Sumo Wrestling

Don't judge, but we took this trip in September 2012 and I'm just now getting around to blogging it. I'm terrible with this habitual blogging thing. But I've been thinking about our travels in Japan a lot as our time winds down, so I wanted to write down the memories before they fade.

As I said, this was in 2012. We signed up for a trip through base that included transportation and hotel and transportation to the sumo tournament, so details were minimal. It was our first trip to Tokyo and we were so excited to get to the big city. I'll have to share the rest of our trip next. 

The sumo tournament was the main event. Wikipedia has a pretty good description of the basics of sumo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo 

The arena is round, with the mat in the middle of the stadium. The closest seats were mats on the floor, but our seats were regular stadium seats. There were headphones with English translations available, but we decided to just enjoy the visual. We figured it wouldn't be too hard to guess the winners of each match. 

Each tournament lasts for several days. We just went to one day in the middle of the tournament. Our tour guide excitedly told us which wrestlers were doing well, but those kind of details fly right over my head even in American sports. The postered wrestler on the left is a yokozuna or "grand champion". He has the white belt to signify his status. There are generally only one or two yokozuna active in wrestling at a time, and it's a highly regarded status.

Jeff's favorite fact that the tour guide shared was about pay. Only the top performing wrestlers are paid. I think it was something like the top 10%. If you fall below that rank, or never reach that rank, you are not paid for the tournaments. Their salaries are much more modest than similar athletes in America. I don't trust Wikipedia for exact figures, but the link above says the yokozuna's salary in 2006 was only about $36,000.

The crowd grows as the day goes on. We got there early because we were so curious. These early wrestlers were relatively unimportant, so the audience was scarce. By the time we got to the last round of wrestlers, the place was packed. Our tour guide said most serious sumo fans only show up for the last few rounds because those are the only ones that really matter.

The rituals before beginning a match were so interesting. And lengthy. If needed, someone would smooth the clay of the ring. The judge would sprinkle salt on the ring. The wrestlers would stretch their legs on the outskirts of the ring, then do this seated pose at their corners. 

The would move to the middle to repeat the leg stretches. Some of these hefty males could get their feet higher than I thought possible.

They would then take this pose until the judge signaled that the match could begin. The object of the match is fairly simple - knock our opponent out of the ring or onto the floor. I'm sure there are more rules to this, but we didn't get into the details. 

Something else I found interesting - the judges are ranked just like the wrestlers. Note this judge's outfit in comparison to the one above. Only the most prestigious judges mediate the top wrestlers' matches.

The matches were pretty entertaining. Some of the wrestlers would (painfully, I'm sure) try to lift or throw their opponent by grabbing the belt he wore. Some of the smaller wrestlers would try to dodge or duck and throw their opponents off balance. Jeff and I enjoyed guessing how long the match would take and who would win. Some matches would end in seconds, some would take a minute or two. It's a quick sport.

Each division of wrestlers began with a little procession. It sounded like the announcer named each wrestlers as he entered the ring. They did a little ritual hand clap or something and then exited to wait for their individual matches. 

(Sidenote - can you spot the white wrestler?)

The more prestigious wrestlers had flags - maybe signifying their wins or titles. These were all the flags of either the yokozuna or his opponent, I'm not sure. 

The rituals grew longer as the ranks grew higher. I believe this is the yokozuna, and there was obviously some special ritual to complete here. We might have learned if we had taken the translated headphones, but we enjoyed the matches nonetheless.

We both really enjoyed seeing this sport in person. While it's not something I'd turn on the TV to watch or keep track of the rankings, it is a quick paced and entertaining sport. If tournaments were closer to Misawa, we might have returned for more. I'm glad it was one of the trips we took while we were here. Sumo wrestling is still a huge aspect of Japanese culture and it's entangled in the history of Japan. It's a different experience entirely to see it happening in person. Japanese also play baseball and soccer, but it was fun to see a sport so different from American sports.