Sumo
On 17 January, Karen, Jeff, and Joel went up to Tokyo to see the Sumo tournament (Basho) at the Ryogoko Kokugikan Hall. This was pretty neat. The tournaments last all day for 15 days, and there are 6 tournaments a year. This was the Sumo Banzuke - the January Tournament. We watched Sumo wrestlers from a lot of divsiions, starting with the very junior (and much smaller guys) early on, and ending with the Grand Champions in the Senior (or Big Guy) Division. There is all kinds of ceremony and formality associated with this, and an actual wrestling match usually only takes a few seconds. The ring is blessed between each match, there is much ceremony between the wrestlers, and boom - the match is over.
The Dohyo (Ring)
Here are two rikishi ready to wrestle, and the referee in his ceremonial robes.
Big Boys
OK - These guys are HUGE. But size doesn't matter (How many times have you heard THAT!) Speed and tactics in the ring are important. We saw the last Grand Champion lose to a smaller guy, because the other guy was faster and sidestepped his charge, forcing him to fall out of the ring.
World Class Wedgie
As I said, tactics are important.
Here are two wrestlers posturing before they actually wrestle. And you won't believe it, but there is LOT of muscle on them.
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