SUMO!

Opening Sumo bout


Highest ranked rikishi entering the ring


The little guy won!


The Yokozuna


$25,000 match

Umeda Sky Building

Osaka skyline

Seoul Museum of what?!?

My tiny bathroom

I had to go somewhere for a visa run two weeks ago and thought it would be fun to go to a Sumo tournament. So I got online and checked to see if one was going on in Japan. Luckily, there was one in Osaka. So I booked a plane ticket and was there the next night.

I didn’t know much about Sumo before I went to Japan beside it was two large men, dressed in what look like diapers, trying to knock the other one over. What I learned was sumo is said to date back over 1500 years and much of what is seen today is very similar to how it was performed then. The sumo bout takes place in the dohyo which is two feet high and 18 feet square. The crowd would always gasp and then cheer when the competitors flew off the dohyo. Always above the dohyo is a roof resembling a Shinto shrine with long tassels at each corner representing spring, summer, fall, and winter.

A sumo wrestler is called a rikishi and there are about 800 rikishi in professional sumo. It is customary for each rikishi to choose a sumo name, which usually ends in mountain, river, or sea, translated into Japanese of course.

The rikishi are ranked into five divisions.

Yokozuna
Ozeki
Sekiwake
Komusubi
Maegashira

Even the judges, or gyoji, are ranked and only the highest ranking gyoji can officiate a bout involving a yokozuna. Also sitting on each side of the dohyo is an additional judge and these four can overrule the gyoji’s decision or force a rematch.

The sumo bout is won by forcing an opponent out of the inner circle or to force an opponent to touch any part of his body on the ground. It is illegal to strike with fists (slapping is legal), pull hair, eye gouge, choke, or kick in the stomach and chest. Most importantly, there are NO weight classes. About 90% of the matches with a gross deferential in opponent’s weights, the heavier guy won. But every single time the crowd rooted for the smaller guy and erupted when he won.

The typical sumo match lasts about 5 to 15 seconds. The longest ones maybe last two minutes. But the whole bout seemed more about the ceremony and posturing leading up to the actual wrestling. To begin, each rikishi enters the dohyo and symbolically cleanses his mind and body by rinsing his mouth with water and wiping his body with a paper towel. He then scares away evil spirits by raising each leg and stamping each foot on the ground. Some of the rikishi make a big show of this. One guy really showed off his flexibility by pointing each leg straight up in the air, a pretty impressive feat for such a big guy, and then brought it down with a big thud. Each time, the crowd went crazy. Lastly, the rikishi throws a handful of salt into the ring to purify it and protect him from injury. The salt throwing is only done by the higher level rikishi.

Finally, after all of that preparation, the two rikishi go to the center of the ring. The squat and get in the ready position with their fists on the ground. This part of the “ceremony” is called the shikiri. After giving each other dirty looks in the ready position, they will back away, go to their corners, towel off, throw salt, and then come back to the middle of the dohyo. This cycle can happen a couple of times and each time it occurs, the crowd seems to get more and more excited. In 1928, a ten minute time limit was introduced, which has since been reduced to four minutes. I can only imagine how long this would go on with no time limit.

There are only 6 Grand Tournaments a year and each lasts two week so I was really lucky to catch one the weekend I needed a visa run. I got to the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium early in the morning to make sure I got a ticket. After an opening ceremony, the matches started at 8:30am. The beginning matches started with the lowest ranked rikishi and they went fast because there was no salt throwing and posturing. They just got in the ring, wrestled, and got out of the gym. But there was a constant stream of bouts, only taking a break to switch gyoji, which didn’t take much time. As the rikishi got higher in rank, the preparation for the bouts took longer. The highest ranked guys even had their own pillows brought in for them alone to sit on while they waited for their bout.

The most anticipation was for the yokozuna’s match. The yokozuna is the best of the best. In the last 300 years since the title was created, only 69 rikishi have held the title of yokozuna. To be considered for promotion to yokozuna, a rikishi must win two consecutive tournaments at the rank of ozeki. Once a yokozuna, he can never be demoted. If a yokozuna continues to make poor showings at tournaments, he is expected to retire. Two of the last five yokozuna have been born in the US, Akebono and Musashimaru.

The match I saw with the yokozuna was really competitive. It lasted about 30 seconds, an eternity compared to most matches, but he ended up winning. I can only imagine the reaction if he would have lost. Also, that had 25 sponsers, with $25,000 going to the winner.

After the tournament, I took a walk around my neighborhood, Umeda, and saw a really cool building, the Umeda Sky Building, the seventh tallest building in Japan. It looks like it should be in a James Bond movie.

That night was also the un-official St. Paddy’s Day. I found an Irish bar close to my hotel but I was the only one wearing green and the band was playing crappy pop music. It was a disappointment but I’m not too surprised. There’s no where like Chicago to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

My first Seoul apartment had the smallest bathroom I have ever been in. A three foot by four foot area held the toilet, shower, and sink. Amazingly, it didn’t feel cramped.

I realized today was Opening Day for the Cubs. For the first time in 7 years, I didn’t try for tickets the day they went on sale in February.

Random fact of the day – On April 3, 2008, I will be 1 billion seconds old. How about that?