相撲 - Sumo Tournament

On Tuesday afternoon I went to Osaka to see the annual Osaka Sumo Tournament which is held there every March! The tournament lasts about two weeks, and I believe that each sumo wrestler has one bout each day. Tuesday was the tenth day of the tournament, so my friends and I had fun guessing which wrestler would win each bout based on their records from the previous nine days.

I felt like there were almost as many foreigners watching the tournament as there were Japanese people. Then again, about a fourth of the sumo wrestlers themselves are foreigners! Before each bout, a man would step into the middle of the dohyou (sumo ring) and chant the names of the next two wrestlers. Wrestlers were divided into the "east" side and the "west" side (the wrestlers came into the arena a bout or two before their own bout and would sit waiting on either the east or west side of the dohyou). Then the wrestlers would come up into the ring area. They would ready themselves in the corners of the raised platform area, outside of the ring, and wipe their faces with towels and drink water out of bamboo pails. They loudly slapped their stomachs, buttocks, and thighs as they prepared themselves for the bouts. Then they would grab a handful of salt and toss the salt into the ring as they stepped into it to purify the ring. They lined up on the white lines inside the ring, and if the atmosphere was right, they would wrestle. Sometimes this entire ritual was repeated three or four times before the atmosphere was right. I don't know what qualifications are needed for the "correct" atmosphere.

The bouts are usually pretty short, maybe fifteen or twenty seconds, but a few times they went on for half a minute or a minute, which was really exciting. One time the bout was so long that the priest who was acting as a referee stopped the wrestlers, and the two wrestlers had to start the bout over again. People sometimes shout at the wrestlers as they fight, and the word "nokotta" can be heard especially often. It means that there is still space remaining between where the wrestlers' feet are and the edge of the ring, so keep going, keep fighting.

My friends and I arrived at about 2:00 p.m., but the match had been going on since 8:00 a.m., and we stayed until it ended at 6:00 p.m. Four hours of nothing but sumo matches? Not nearly enough for me!