Welcome to the tribe: Brocchi sui Blocchi

The story of how an odd group of climbing friends
grew to form a huge online community

When Wild Country asked us to join their Tribe, we stopped for a second and did some research on this term. This word used to be used to describe Native Americans’ social structures and indigenous societies around the world. To us, Tribe also means connection with the earth and its elements. It also means a society based on sharing and helping each other.

Tribe: in anthropology, a notional form of human social organization based on a set of smaller groups, having temporary or permanent political integration, and defined by traditions of common descent, language, culture, and ideology.

We, ten climbing friends immediately recognized ourselves in this definition. This is what we are: an autonomous aggregation, ten friends, disconnected from everything but at the same time united by the same passion. We all speak the same language: a language called climbing. Through this language we talk about topics such as ecology and feminism, but above all we talk about sharing and enjoying our moments without competing with others. We fill climbing gyms in winter and move outdoors to explore the world when the conditions allow us to. We're half nomads and half sedentary people.

However, who exactly are these ten natives that form our tribe "Brocchi sui Blocchi"?

Amedeo Cavalleri, the mastermind behind all of it, the one who writes posts and answers comments, sous chef, political science student, with a passion for writing, communication and of course climbing. With him we have Davide Borgogno, outgoing, exuberant, sometimes he's almost troublesome, graduated in medicine with the highest marks. Cristian Pilotti and Alessandro Dovano are medicine students as well, they like long alpine routes and ice climbing, but sometimes they can be seen at the crag after exams. On the other hand, Tommaso Meccia is a hardcore boulderer, he says he's studying "physical education and sports" but in reality he is either outside bouldering or indoor training on his moonboard. Giorgio Corato is the one with dreadlocks: he climbs indistinctly on boulders, long routes and trees, yes you got that right, Trees! He is in fact a gardener, specialized in tree-climbing. We also have a couple of engineers: the all rounder Marco Turra, master's degree in environmental engineering, climber and frontman of his band "Shapeless Void". Dario Cressoni instead is just one step away from his degree in computer engineering, he is currently enjoying some boulders while he decides what to do with his life, trying to find some mental serenity in order to go back to the crag and climb some routes. Finally in the "Brocchi" tribe, like in every good story, there is also some space for love: Elisa Calabrese and Daniel Bulgarini. He is studying for his master's degree in Energetic engineering, while she just started a bachelor's degree in "Languages and cultures for commerce" Daniel is a long time standing "Brocco", while Elisa has been stolen from European bouldering competitions, and introduced to "Brocchismo". Now, some years later, she is still the fittest one.

We all met in the gym, struggling on the same boulders, helping each other, sharing success and failure, and finally found ourselves united in a "whatsapp" chat group where we organized outside bouldering days. After that through our social media, we started telling people about us, our adventures, our average climber's fears and insecurities. This way we gained popularity and built the biggest online community of Italian climbers. 

So here we are, ten natives, each one with his stories and passions, united we form one of the weirdest climbing tribes; We're not mighty and victorious warriors, we would rather say that we are one of those groups that you would sit around the bonfire with, dancing and telling stories. 

History has taught us that in order to get stronger and survive adversities, every tribe needs to form some alliances. Some proud people like us "Brocchi sui Blocchi", can't ally with some random guys. We need to make sure that our group, our ideals, our rituals and our culture stay strong. So, gathered in a tipi tent ( maybe it wasn't exactly like this, but let's pretend it was), we "Brocchi" and Wild Country established the basis for a cohabitation of our tribes, making sure that it was held together by noble principles.

 

A Tribe needs some ground to stand on in order to feel connected with the land, the plants and rocks. Environmentalism in fact, is something we firmly believe in, a path we want to follow all together in order to learn and grow. Even in this case, we are not satisfied with having some support, we want to have an ally that is willing to walk in the same direction, towards a brighter future for us and for our planet.

Tribe means sharing, community, exchange and improving together: Climbing is our way to unite and not divide, an individual sport that you live in a group, where everyone is trying to test their limits while being helpful to others and never being an obstacle. Building a proactive community where everyone is helpful and inspirational has always been our goal, a goal that we are happy to share with Wild Country.

This said, we are happy that our "Brocchi" tribe can join a bigger one, the Wild Country tribe: ready to set new projects, imagine, build and most of all have fun.
To sum it up, just trust us: if the company that invented Friends and a group of boulderers decide to unite, something good is going to happen!