Sumo
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| Bento Box in our box seats at Osaka Gymnasium |
One of the very few memories I have about Japan (I was only
2 or 3 years old) is sumo. My dad
used to joke around and lift his leg up high and do the stomp and I’d copy him. I followed sumo from time to time when
it used to come on in Seattle in summer visits to my grandparent’s house. But it’s pretty tough to follow in the
US. Before the trip, I briefly
thought it would be cool to see a match but my mom had a packed agenda so I
thought it might be rude to ask to add anything else to the gameplan.
So when we saw the sumo wrestlers walking by two days ago,
it was actually my mom’s idea to go. Tickets for the second level were around 130 dollars a seat,
pretty pricey. I was pretty amp’d
all day for the chance to see sumo live.
This is the major leagues of sumo with all the of the top wrestlers in
the sport competing.
I’ll pause to give a lesson on the sport. If you really just think it is fat guys
pushing each other around and aren’t interested, you can skip ahead. However, Sumo is one of the most unique
sports in the world. Sumo is the
national sport of Japan and when you dive deep into it’s deep and ancient
history, it is fascinating. What
makes sumo so interesting is that unlike any other worldwide televised sport,
it still has a large number of ritual aspects and traditions. So much so that the lay person would
watch sumo and say “why the hell are they doing that???” I’ll try to answer some of those
questions J
The Ceremonial parade – A tournament group (there were two
groups fighting when I went) starts off with a ceremonial parade. The fighters come out wearing a
traditional lower garment that’s kind of hard to describe but here is a photo:
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| The fighters on display just before they begin to wrestle. |
Yokozona – Sumo players are ranked based on several factors
including more than just their record.
The honor and spirit in which they fight are major factors, as
well. A governing body makes the
decision on when a fighter raises to the higher ranks. Only about a small percentage of
fighters advance to the two top levels of Ozeki and Yokozuna. And there is no requirement to have
anyone actually be a Yokuzuna. If
no one is worthy, they can go years without someone in that title. It is a huge honor to be given the
title of Yokozuna as only 69 have been named since record keeping of the sport
began in 1789.
Yokozuna dance – Those who achieve the rank of Yokozuna do a
traditional dance to start of the tournament. If there is no one at that rank, there is no dance and if
there are 3 yokozuna’s, they all do it.
The crowd loves a well-done dance and will cheer for their favorite
parts. The part that seems to always get the crowd going is this little shuffle move they do while moving forward. Winning the crowd over can be very lucrative for sponsorships.
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| Yokozuna Hakuho doing the ceremonial dance. |
Costumes – The Fighter Kimono’s are apparently hundreds of
thousands of dollars. They all
wear their hair in a traditional manner which includes putting it up. Everyone has long hair almost as if it
is a requirement to grow it out and then put it up. And then there is the famous “thong” that all fighters
wear. It has a thick waistband
which the fighters use for grabbing.
In addition to their “thong”, they wear an ornamental waistband of long
spikes. This appears to have zero
functional purpose and is purely a spiritual element of their costume. They remove it immediately at the end
of each fight.
Referee – Unlike most sports where the referee is someone
who everyone prefers to blend into the environment and you hope to never hear
from him all match, the sumo referee is the complete opposite. Their costumes are outlandishly
extravagant kimonos, their gestures are dramatic and they shout at the fighters
the entire match. It’s such a
contrast to other sports that it’s distracting to the first-time watcher.
5 judges – If there is some discrepancy over who wins, the 5
judges will come up into the arena and have a conference. They are old so they really take their
good old time walking up J Here is a photo of the judges discussing a
decision. Sometimes they will
overrule a referee decision or they will issue a tie which means the fighters
will fight again.
Pre-fight – Before each match, each wrestler takes time to
first perform the ritual dance and various other traditional things. All of this stuff takes much longer
than the actual bout which lasts a few seconds to as long as 30 seconds on
average. This is the stuff that I'm surprised has not been done away with. However, without it, Sumo has very little drama. It helps to build up the fights and get the crowd on the edge of their seat.
1)
The significance of the Arm-Point and Leg-Stomp are to show
you are clean with no hidden weapons and to stomp out evil spirits. It seems kind of silly but the are both
something that every fighter does multiple times before the bout. Another thing they do that seems odd is
slap themselves repeatedly all over.
2)
In their corner, the fighters have a pile of salt. Before they return to the center of the
ring, they grab a pile of salt and throw it into the ring. I forget what the spiritual reason is
for this but it always is done. They will also scrub their face with a washcloth which has a spiritual meaning of some kind.
3)
Before the fighters officially lock-up in combat, they will
asian-squat down and stare at each other.
Then they will even place both fists down as if they are ready to launch
themselves but then will stand up again.
4)
All of this can go on for a while. In years past, there was no time limit for the posturing and
stare-downs. They eventually put a
10 minute time limit on it all and then switched to 7, 5 and ultimately 4
minutes as it is now. Lower levels
have even less time.
Winning fighter gives a drink of water to the next fighter – Not sure why they do this but the winning fighter stays and holds a wooden spoon/bowl or water for the next fighter in his corner.
Winner receives cash after the fight – Upon winning the bout, the winning fighter may receive a wad of cash served to him on a wooden paddle from the referee. He does a three-motion gesture to the money and then takes it. Mom says the money is based on how many sponsors he has and if he has crossed the 8 win threshold yet. This is probably the equivalent of the American Giant Check that we used to do a lot.
The 8th win – The 8th win is a major
milestone for a fighter. Besides
holding significance because it guarantees you a winning record (tourneys are
15 bouts), it also holds sponsorship significance for some reason as well as
serves as a minimum requirement for receiving any post-tournament awards. Most
importantly, you need 8 wins to move up the ladder in sumo. Because of all of this, you can
understand why that 8th win is very important. In fact, a book called Freakonomics
exposed how far the Sumo world was willing to take that 8th win and
exposed a series of a corruption related to it. If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it.
The rules are pretty simple. Knock/Push your opponent out of the circle or force his knee
or hand to touch the ground and you win.
They impart the use of some judo, open-palm strikes and wrestling to
impose their will. Some
spectacular finishes are possible when major throws happen on the edge of the
ring and one or both fighters get tossed out of the ring into the crowd. It’s crazy to me that this happens as
much as it does and the ring isn’t buffered more from the fans and fighters
sitting there waiting on deck. I’m
pretty sure I don’t want a 500 pound sumo wrestler being thrown on me but the
fans get landed on every event!
The tournament was really cool. The entrance into the ring is extremely un-American. The fighters roll up in cars and walk
into the gym in the same entrance as the regular spectators. In fact, when I walked in, I walked in
with numerous other sumo wrestlers that happened to arrive at the same time I did. I was even walking down the roped off
path with their entourage! Very
weird, indeed. No back entrance
for these guys. And along the same lines, I had to literally squeeze by some wrestlers that were warming up for their match since our seats were in their entrance area. My mom was literally terrified of the size of these guys as they are smacking their ass and legs in front of her :)
The upper deck seating is standard chair seating, however, for the lower levels, it’s again a very bizarre
situation. You buy seats in blocks
of four. Each block is a piece of
floor that has a piece of metal pipe separating each section. In your section are four Japanese style
seat cushions to sit on. Four
average size Americans would be super cramped because of the small space as
well as the fact that you need to sit Indian style for 4 hours J Mom and I survived because the other two
in our box never showed up so we could stretch out every so often.
The fights were really cool to watch in person. The Japanese crowd really loves their
sumo. They watch intensely and
murmur in awe when a fighter does even the smallest thing out of the
ordinary. Since sumo is so deeply
rooted in its traditions, it is rare for a fighter to show any emotion at
all. I wonder if this will ever
change since the crowd obviously loves fighters that show fighting spirit.
Everything culminates in the last fight of the evening with
the only living Yokozuna, Hakuho.
This guy has an aura of invincibility around him. You can sense that the opposing
fighters in the gym all know that he’s simply better than he is just by the way
they carry themselves. And getting
dominated in sumo can definitely lead to injury or in the Japanese culture,
worse…. Embarrassment at his hands.
He came out and battled briefly with his opponent before getting ahold
of his mawashi (belt) and muscling him out of the ring. The crowd love this guy and goes crazy at
anything he does. He is treated with rock star status in Japan.
Here is the video of the final match. I left all of the pre-fight drama in there, as well so you can see how it all builds up for the action.
I had a great time at the event. I joked with my mom that if there was a big upset and people
started throwing their seat cushions, I was going to join in. This scared her because Japanese are
not known for public displays like this, however, in the rare case of an
extraordinary match that involves a yokozuna loss, the fans will throw their
seat cushions all over the arena just like the Redskins fans did that one game
at RFK back in the day. The
Sumo association has actually banned throwing your cushion! My dream of throwing my seat cushion at
a sumo tournament didn’t come true on this day but my dream of seeing a sumo
tournament finally did!
Video of seat cushions flying!
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