can sit down on the ground and perform a full split with his face and chest touching the ground. This is amazing conditioning, especially because the rikishi are well known for their monstrous power and explosiveness, not their flexibility.
Even the diet, a sort of sumo stew of fish, meat, and vegetables called chanko-nabe, is well calculated. This thick meal is rich in calories and protein when eaten with a lot of white rice so the rikishi can gain weight and keep it on. The schedule in which the rikishi train and eat is the key to how they put on weight. They train in the morning session on an empty stomach as the extreme workout requires, and at noon, famished, they eat as much chanko-nabe as they can. Then they take an afternoon nap to slow the food digestion so they can rapidly gain weight. The rikishi’s physique is most efficient when it is bottom heavy, with a barrel stomach. This gives them a lower center of gravity, which makes it harder to be thrown or pushed out of the ring and also helps to keep opponents at a distance. The rikishi may appear fat, but because of their diet and intense exercise regimen they have a remarkable amount of muscle mass.
Samurai warrior, ca. 1877. In Japan, the first sumo matches were in religious ceremonies to pray for a good harvest, and eventually they were used as a training routine for samurai warriors.
(Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-14302.)
Two samurai warriors, ca. 1877. Masterless samurai warriors (ronin) even used their training in sumo matches as a way to earn extra money.
(Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-14305.)
Japanese woodcut print of sumo wrestlers in action. Print created during the seventeenth century.
(Library of Congress, LC-DIG-jpd-02569.)
Japanese sumo wrestlers, ca. 1900.
(Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-26753.)
Onishiki (1891–1941) won a ten-day sumo wrestling tournament in Japan, ca. 1915. A bottom-heavy physique like Onishiki’s makes it more difficult for the rikishi to be thrown or pushed out of the ring. Also, it helps keep the opponent at a distance.
(Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-24163.)
Sumo vs. Other Japanese Martial Arts
Professional sumo differs from other Japanese martial arts in the way that rank is awarded and maintained. In most other Japanese martial arts, rank is awarded by the successful completion of a ranking test. Rarely in the other Japanese martial arts is a practitioner demoted for continued bad competition results. Also, in other Japanese martial arts, promotion can be gained by other means of training, like forms (kata). With sumo, the rikishi is only promoted if he wins official tournament sumo matches and can easily be demoted if he loses them.
Rikishi who miss an official tournament through an injury will also be demoted badly. This forces some rikishi to wrestle with serious injuries. The rikishi’s ability to win official tournament sumo matches, normally scheduled every two months, is the sole source of his livelihood and opportunity for promotion. The result is extremely stressful training and living conditions for the rikishi. This high-stress ranking structure could be seen as similar to the one in MMA competition. In MMA, if a fighter wins a championship belt, he will usually have to defend that belt or be demoted and therefore paid less, although MMA fighters tend to have fewer matches per year than a professional rikishi.
The strict hierarchy of sumo reflects traditional Japanese values. With higher rank come higher privileges. In sumo, it does not matter what your social status is; rank is achieved only through winning official tournament sumo matches. Grand Champion Akebono states, “If you want to understand sumo, you should watch the practice instead of the tournaments. In practice you can see what a difference ranking makes. It is what sumo life is based on.”9
Also, most other martial arts competitions, especially the unarmed variety like karate, judo, and MMA, have weight divisions, unlike professional sumo. So it is not uncommon for a smaller rikishi to face a rikishi two times his size. This forces the smaller rikishi to be very technical in his fighting style to compensate. The soon-to-be-discussed rikishi Mainoumi is a prime example of this. Small but successful, he was well known for his very technical fighting style.
Unranked sumo wrestlers in training. On May 2, 1998, young unranked sumo wrestlers at the Tomozuma Stable in Tokyo end their daily workout routine with a ritualized dance that emphasizes teamwork.
(US Navy photo courtesy of M. Clayton Farrington, Wikimedia Commons.)
There are many major distinctions between professional sumo and amateur sumo. Professional sumo is practiced only in Japan, while amateur sumo is mostly found in Japanese schools and to a lesser extent other parts of the world. Professional sumo has no weight divisions while amateur sumo does have weight divisions. Professional sumo is a way of life as compared to the part-time training in amateur sumo. The strength and skill in professional sumo is amazingly higher than in amateur sumo. Top amateurs would have trouble surviving against professional sumo’s higher-division rikishi.
Professional sumo matches are always performed on a dohyo while amateur sumo matches many times take place on a simple matted surface. Also, females are allowed to compete in amateur sumo, but in professional sumo, not only are females not allowed to complete, but according to Japanese religious beliefs, females are also not even allowed to touch the dohyo as this will bring bad luck to the matches. And finally, much of the traditional sumo ceremony is gone from amateur sumo.
The dream of every young wrestler is to become yokozuna, or grand champion. But most of those dreams will burst.… It’s a very harsh world.
—Wakamatsu Oyakata, sumo coach and elder10
Print of sumo wrestler, ca. 1848. Notice that this rikishi carries two swords just as the samurai did. Sumo is closely linked to samurai tradition as can be seen with the use of the samurai topknot hairstyle in sumo tradition.
(Library of Congress, LC-DIG-jpd-00715.)
The winning moves in sumo are called kimarite. At this time, the Japan Sumo Association recognizes eighty-two types of kimarite, but only about a dozen are used regularly. In actuality more than half of sumo bouts end in victory after a push (oshi), grip (yori), or slap or thrust (tsuki). These eighty-two distinct winning moves include different combinations of gripping, pushing, thrusting, throwing, leg tripping, twist downs, backward body drops, and specialized moves. As stated earlier, kimarite
