10-07-06 Saturday (Part 1) "Saturday Morning Sumo Wrestling"

SATURDAY, Oct 7, 2006 “Saturday Morning Sumo Wrestling”

Sumo is an ancient sport dating back about 1500 years. In fact, according to a Japanese legend the entire beginning to the Japanese race depended on the outcome of a sumo wrestling match. The supremacy of the Japanese people on the islands of Japan was supposedly established when the god, Take-mikazuchi, won a sumo bout with the leader of a rival tribe. The Japanese then had free rights to the islands known as The Rising Sun.

Sumo wrestling is all about tradition, honor and respect and even has religious roots. Early sumo matches were a form of ritual dedicated to the gods with prayers requesting a rich and bountiful harvest. This much like the evolution of Greek theater praising the god of harvest and wine Dionysus. Both in fact were performed together with sacred dancing and dramas within the precincts of the shrines and temples.

Professional sumo groups were later bastardized and created as businesses to entertain the vastly expanding lower class. It is then that sumo came into its own as the national sport of Japan. The present Japan Sumo Association (JSA) has its origins in these groups that were first formed in the Edo Period back some 400 years or so ago.

As my independent study day, the only real “free day” we were given in our busy schedule by the well-organized itinerary of the JFMF experience, I wished to see sumo wrestlers of the Japan Sumo Association in action.

It has once been said that news travels like brushfire. By mentioning my plan for Saturday morning to one or two people, suddenly it seemed like EVERYONE wanted to tag along on my Mecca. This alone would have been fine, but I was afraid some were interested in part, for nostalgic reasons, and perhaps a good laugh.

It felt like we had accidentally leaked out to seemingly the entire group that we were going to go check out the Sumo situation in east Tokyo. And that this leak could jeopardize the visit.



Knowing that even though sumo is out of season in October, I knew that there had to be a handful of sumo gyms that continue to train (and feed) their wrestlers to help them stay in shape for the next season of competition. So after some talk with the consieere, I was able to locate one gym that would allow me (and “a few guests”) to attend a training session.

The hotel was able to get us a free visit to The Kokonoe Beya Sumo Dojo in the Kinshicho-ku. (Putting “Ku” at the end of a metropolitan area means “ward” or “section”.) While Kinshichu was not the world famous Ryogoku, home place of all major sumo events, it was in fact very nearby.

The only condition was exactly what any fighting facility would request: that my guests and I stay respectful and silent during the meet, so as not to distract the fighters from their workout.

As the days went by in Tokyo, many of the JMF'ers would ask “so what are you doing on your independent study day?” After my response, randomly many said they wished to come along and would seek further discussion from the consieere. This worried me a bit, as I pictured enormous groups showing up at the foot of the gym and being turned away.

Never-the-less and hoping for the best, Kip, Jenny and myself decided to school ourselves in the art of Sumo so we got up at the giant butt-crack of dawn to go check out a sumo dojo (training facility) in Kinshicho, about a few stops away from “Sumo City” in Ryogoku and on a different metro line.

Worrying about others destroying my independent study day was not entirely widespread. If any one else from the Arao group wanted to tag along, at this point I would have encouraged it. We are for the most part bonding and becoming good friends under the common prefectural banner of Kumamoto.

At 5:50 AM in the tower lobby of The New Otani Tokyo Hotel, we literally met in the land of the rising sun, under the rising sun. There was another group of about five there who said they were now going to see the same sumo wrestlers that we were.

Because there had been a number of people telling me the different times that they were heading over, I still wasn’t sure if a problem would occur or not – due to staggering times that the sensei must have been allotting. It felt like everything would be okay. Therefore, our group of three rushed through another delightful western/eastern breakfast buffet and headed out to the street.

After some discussion of which metro train to take, we found the right sub station across the street from the one we had been accustomed to taking and took the Honomozin line to Kinshichu, following a little purple line on the map.

Rule of thumb; if you are trekking through Tokyo, you are going to get lost.

We made it to Kinshichu, walking out of the subway and into a real long sand and tree covered however, once we got there, we followed the rule. We had absolutely no clue where to go. We had a map that the consieer had given to us, but we couldn’t read a word of it. We talked to a number of people and found that directions were virtually useless, but simply having them point in the correct direction helped tremendously.

Eventually, we showed up. I knew we were in the right place, due to the countless Tsijiki fish market Styrofoam caskets piled up outside a door. (Sumo wresters can EAT.) We peeked in the door and a sumo wrestler nodded and motioned for us to go to the front of the building.

It was about 7:45 in the morning. In the front of the building, I stood and posed in the doorway by a beautiful copper bust sculpture of a sumo wrestler. I took a breath and entered the unknown.

We walked up a very wide foyer stairway with some trophy cases, sculptures and various photos and pieces of art. An awkward occurred in the hallway for about two minutes. We could hear the training going on behind a sliding door, but no one came to welcome us or show us in.

Knowing that it could be offensive, I was very careful to open the door and peak in.

Inside about eight people (a few members of JFMF and a few not) sat intently at a very very large clearing on silk red pillows observing the intense training before them. Because of the layout, we felt comfortable in joining in on their watch.

The room was a giant square divided in half. The dichotomy consisted of a spotless stage-like viewing area for spectators, decorated in beautiful sculptures, awards and artwork, and a step down into a dirt floored fighting pit, replete with a regulation sumo circle, a drinking bucket by a sink and two rows of towels.

The pit’s circle was directly centered and lined in straw roping staked in the ground. It looked like a clay footing, much like you would see on some tennis courts, but topped in loose dirt for help in leverage.

The way that the sweat and soiled sumo wrestlers were training as we took our silken seats was one fall king-of-the hill. One wrestler would spar against another and throw his opponent out of the ring. The moment he defeated the other, a number of new challengers would run toward the winner and put out his hand and say something that sounded like “Highs!” This would indicate that they wanted to be picked for the next spar, which would take place immediately in the circle. The winner of the last fall would then touch the hand of the challenger they wanted to take on and the circle would be immediately cleared of bodies for the next fall.

We watched for about an hour and a half and learned a great deal about this particular dojo. The sensei stood to the right side of the ring, close to our stage. He spoke only two or three times at the very most.

Everyone seemed to be allowed in on the king-of-the-hill spar, except for two. These two were rookies and though they were in full gear, they were not permitted to participate yet this early in the game other than partaking in warm up techniques as they watched the others.

One rookie in particular, who I wall call Hairy for obvious reasons, for two hours straight stomped his feet to increase his leg strength for balance. I am sure you have seen this before; a spread eagle stomp and squat combination that goes hand in hand with the sumo wrestler stereotype. This is what I have learned to be called the “shiko approach” of ritual foot stamping.

Because we as spectators were not able to speak to the largest athletes in the world standing before us, we have no idea what any of the sumo wrestlers and students (soon to be sumo competitors) call themselves. So, for lack of a better name, I will call one “Poofi” (because of his poofed-up poofy Japanese mullet hairstyle) and the other “Hairy” (because the amount all over his back.

Another seemingly new student to sumo point of interest I will aptly call “Chip,” due to his ridiculous lime green out-of-place Walt Disney Chip-n-Dale towel that he sported so gingerly.)

From my understanding, some wrestlers will go a number of months simply observing before they are allowed to participate. Newbies get into gear and hope that “today might be the day” and that the sensei will tell them to jump into the mix. Some times this day could take days, weeks or even months to come. And for some, this day may never happen.

One rookie, Hairy, on this particular day was in fact allowed to participate in a push drill, where selected wrestlers by the sensei would charge a wrestler and have to slide his target a full length of the circle (4.55 meters in diameter.) The target would lock his legs and allow his feet to glide across the dirt floor until his heels hit the other side of the circle. Hairy wasn’t bad at this drill at all, but Chip was pretty terrible.



It seems as Chip had paid his dues and attended a number of training sessions, so now the dojo was testing him out. He was very disoriented, very unsure of himself and the only on the sensei stopped to talk to during the training. He was kind of geeky in a way and not very agile. He wished to be tagged in after every spar, running to the winner with his hand outstretched, but his over eagerness seemed to turn off the king of the hill an he was only sporadically chosen for the next battle. Incidentally, he never won.

Chip was being hazed to some degree, as he obviously did not have the same respect as the rest of the pack. The other wrestlers didn’t look at him much or pay him any mind. They also pushed him around a bit in a strange “let your head get pulled and pushed drill as you bend over.” In this odd drill a wrestler would pull you by the head around the entire ring once, and rough your head up while doing so. They seemed so tough on poor Chippy, that it was obvious they were trying to break his spirit and see what he was made off.

In sumo, only the strong survive.

The newest fighter, Poofi, was not able to do even that. He primarily hung out and did some odd looking push ups for the duration of the training.

As time went on, two new sumos moved into the roster at hand. Both looked much bigger and more like the stereo type than the rest. I would gather that these are actual competitors with a bit of experience whom the sensei trusted. These two (we will call “Bigguns” and “Colossus”) were given a bit more freedom to run the push drills and stood out ability-wise from the rest.

Before Colossus even showed up, the sensei disappeared for good half an hour while Bigguns ran the show. Bigguns dominated sparring for a short time, only being eliminated on occasion by “Shorty” –a surprisingly talented short sumo, with not a whole lot of weight to him. But the moment Colossus came in, Colossus became the man reigning undefeated through the rest of the king-of-the-hill sparring.

Just before we left at about 9:30am, the training had officially stopped and the huge sumo wrestlers came out with tiny broom s and cleaned up their disheveled circle. Though they spoke no English, the wrestlers were nice enough to let me take a photo with them.































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