It's SUMO Time!

Finally... after 3 years of living in Japan... we finally made it to a real sumo tournament.  The Grand Tournament, May 10-24, at the Tokyo Ryokoku Kokugikan (sumo stadium). Oh yeah, baby!

Started with the blessing/purification of the sumo ring, called the Dohyou Matsuri, on the day before the tournament.  A surprisingly short ceremony involving sumo officials in white robes (and shinto priests?), taiko drummers, and some sumo rikishi (wrestlers) in kimonos.  Interesting but not really mind-blowing.

It did give us our first opportunity to see the Kokugikan - the home of sumo.  The roof-top canopy is modeled after a shinto shrine, thus demonstrating that the dohyou (sumo ring) is considered a holy place.



And also a chance to mingle with some of the sumo wrestlers afterwards.

Ryan, dwarfed by his new best friends

Trying out by new hot pink kimono..

Old sumo stable converted into a restaurant

And then we went to an old sumo stable to eat chanko nabe.  Basically a mixed stew used to fill up the huge bodies of the rikishi...

No complaints from me!  

I went to the sumo tournament solo on Tuesday... loved every second of it.

My 2 new main squeezes... aren't they hot?

Got there around 8 am when the novice, low-level rikishi were competing.  The stadium was practically empty, which meant I just acted like I knew what I was doing and I entered the first level of the stadium and got to get fairly close to the big-bucks-ringside seats (most of my photos are from these junior-level fights since I was so much closer).

There are approximately 800 professional sumo wrestlers today, and I'm fairly certain that I saw most of them.

Spent the day soaking up the sumo.  Wandered around the whole stadium, picked by sumo bento box to eat at my seat, went to a side door with all the sumo groupies to watch the senior wrestlers enter the arena, bought sumo cards (think baseball cards with big, fat, half-naked Japanese men on them), followed the basement maze to the cheap chanko nabe spot (felt like a church basement of the geriatric variety), took a wrong turn and (accidentally) ended up by the rikishi locker room.  That was its own kind of fun!

It got more exciting as the day played on as the senior-level wrestlers (makuuchi) have their own special entrance ceremony around 3:30 pm with an extra-special entrance a few minutes later by the Yokozuna (highest level, sumo champions).  Then the highest-division bouts last from 4-6 pm.  The wrestlers proceed into the ring wearing ceremonial aprons (kesho-mawashi) - brightly colored, hemmed with gold fringe, and costing about $4,000.

Entrance ceremony for the makuuchi wrestlers

The most amusing and amazing part is all the fan-fare and posturing that occurs before a fight.  The fan-fare is permitted to go on for up to 4 minutes and the actual fight can easily last only 30 seconds.

To my untrained eye, this is what was happening.

Two big guys wearing colorful diapers (ok, ok, it's actually called the mawashi) enter the ring.  Their hair is worn in a topknot, as was fashionable in the Edo period (and is continued because the hair-knot prevents head injuries from falls). They squat on their respective starting lines and pretend they are getting ready to start the actual fight for about 10 seconds before 1 of them abruptly stands up, wacks himself on the BOOTY, lifts his HUGE leg to an almost 120 degree angle straight in the air, stomps his feet, does that a few more times interspersed with the BOOTY-slapping, and then walks toward the corner.  There he takes a towel and wipes his ARMPITS, then takes a sip of water and SPITS it out.  He then grabs a handful of salt and throws it, scattering it across the sumo ring. More BUTT-slapping in the corner.  This goes on for a full 4 minutes (maximum time allowed in the rules of sumo).  No joke.

Supposedly the stomping of feet and proverbial gnashing of teeth is driving the evil spirits from the sumo ring. And rinsing one's mouth is to cleanse the the mind and body, while throwing salt is said to purify the ring and prevent injuries. And the mawashi/silken loincloth is 30 feet long and 2 feet wide, folded in sixths, and then wrapped around the wrestler from 4-7 times depending on the size of the sumo wrestler.

Finally, the 2 sumo dudes saunter back to their starting line.  They squat low and long - impressed with this ability giving how much weight they are supporting  - they glare at each other and then.... one of them stands up and heads back to the corner to go through all the motions again.  And maybe even again.  Finally, crouching back at the starting line, when both knuckles touch the ground, the match begins!  Finally.  And then they push and shove each other until one of them steps out of the ring or any body part other than the soles of the feet touch the ground.

All of these motions happen for EVERY fight and are meant to scare away evil spirits and bring in the good spirits. In the upper divisions (juryo and makuushi, from about 2-6 pm), I watched about 35 fights.

Then there were the sumo commercials.  Every once in a while, before a fight, a procession of people carrying brightly colored banners would parade around the ring before the wrestlers entered.  Turns out that each banner was advertising some company or service and each company was contributing to a kitty to be awarded to the winner of that fight.  So hilarious!

All in all, it was an incredibly amusing and interesting experience.

Here are a few videos of junior-level wrestlers (who aren't permitted to throw salt and some other posturing elements). The first one is a 17 second fight and the second video is 2 minutes 42 seconds, of which approximately 4 seconds is the actual fight.

 In fact, I had such a fabulous time that I thought the kids should experience it as well. So, the next day, I got up at the crack of dawn to stand in line for same-day tickets (200 yen for kids!) with the plan to go pick up the kids after school and bring them back to the stadium - I really had no idea if they would let me buy 3 tickets (the website said 1 ticket per person) and I knew the tickets would sell out quickly  - but, if everything worked out, we should make it back in time for the kids to see the senior rikishi. And lo and behold, it all worked out!  I was thrilled.

Same-day tickets are literally the very last row in the entire stadium, so like every other (cheapskate-same-day-ticket-buyers) Japanese person, I put down my jacket and a bag to save 3 seats, knowing full well that the kids wouldn't be there until almost 4 pm.  When in Rome...

I watched a little sumo in the morning (though after a solid 10 hours of sumo the day before, I was mostly just looking forward to experiencing it with the rascals), explored a nearby Japanese garden, had lunch with a friend, then met the kids the moment they got out of school to head back to the Kokugikan! The boys got just the right amount of sumo - all the senior level bouts - which lasted a few hours.

And to top it off, this is what I was awoken by at 6 AM on a Saturday morning, "Mom, let's do sumo." I kid you not.  Ryan's very own sumo-style.  Which quickly turned into a family sumo match early on a Saturday morning... the best sumo EVAH! [Photos edited/removed]