to climb a lot and he won.”
Breakfast
Toast with peanut butter and honey
Lunch
Pasta with marinara, zucchini
Snacks
Almonds, pistachios
Chocolate Hazelnut CLIF Nut Butter Filled Energy Bar
Dinner
Gyoza, rice, okonomiyaki
