Sumo
28 Mar 2005 |Yesterday, Azusa and I were lucky enough to see the final day of the Osaka sumo tournament! Ah, yes… Sumo. I’m sure you all have strong mental images of sumo… It’s a sport where two fat guys push each other around, right? I might have had the same image a week ago, but I learned a great deal about sumo during the tournament. Now I know that sumo is much, much more than that. Anyways, I have to thank my friend, and fellow ALT, Richard Weld III for teaching us about sumo. He actually got our tickets for us and we all sat in the same box. Richard is a bit of a sumo expert and I’ve asked him to be Japanamac’s first ever guest writer. Just click the link that says, “more” and you can read Richard’s excellent essay on Sumo.
As promised, here is Richard’s essay:
Despite the rise in popularity of baseball and soccer, sumo wrestling has long held the title as Japan’s unofficial national sport. Its origins can be traced back over 2000 years and it even exists in one of the Japanese creation myths. For centuries, unofficial tournaments were held at religious festivals in a dirt ring in the courtyard of a temple or shrine.
It wasn’t until the royalty got involved that the concept of “professional” sumo came to be. From sponsorship to organizations and pageantry, sumo developed its traditions over centuries. The one thing that did not develop much was the rules.
There is an art movement called “Japanese minimalism” in which the artist does just as little as is necessary to convey the picture and the feeling of the piece. Sumo is the sport equivalent. There are two men wearing loincloths in a ring. No balls, hoops, points, timers or teams. The first man to leave the ring or touch the ground with anything other than the soles of his feet, loses.
To keep the match civilized, there are a grand total of 10 rules including no punching and no hair pulling. While it may sound as if this is a no-holds-barred event, the martial art judo actually derived from the 70 recognized grapples and throws used in sumo. Sumo is a game of skill, not just mass.That is, perhaps, where sumo is the most maligned. From a distance, an individual sumo wrestler looks obese. One of the benefits of attending a tournament is to see them up close. While they may weigh in at 400 pounds, successful sumo wrestlers are extremely muscular… yet somehow still obese.
Their training regimen begins at 4:00 in the morning in the dojo and continues until around 9:00, at which point they break for a 5000-calorie breakfast. After that they take a nap so that their body will store a large portion of those calories as fat. In the afternoon, they have more training, including lots of time in a very modern weight room. They work hard to make their limited wrestling time count.
There are six official tournaments a year and each tournament is 15 days long. The wrestlers are divided into tiers. Lower-tier wrestlers fight on 7 days of the tournament. Four wins earn them a promotion. Higher-tier wrestlers fight once per day and need 8 wins to be promoted. Two losing tournaments in a row (7-8 or lower) results in a demotion. Obviously, when you watch two men at 7-7 wrestle on the last day of the tournament, excitement runs high.
Excitement also stays high, because the matches are so short. When the sumo first enter the ring, they perform a brief series of rituals (including one to show that they come to the ring empty-handed) and then are given 4 minutes to take their marks. These minutes are spent in a staring and posturing contest, where both men attempt to size up and psyche out their opponent.
At a signal from the referee, the men take their marks for the final time. Slowly, they lower their knuckles to the ground, first one, then the other. When three fists are on the floor, it’s go time. They rise up, charge and attempt to either throw the other man down, shove him out, or grapple with him.From the rise to the end of a match, sumo is one of the fastest sports. You wouldn’t think a 450-pound man could move as fast as these men do, but they practice for months between tournaments. An average sumo match is 4 minutes of posing and 30 seconds of wrestling. It’s great for people with short attention spans.
-Richard Weld III
Thanks again to Richard Weld III for writing this nice essay for Japanamac. Hope you learned something interesting! If you still hunger for more sumo information, you can check out Nihon Sumo Kyokai for additional information, stats and ticket information. It’s the official sumo homepage and it’s in English!
April 10th, 2005 at 7:29 am
Hey, sorry about write here, in true I want to write in the post about cellphone 802SE Sony Ericsson but the comment form is closed.
I am living in Japan too and have a 802SE and a Macintosh but I can not use iSync to synchronize my contacts.
Can you? Please contact me.
Thank you
Renato Nitta