Two major experiences marked today. One was conquering the Tokyo Skytree: a massive tower that’s become somewhat of a modern symbol for the city — Japan’s tallest structure and among the tallest in the world, over three quarters the height of the Burj Khalifa.
I’m terrified of heights and had adamantly refused to go the last time I was in Tokyo. While my say alone might not have been enough, it had worked out in my favour because the weather was a foggy mess, making the view pointless anyway.
This time, the skies were clear and the pressure from the family to go was high. Onkar claimed he hadn’t been during all his years in the city, though he somehow regained what seemed like deeply buried memories of the visit mid-way through — a strategic forgetfulness, I suspect, to drag the rest of us along.
We made our way all the way up — two observation decks: one at 350m and the other at 450m. It took less than a minute to descend, airplane-ear kicking in.
At one point I even stood on a glass floor staring almost half a kilometer straight down to the ground. And right before we descended, we we lucky enough to catch a clear silhouette of Mount Fuji at sunset. I’d been adamant to wait to see it before coming back down, because what was the point if we didn’t even see Fuji? It’s not like I planned to go again, but I do admit it felt surreal to be there today, like we were staring at a painting.
That wasn’t even the highlight of the day, though. You see, I’m not telling you the events of the day chronologically, because the main event was over long before we even reached Skytree. It wasn’t seeing a giant Snorlax at the Pokemon centre, that we visited right before Skytree. It also wasn’t showing dad and bua robotic food delivery service by Bella Bot at Jonathan’s diner (although it was fun to see dad all confused when we collectively made the executive decision to send him to figure out the drinks bar on his own). It actually started much, much earlier in the morning.
It was the first day of winter practice at Arashio-beya Sumo Stable, and I’d somehow managed to wake myself up at a quarter to six with just over 5 hours of sleep — a rare feat — to go and watch.
The thought of going to watch sumo wrestling had occurred to me earlier on the trip, but seeing the insane prices listed online for spectating, I’d decided it wasn’t an experience I necessarily needed. turns out that bua, however, is a low-key martial arts fangirl, and she had her heart set on it. With the amount of research that her added interest in the sport pushed her to do, she discovered that there are some sumo stables that allow outsiders to just come and watch practice sessions for free. It wouldn’t be an official match, but for us it was the same deal. If anything, seeing how they train would be even more intimate, more raw.
We’d been waiting for Wednesday to arrive, and when it did even those of us who are usually the latest to get up (*cough* Dad *cough*) managed to roll out of bed and get out of the house only 5 minutes just five minutes after our 6:20 ETD.
It was a chilly morning and by the time we arrived at the location Google Maps led us to, we could see half a dozen or so people standing outside a row of glass window panes that had blinds drawn down on the inside. When we got closer, we could see bits of the sumo wrestlers through the narrow gaps in the blinds, enough to understand that they were getting dressed and ready for practice.
Bua had read that there were a few rules. We would have to sit in silence for at least 2 hours while practice went on. We could take photos but with no flash. And we had to arrive in advance because we wouldn’t be let in after practice started at 7:30am. To be on the safe side, we arrived at 7:15am.
As I said though, it was early morning, fairly windy, and I was wearing a skirt. Not my go-to choice, but we had other events lined up for the day and I’d made a judgement call. As 7:30am approached and the blinds rolled up, though, I started regretting it. There were benches inside, which initially I thought would be our seats (according to bua’s source website, at least), but the sumos started warming up without batting an eye towards us, the audience still standing outside.
They slapped their palms on their thighs and stomped over and over and over again (a practice known as Shiko, as we later learned). After a few minutes passed, it was evident that standing outside the glass was how the morning would pass, and we had no choice but to come to terms with it. I took my rather heavy backpack off my shoulders and set it on the ground beside me in acceptance.
There were 11 or 12 large men in the room, wearing only a belt (called mawashi) that covered their waists and groins. The floor was covered in some sort of dark brown dirt, with a clearly denoted circular boundary and two short parallel white lines printed on the ground underneath in the centre. After many minutes of all the men practising Shiko while standing around the circular rink, two of them began using it to practice something else.
One would stand just outside the boundary facing inwards, and the other would stand inside it, facing him at about a meter’s distance. When they mutually acknowledged they were read, the sumo on the outside would lunge at his partner, slide his fingers in the other’s armpits and slide him across the rink the other end. He would then bow (it was more like squatting in front of him actually with his head lowered a little — I assume that’s the sumo way of showing respect), and they would both take positions to go again.
The pair must have done this at least 30 times, because it felt like it went on forever. The person getting pushed was just — well — getting pushed, but I don’t know how the attacker had that much stamina to go at him over and over again for that long.
And this was only the start of their session.
The remaining men continued to do an assortment of exercises outside the rink in the meantime: more squatting, stretching, some pushups, a duck-like walk that Bua said was supposedly a very difficult thing to do, air-practicing a running attack of some sort individually, and even banging their heads/shoulders against and attempting to push a solid cylindrical pillar that stood in the far left corner of the room — supposedly to build upper body strength.
After quite a while of this practice, we saw a walking tour group turn the corner and head towards the sumo stable (and us).
I thought that they would join the crowd for a while and then go to their next destination (I also thought that they were lucky they got to see this, because it was only the first practice of the month so they would’ve missed it if they were a day or two early). That didn’t happen.
What happened was that their tour guide opened the sumo stable door and headed right inside, with the tourists. The sumos seemed to be expecting them, because a couple of them welcomed the tourists in and guided them towards the benches inside. So that’s who those benches were for, I thought. Bua must’ve read the rules for people who took the tour.
We weren’t alone in spectating from outside, and Bua mentioned reading that that was allowed too, just not that the indoor seating was only by tour reservation.
I didn’t mind being outside anymore though. It had gotten a couple of degrees warmer since when we arrived, and at least while outside we had the freedom to leave when we wanted. We were also talking among ourselves, and we’d been scared since we left the house of how Mom would keep up with the no-talking rule had we been inside. That problem had taken care of itself.
After the tour group had settled in, their guide came and stood close to the window on the outside, (diagonally) right next to where mom was standing. The tourists had earphones to listen to what their guide was saying, and we — mom and I at least, since we were standing next to them (and I passed all the important things on to bua, so her too) — benefited from a lot of information that we otherwise wouldn’t have gotten to know. Dad, being taller, was unfortunately standing further back.
Proper bouts had started by now, and through the tour guide we learned a little about the sumos themselves. All except one of them wore black mawashi. The tallest and biggest man in the room wore a white one.
Bua and I were wondering if this meant he was more or less experienced than the others. Bua said more, but he hadn’t taken part in any rounds yet so I thought he might still be in training and reckoned he was learning from the others as a junior. The guide soon confirmed though that, contrary to other martial arts like Judo and Karate where black belts are the highest level, in sumo wrestling, white is actually more advanced than black.
The black belted sumos in the stable were of ranks 3-5 (the smaller the rank, the higher the level). Daisezan, the white-belted sumo, was 24 years old, a rank 2, and he was in fact from China.
We learned that there are about 650 sumo wrestlers currently in Japan. A friend had mentioned to me that they were a ‘dying breed’, but I didn’t know that they were such a few. I instantly treated the practice event with more respect.
Each sumo stable was apparently allowed to employ one foreign sumo wrestler, Daisezan being this one’s. After hearing this from the guide, we realized that he did seem to be giving out bits of advice to other (more junior) sumos as they practiced. She also told us that sumos traditionally practice in order of increasing levels, so the juniors practice first. If we were lucky enough to see Daisezan practice today, we would have to wait until the very end.
The fam had been debating leaving early, since we had no obligation to stay until the end of the sessions now that we were only standing outside. But we all agreed that we wouldn’t leave until we either saw Daisezan practice, or the session ended, whatever came first.
After the rank 5s, the rank 4s came to practice. The guide said that the best form of practice is with a partner of a near-equal level, and that’s what sumos spend the most time doing. For each bout, the sumos would squat facing each other behind the white lines, and as soon as they both put both fists down, by mutual agreement (without any sort of umpire or referee) the round would start.
The rules were simple: the loser is determined by whoever either steps outside of the circular rink or touches the ground with any body part other than the soles of their feet first.
We learned that the average duration of a sumo wrestling bout is only 8 seconds. The practice bouts did seem to finish almost as soon as they started, but a few did last longer, one taking up to around a minute where for a long time it felt to me as if the two competitors were just standing in an awkward half-squatting hug (although I’m sure they were both exerting a lot of strength).
Immediately after the bout, one of the two men who just fought and one other would come into the rink and squat-bow to each other. I thought for a long time that it was just both men who fought, giving each other respect after the fight, sort of like saying ‘good game’ after a tennis match, but as mom pointed out and I noticed later, only the winning sumo from the previous match would return for this bow. I realized after a while that this was done to acknowledge who would fight next, and then there would be a short interval after this recognition before the next bout began for the previously winning sumo to recover and his next opponent to prepare.
The guide also gave background information on some specific sumos. She had a sheet with their faces and facts, and as a sumo that she recognised stepped into the rink, she described him by things like his age, or where he’s from.
We learned that there was a 38-year old wrestler in the practice too — an age when many sumo wrestlers actually retire.
There were also 2 half-Russian, half-Japanese (Russian mother but Japanese by nationality/citizenship) brothers of 17 and around 20, both of whom knew as children of 8-10 that they wanted to become sumo wrestlers and had visited this exact stable to inquire about it. The stable master had told them to come back after they finished their compulsory education (up to age 15 in Japan), and they had been at the stable ever since.
Sumos generally live in sumo stables full-time. They only get privileges to leave (or, for example, get married) after they reach a certain rank.
Both of these brothers were of rank 3 — more advanced than most others at the stable, at such a young age already.
The guide was very eager to see Daisezan practice. She must’ve mentioned half a dozen times at least how lucky the tourists would be if they got to see him at work, but even when there was only a little over half an hour left of the practice session, he had not yet stepped into the rink. The guide’s investment in him meant that the tourists weren’t going to leave until he came up (or the practice ended) either, and that meant that we got more free information from the guide.
She now began telling us (not us, but also us — you know what I mean) about the life of a sumo wrestler in general.
They wake up very early (as we did today to come and see them) — the more advanced the rank, the earlier — and have a long morning practice session. During the session, the lower ranks, as we saw, serve the higher ranks in tasks like providing them water and throwing salt into the rink as a form of ritual purification. They also broom and sieve the dirt in the rink to level it after every few bouts.
All the sumos tie their hair in the same kind of topknot during practice sessions at their stables like the one we were watching today, but in tournaments and elsewhere, a sumo wrestler’s hairstyle is also dictated by his rank. For example, a fairly advanced sumo wears his hair in a style that resembles a gingko leaf.
Ranks are announced after tournament seasons, based on each sumo’s performance in that season.
After the morning training session, they eat. The daily calorie intake of a sumo wrestler can be anywhere from 10000-20000 kcal (5-10x the recommended amount for a regular adult male). She talked about one famous sumo wrestler who used to eat 16 bowls of gohan (rice) in a single meal. immediately after, they sleep, to help them keep up their weight. Although the amount of food that they eat is ginormous, they fit it all into two meals a day. The guide jokingly described this to the tour group as what not to do if you’re on a diet.
At long last, Daisezan entered the rink and, as the only sumo of rank 2 present, began defeating his rank 3 peers over and over again. Somehow, it was the one time that I was busy talking to Bua about something that a rank 3 actually defeated him, but mom described it as ‘his palms touching the floor (declaring him loser of the round), and him laughing it off’.
Mom grew fond of the sumos’ personalities, from whatever of them we could make out from behind the glass panes. We could tell that they were all very close to each other (naturally, as they live together) and that they had the utmost respect for one another.
Not even just one another — their dedication towards the sport was awe-inspiring.
Daisezan especially, Mom said, was a very jovial looking fellow. She also particularly felt for the two young brothers (they were still practically children — both younger than myself, and Daisezan younger than Onkar).
Some more information that we learned from the tour guide left us with mixed feelings of awe and pity.
You see, while the sumos need to keep up their weight for the sport, too much of it can also be a disadvantage and increase chances of injuries/other health risks. This was something the guide said in relation to their eating habits, but then she went on to say that this kind of daily routine is different from that that was followed by sumos a hundred or so years ago, at which time their average lifespan was only about 40. That is the age that sumo wrestlers retire around in the current day.
Changes to their living habits have extended the lifespan from around 40 to around 60, but the average lifespan of a Japanese man in general is 82 or 83. Sumo wrestling as a career choice means signing up to sign away a decade or two of your life easily, and it left us perplexed.
It was obvious that the health styles of sumo wrestlers was bound to affect their health adversely, but hearing these concrete figures came as a shock. And especially so when we thought of these young sumo wrestlers (the three youngest in the stable being the highest ranks there too — working so hard for this career/lifestyle choice that they’ve dedicated the rest of their lives (and a large part already) to.
It must’ve been a hard decision for them all.
We learned that a sumo wrestler like Daisezan would get paid around 1.1 million yen/month by the stable that employs him — a handsome amount. But I refuse to believe that money alone could motivate someone into pursuing a lifestyle choice like this. No. This calls for passion. Deep, deep passion. Passion greater than life itself.
I began comparing a sumo’s lifestyle — training, eating and sleeping, for the most part from what I understood — to that of a monk’s. Why do monks do what they do? I could be totally wrong but my feeling is that their reasoning is more as an escape from the rest of the world, while for sumos (like any pro athlete), it’s for a love deeper than love for the sport itself.
But still, it just doesn’t somehow fit that you would sign away a quarter of your lifespan for it. I consider myself passionate for many things, but I can’t imagine myself doing a deal with the devil for any of those.
I wish for the privilege to feel such a deep passion for something today, and the sumos have gained the utmost respect of someone who knew nothing at all about them within these 2.5 hours today.
It reminded me how often I’m wrapped in my own bubble — obsessing over my productivity, my goals, my next tasks. But days like this make me step out of it. To observe a whole different way of life. To learn something new and become part of something bigger. That’s what today was about.