lots of fat men!

I’ve been putting this post off for the last few days (well I’ve been busy) but I wanted to put some pictures up about my past weekend. There was an Ibaraki JETs organized event to go and watch a sumo tournament in Tokyo. And I just have to say it was amazing to see it!

Sumo tournaments occur only 5 times a year in different areas of Japan, and they last for 15 days. The day following our viewing of sumo would have been the last day of this tournament. This meant that it was a big day for people to get their rankings up before the finals.

We arrived in the early afternoon. The tournament lasts all day from 10am-6pm. Arriving about 1:00 allowed us to get in and look around. It also meant that the people who had bought tickets for up close were not yet there (they wouldn't show up until later in the afternoon when the big names would be wrestling). Since all of these seats were open, we were able to wonder around and get up close to the actual center of the arena, where the action was happening (because of course we had the nose bleed seats).

The arena was quite large. In the center, the traditional sumo dohyo (ring) was set up. The dohyo is a circle of rice-straw bales 4.55 meters in diameter, mounted on a square platform of clay 6.7m on a side, and 34 to 60 cm high. The surface is covered by sand. And a roof, that resembles the roof of a Shinto shrine is suspended above the dohyo. The judges are seated around the structure.

Here is a diagram


a few pics of the arena...






Once the sumo wrestling actually happened there were always elaborate rituals that would occur before the actual match began. In reality much more time was doing other things, the sumo wrestling part lasted only a matter of minutes and in some cases only a matter of seconds. Because as soon as once wrestler was pushed out of the circle or fell to the ground, the match was over. Some of the ceremonial things included a parade of all of the wrestlers before different ranks would begin their matches, throwing salt for good luck, ceremonial stretching, drinking some sort of water, and many others im sure I missed. There was also a parade of advertisements on flags that would happen before any of the big matches.

















In addition it was really interesting to watch the spectators. On the ground floor there were little boxes for 4 people, and everyone brought along or bought bentos (boxed lunches) and of course they also brought along their drink of choice Asahi beer, sake, or shochuu (rice wine).

It was a really great experience to see something that was so traditionally Japanese. It was also great to hang out with such a large group of friends that I hadn’t seen for awhile.

After sumo most of us ventured over to a restaurant where we enjoyed Chanko Nabe. the meal of all of the sumo wrestlers. You cook vegetables, tofu and meat in broth at your table. Not really that unhealthy. But the sumo wrestlers eat massive quantities and go straight to bed after eating. And they do this about 3 times a day!!







Tamae and I


Laura, Bethany, Tamae, and I