DAUGHTER SUZ AND I ENJOY Grand Sumo Highlights on NHK World TV. To enhance our knowledge of this Japanese sport ritual, she gifted me a copy of The Perfect Guide to Sumo.
The Perfect Guide to Sumo in Japanese and English, by Ito Katsuharu, translated by David Shapiro, designed by Miyamura, Seigensha Art Publishing, 2017.
“Sumo, with over 1,500 years of history,” the publisher writes, “is a religious rite, a part of traditional cultural with a rich esthetic and a truly exciting combative sport. In recent years, thanks to SNS [Social Networking Service] and a variety of new magazines, a whole new category of female sumo fan known as the sujo (literally the ‘sumo girls’) has sprung up. No doubt Daughter Suz is one of the sujo.
Here are tidbits gleaned from The Perfect Guide to Sumo, together with personal comments and my usual Internet sleuthing.
My Own Heya. A training stable for sumo wrestlers is termed a heya or beya (部屋, lit. ‘room’), the latter used in compounds: Simanaitis-beya is a modest one, consisting of a Hallmark pop-up card and a miniscule dohyō wrestling ring.
Above, the Hallmark card. Below, my dohyō.
This dohyō used to have a pair of rikishi and a refereeing gyji, but over the years they’ve gone 逃げまわる, (nige-mawashi, “running around in escape”). Their replacement here are from the family sheep collection, rams, of course.
A Rikishi’s Mawashi. By the way, don’t confuse this mawashi with a Grand Sumo’s mawashi, the silk cloth, some 30 ft. in length, wrapped around the torso and fastened in back with a large knot.
Hot Moves. Grasping an opponent’s mawashi is a tactic that’s part of many sumo strategies. The Perfect Guide has seven pages illustrating key moves, each with its frequency of application noted.
This and the following from The Perfect Guide to Sumo.
For instance, with the tsuridashi, liftout, the attacking rikishi grabs his opponent’s mawashi with both hands and lifts him out of the ring. This tactic gets a frequency level of 3 out of 5.
No mean feat, this, given that an average Grand Sumo wrestler weighs 166 kg, 366 lb.
A hatakikomi, slapdown, is a surprise move countering the pair’s tachiai, or initial charge. The rikishi quickly shifts to the side and diverts the opponent’s forward momentum downward. This tactic, which ends the bout in seconds, rates a 4.
An oshidashi, frontal pushout, occurs with frequency 5. As its name suggests, the winning rikishi pushes with both hands to force the opponent’s center of gravity upward and backward out of the ring.
A lot of physics lurks in sumo moves.
A Hearty Chanko. The guide describes, “Rikishi eat two times a day, once after practice (between 11:00-12:00) and once at dinner. Each stable assigns an older rikishi ranked in Makushita or below as the head cook or ‘chanko-cho’ and he is assisted by teams of three or four rikishi who help with everything from the shopping to the actual preparation.”
The image is of a special stew, but, the guide explains, “in the sumo world, anything a rikishi cooks or eats is called ‘chanko.’ If they’re eating curry rice, it’s called ‘chanko.’ Spaghetti? ‘chanko.’ However, in general, we’re talking about that stew also referred to as ‘chanko-nabe.’ ”
Poultry, Fish, and Produce. A bit of sumo superstition: Beef and pork, being four-legged, are considered unlucky because “touching down with your forefeet/hands = a kuroboshi or a losing black mark.” Indeed, some stables won’t serve these meats during a tournament.
Image and recipe of Sumo Wrestler’s Hot Pot from RecipeTin Japan.
Sumo Rituals. The guide describes the many rituals inherent in a sumo tournament. Indeed, the matches themselves consist of rather more than tachiai, trick moves, and kuroboshi. Each rikishi tosses purifying salt around the dohyo and gives his opponent the hard eye. Each almost takes the starting stance, only to stand up and glower some more.
This wonderful YouTube from blackarmy81 gives a fine sense of tournament encounters.
Grand Sumo Highlights. Perhaps because most of us haven’t the better part of a day to devote to sumo, NHK World Japan offers Grand Sumo Highlights, essentially a condensed 30 minutes of a tournament’s 15 encounters that day.
There are six tournaments each year; the next one begins soon, on January 12, and lasts 15 days.
Onosato (Daiki Nakamura), age 24, height 192 cm./6 ft. 3.5 in, weight 182 kg./401 lb., stable: Nishonoseki.
Daughter Suz and I root for Ōnosato, a newcomer who won the May and September 2024 tournaments. On September 25, 2024, the Sumo Association unanimously approved Ōnosato’s promotion to the rank of ōzeki, the sport’s second-highest; the highest is yokozuna.
A Norbori Style Fan Towel is among sumo’s merch we proudly display. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025