Help your child to research for an interesting class presentation. It will boost her/his energy and self-esteem. Discuss specific vocabulary, points of interest and public speaking manners.
My Visit to a Sumo Stable
To Watch a Morning Practice Session
Tokyo, January 2013
Tokyo, 2013
Sumo Stable
- Place where the wrestlers live, train and spend free time together throughout their career.
- Sumo stable is strictly ruled by the stable master.
- An average stable contains around 15 wrestlers.
- Sumo stables are no public places.
- Only few stables accept visits by tourists who must be accompanied by a Japanese.
- All visitors need to sit silently on the floor for 2 to 3 hours and not disturb the training session.
- There are about 40 stables, which are located in Tokyo's Ryogoku district.
Facts About Sumo
- Sumo began many centuries ago.
- Sumo is the nation's oldest professional sport in Japan.
- In Sumo there are no weapons used and there is no kicking below the belt.
- In Sumo, two people face each other in a circular ring (dohyo) and push, pull and try to throw each other. The one who pushes his opponent to the ground or out of the ring is the winner.
Tokyo, 2013
Wrestlers (rikishi)- Wrestlers enter the world of sumo at a young age (about 16) and reman in their profession until they retire.
- Life is hardest for the lower ranked wrestlers, who get up earliest and cook, clean, serve food and wait on the higher ranked wrestlers. They bath last after training, and get last pick at dinner time.
- Wrestlers wear a loincloth (mawashi). The same kind of clothes as a samurai of 600 years ago.
- Wrestlers wear their hair in a topknot, which was a normal hairstyle in the Edo period.
- Wrestlers weight an average of 300 pounds (150 kilograms.) It was always like that.
- Regardless of the rank, sumo wrestlers cannot drive a car.
- Players can not show emotions, they cannot respond to pain as this may be a cause for disqualification.
Diet
- Sumo wrestlers work hard to gain their body weight - 10,000 calories a day.
- Wrestlers train on empty stomach. They eat twice a day around 11am & 6pm.
- Wrestlers eat chankonabe - stew of meat, vegetables and special rice. They eat to the point of nausea. Then they have a long sleep to give the calories time to take root.
- A sumo wrestler’s ordinary day is characterized by morning training, lot of eating and sleeping.
Tokyo, 2013
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