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| Komatsu Dome Entrance |
The photos in this folder were taken in the fall of 2001. My wife, the lovely Katie, a good friend of ours Murai-san, and I spent a day at the Komatsu Dome where we, along with a packed house, were treated to a one-day exhibition of sumo, followed by a one-day sumo tournament. Katie and I are big sumo fans, and odd though it may sound, sumo is something that you have to see to believe, and see a few times to become a fan. But once you are in, you are hooked and it gets hard not to rush home after work when a tournament is on the television. But here we were, able to see some of our favorite sumo wrestlers, also called rikishi, in the flesh. And yes, there was quite a bit of flesh to see.
Usually, the sumo wrestlers wear colorful strips of cloth that make up what is called their "mawashi". This is the only garment that they wear, but in these photos you see them in their training "mawashi". Top level sumo players wear the light colored "mawashi" while the lower ranks, who are also treated like servants in this highly hierarchical world, wear darker and more subdued colored "mawashi".
During the exhibition we get to see a lot of the things that you typically do not get to see anywhere else. The special sumo barber comes out on the "dohyo" (raised clay platform where the wrestlers fight) to show us how a rikishi's hair is done. We get to see the sumo athletes stretch out, and yes, they are amazingly flexible. We get to watch them train, and bash into each other, one after another in their training sequences. We get to hear a very long (and it comes in about a dozen verses) sumo song. We are treated to a sumo gag routine which shows us all the illegal moves that you don't get to do, like pulling hair, gouging eyes, or kicking someone in the back pockets. Kids belonging to local sumo clubs get to get up on the dohyo and try to take on the pros. But then, after a few hours of these demonstrations, we get down to the fun part, the actual bouts.
Watching sumo up close is a blast. It is fun, and you get to just hang out during the day, chat between matches, drink beer, eat snacks, and watch huge men mash their bodies together, and hurl each other to the ground. If that is not a good time, I don't know what is!
Take a peek at the photos that I have put together here. They are not in any particular order at this time, but I hope that is Ok. It was an absolute treat to go, and I hope that the lovely Katie and I get to go again.
Enjoy!
Mark Groenewold
Kanazawa, Japan
February, 2004
The gallery of Sumo pictures is here.
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