Japan Culture : Sumo Wrestling

Sumo

Sumo, or Sumo wrestling, is a competition contact sport wherein two wrestlers or rikishi face off in a circular area. The sport is of Japanese origin and is surrounded by ceremony and ritual. The Japanese consider Sumo a gendai budo: a modern Japanese martial art.

The Sumo tradition is very ancient, and even today the sport includes many ritual elements from when Sumo was used in the Shinto religion.

Winning a Sumo bout

On rare occasions the referee or judges may award the win to the wrestler who touched the ground first; this happens if both wrestlers touch the ground at more or less the same time and it is decided that the wrestler who touched the ground second had no chance of winning as, due to the superior sumo of his opponent, he was already in an irrecoverable position. The losing wrestler is referred to as being shini-tai (dead body) in this case.

There are also a number of other rarely used rules that can be used to determine the winner. For example a wrestler using an illegal technique (or kinjite) automatically loses, as does one whose mawashi becomes completely undone. A wrestler failing to turn up for his bout (including through a prior injury) also automatically loses (fusenpai). After the winner is declared, an off-stage gyoji (or referee) determines the kimarite (or winning technique) used in the bout, which is then announced to the audience.

Matches often last only a few seconds, as usually one wrestler is quickly ousted from the circle or thrown to the clay. However they can occasionally last for several minutes. Each match is preceded by an elaborate ceremonial ritual. The sportsmen themselves are renowned for their great girth, as body mass is a winning factor in Sumo.

The wrestling ring or dohyo

Sumo matches take place in a ring called a dohyo. The dohyo is made of a mixture of clay and sand spread over the top. It is between 34 and 60 cm high. It is removed after each sumo tournament, and in the case of Nagoya, taken home by the fans as souvenirs. A new dohyo is built prior to each tournament by the yobidashi, who are resoponsible for this activity. The yobidashi also build the dohyo for training stables and sumo touring events.

The circle in which the match takes place is 4.55 meters in diameter and bounded by rice-straw bales called tawara, which are buried in the clay. The rice bales are 1/3 standard size and are partially buried in the clay of the dohyo. Four of the tawara are placed slightly outside the line of the circle. In olden times this was to allow rain to run off the surface, when sumo tournaments were held outdoors in the open. Today a wrestler under pressure at the edge of the ring will often try to move himself round to one of these points to allow him to push back more effectively against his opponent who is trying to force him out.

At the center are two white lines, the shikiri-sen, which the rikishi must position themselves behind at the start of the bout. Around the ring is finely brushed sand called the hebi-no-me (snake's eye), which can be used to determine if a wrestler has just touched his foot, or another part of his body, outside the ring. The yobidashi ensure it is clean of any previous marks immediately prior to each bout.

Professional Sumo

Professional Sumo can trace its roots back to the Edo Period in Japan as a form of sporting entertainment. The original wrestlers were probably samurai, often ronin, who needed to find an alternative form of income.

Currently professional Sumo is organised by the Japan Sumo Association. The members of the association, called oyakata, are all former wrestlers, and are the only people entitled to train new wrestlers. All practising wrestlers are members of a training stable (heya) run by one of the oyakata, who is the stablemaster for the wrestlers under him. Currently there are 54 training stables for about 700 wrestlers.

Sumo wrestling is a strict hierarchy based on sporting merit. The wrestlers are ranked according to a system that dates back hundreds of years, to the Edo period. Wrestlers are promoted or demoted according to their previous performance and a Banzuke listing the full hierarchy is published two weeks prior to each sumo tournament.

There are six divisions in sumo: Makuuchi (fixed at 42 wrestlers), Juryo (fixed at 28 wrestlers), Makushita (fixed at 120 wrestlers), Sandanme (fixed at 200 wrestlers), Jonidan (approximately 230 wrestlers), and Jonokuchi (approximately 80 wrestlers). Wrestlers enter Sumo in the lowest Jonokuchi division and, ability permitting, work their way up to the top Makuuchi division. Only wrestlers in the top two divisions are salaried, and they are called sekitori (to have taken the barrier). Wrestlers in the lower divisions are regarded as being in training and receive a subsistence allowance, in return for which they must perform various chores in their training stable.

In some instances, the best recruits out of Japanese universities are allowed to enter sumo with the rank of Makushita, instead of the neophyte Jonokuchi level.

The topmost Makuuchi division has a number of ranks within it. The majority of wrestlers are Maegashira and are numbered from one (at the top) down to about sixteen or seventeen. Each rank is further subdivided into East and West, with east being slightly more prestigious. Thus, Maegashira two east is ranked below Maegashira one west and above Maegashira two west. Above the Maegashira are the champion or titleholder ranks, called the Sanyaku. These are, in ascending order, Komusubi, Sekiwake, Ozeki and, at the pinnacle of the ranking system, Yokozuna.

Yokozuna, or grand champions, are wrestlers who generally are regularly in competition to win the top division tournament title near the end of a tournament. As such, the promotion criteria are very strict. In general, an Ozeki must win the championship for two consecutive tournaments (or an equivalent performance) to be promoted to Yokozuna. More details of the criteria can be found in the article on Yokozuna.

It is a rank held at the moment by only one man, Asashoryu. Other recent Yokozuna include Akebono, Musashimaru and Takanohana, who retired in January 2003. In the previous decade, Yokozuna Chiyonofuji retired after winning an astonishing 31 tournaments. That's nearly as many as Akebono and Takanohana won together. Once a wrestler has been promoted to Yokozuna, he can never again be subject to demotion and is expected to retire on his own initiative if he cannot perform to Yokozuna standards.

There are also special promotion criteria for Ozeki. Usually at least 33 wins are required over three tournaments as a Sekiwake/Komusubi with special attention paid to the most recent tournament record. The final decision always rests with the sumo association.

All sumo wrestlers take wrestling names called shikona, which may or may not be related to their real names. Often wrestlers have little choice in their name, which is given to them by their trainer (or stablemaster), or by a supporter or family member who encouraged them into the sport. This is particularly true of foreign-born wrestlers. A wrestler may change names several times during his sumo career. The current trend is towards more wrestlers, particularly native Japanese, keeping their own name.

Professional Sumo is practiced exclusively in Japan, where it originated, but wrestlers of other nationalities participate. The first foreigner to win the top division championship was Takamiyama in the 1970s. He was followed by Konishiki who won the top division title on three occasions, and reached the rank of Ozeki. In 1993 Akebono became the first foreign born Yokozuna. These three former wrestlers were all born in Hawaii. Former Yokozuna Musashimaru was the second foreigner to reach sumo's top rank and was born in Samoa. The current Yokozuna Asashoryu is Mongolian and is presently (in 2004 and 2005) the dominant force in the sport. Asashoryu heads a small group of Mongolian wrestlers who have achieved Sekitori status. Furthermore, recently wrestlers from Korea and several former Soviet and Soviet bloc countries have also found success in the upper levels of Sumo. In 2005 Kotooshu from Bulgaria, became the first wrestler of European origin to attain Ozeki ranking. There are currently 59 wrestlers officially listed as foreigners.

Approximately once every two years the top ranked wrestlers visit a foreign country to give a display competition. Such display competitions are also regularly held in Japan. None of these displays are taken into account in determining a wrestler's future rank. Rank is determined only by performance in Grand Sumo Tournaments. In October 2005, the Sumo Association made such a display in Las Vegas. These exhibitions are mostly for show and for inspiration, as sumo has so far been unable to take root in other countries, but foreigners have been inspired to try their hand at it in places as far away as Eastern Europe and Argentina.

As with any sport, Sumo is not without controversy. One in particular being its exclusion of women. There are no women wrestlers or coaches in professional Sumo. More controversially, women are not allowed to enter the ring used by wrestlers, as this is traditionally seen as violating the purity of the dohyo. The view of those who criticize this continuing policy is that it is discriminatory. The view of the Sumo Association is that it is a tradition passed down through the centuries. This issue came to a head when Fusae Ota, the female prefectural governor of Osaka repeatedly challenged the Sumo Association's policy by requesting she fulfill the Osaka governor's traditional role of presenting the Governor's Prize to the winner of the Osaka tournament, which would require her to enter the ring. Her requests have thus far (2005) been rejected by the Sumo Federation and she has sent a male counterpart in her place.

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