Sumo
A had the opportunity last Monday to witness the clash of titans that is Japan`s national sport. One of my students, an atypical Japanese lady with very conservative dress and long purple and pink hair, took myself and Andrew my fellow English teacher to Ryogoku last Monday where the current Sumo tournament is being held. I`ve found that going with Japanese people to these things is generally a superior experience since they can explain what`s going on and we had killer seats as well, front row of the balcony.Sumo cannot really be compared to any other sport. The skills involved are not unlike those hulking men who battle on the line in American and Canadian football. The object is to get the opponent out of the ring or have them touch the ground with anything other than their feet. Tactics include locking arms and man-handling the other out, rapid consecutive pushing/slapping in the chest/face, twisting the body of your opponent so they lose balance and fall over or amazingly, deftly dodging a tackle allowing the opponent`s monstrous momentum to carry him to the ground or out. Some matches lasted upwards of 2 minutes, but it wasn`t uncommon for the match to end within a few seconds. Because of this, my friend Andrew happened to comment "It'd be great if they had a screen with instant replay." So our host Kayoko pulled out her cellphone, flipped the screen around backwards and turned on the Sumo coverage as if it was nothing. So we had our instant replays.
What sets it apart from other sports is the ceremony involved. The wrestlers enter the ring and perform a small dance, the referee is in elaborate costume and yells a lot during the match, each wrestler is announced by a singer who chants their name in a style similar to an Imam calling muslims to prayer in the middle east. Before the pair fight, they face each other and the audience and do the stomping/stretching that Sumo is known for. Those who are high-ranking wrestlers do more ritual than the younger ones. In the top flight, the wrestlers will face each other 5 times and then return to their corner, tossing salt into the ring upon their return for purification purposes, before they engage each other. It kind of reminded me of a pitcher in baseball throwing the ball to first to keep the runner on base, then signaling to the catcher, then the batter takes a step back to stretch and knock the sand from his shoes... etc.
It was a really fun day and it was obviously something I had to do while I was here. I was amazed at the athleticism of these men despite their massive size and apparently soft bodies (to cushion their fall on the concrete ring which is covered in a thin layer of sand) but also the elaborate ritual. A few last comments. Before the end matches, sponsors sent young boys to carry advertisement banners for one lap around the ring. Each is worth 60000 yen or $600. The winner of the match that follows wins the cash. So for 3 banners, the winner gets $1800. Because we were mid-tournament there weren`t as many (8-9 at most) but on the final day in the Yokozuna fight (a match against the permanent champion done last) in excess of $100,000 is put on the line. For a match than can be won in an instant, its a lot of frickin` pressure. A second interesting note is that back in the day, if the head referee in the ring made a wrong decision without consulting the secondary judges who surround the ring and his decision was overruled by said judges, he was obligated to ritually disembowel himself, an old samurai practice called seppeku. Sheesh, and we think refs have a hard time in say soccer or hockey... That wasn`t hooking! Puck to the face!
Anyhow, I digress. In sum, it was wicked cool.
posted by M. Sullivan @ 9:44 PM
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