Arguably the most essential step in smoking a pipe is making sure to pack the bowl right.
It’s a balancing act of sorts — if you put in too much weed or overpack the bowl, you won’t be able to pull much air and you may end up wasting good weed. If you put too little marijuana in the bowl, you won’t get enough to smoke and even worse — it can quickly be sucked down into the hole at the bottom of the pipe and then back into your throat.