:: WEEK EIGHT | JAPANESE LANGUAGE COURSE FOR BEGINNERS in London - with Guest Speaker: "Sumo and Martial Arts"
:: Week Eight Japanese Language Element:
On successful completion of the class, students will be able
to:
Tell other people your travel plans and
your mode of travel
Talk about your holiday plans the length of
time that you intend to stay away
Confidently say the day, date, month and
year and length of time, (a decade, century etc.)
Understand the Hiragana Y-Line
Count to one to 80 without hesitation
Understand the different categories of
Japanese language: kudaketa, teinei and keigo
To enrol for just this class or the entire course please click here:
Week Eight Japanese
Cultural Element > Sumo and Martial Arts <
Sumo 相撲 is a quite possibly the coolest sport in the world. It is
steeped in history and tradition and if you have a chance to go to
a tournament, you must. The essence of Sumo is that wrestlers
(rikishi) attempt to force each other out of a circular ring (dohyo
土俵) or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of
their feet. The sport originated and is a purely Japan
creation.
Japan is the only country where sumo is practiced professionally. The Japanese consider sumo a gendai budō (a modern Japanese martial art), since the current version of the sport has a history spanning several hundred years. The Sumo tradition is ancient, and even today the sport includes many fascinating ritual elements, such as the use of salt for purification, from the days sumo was used in the Shinto religion. The original wrestlers were probably samurai, often ronin, who needed to find an alternative form of income. Current professional sumo tournaments begun in the Tomioka Hachiman Shrine in 1684, and then were held in the Ekō-in in the Edo period. They have been held in the Kokugikan since 1909.
Life as a rikishi is highly regimented and controlled, with rules laid down by the Sumo Association. Professional sumo fighters are required to live in communal "sumo training stables" known in Japanese as heya where all aspects of their daily lives, from eating meals to their manner of dress, are dictated by strict traditions.
Matches normally last only a few seconds, but sometimes they last for several minutes. Each match is preceded by an elaborate ceremonial ritual.
Professional sumo is organised by the Japan Sumo Association. Members of the association, called oyakata, must be former wrestlers, and are the only people entitled to train new fighters. All practising wrestlers are members of a training stable (heya) run by one of the oyakata, who is the stablemaster for the wrestlers under him. Currently there are 53 training stables for about 650 wrestlers.
All sumo wrestlers take wrestling names called shikona (しこ名), which may or may not be related to their real names. Often wrestlers have little choice in their name, which is given to them by their trainer (or stablemaster), or by a supporter or family member who encouraged them into the sport. This is particularly true of foreign-born wrestlers. A wrestler may change his wrestling name several times during his sumo career.[4] The current trend is for more wrestlers, particularly native Japanese, to keep their own name rather than change it.
Sumo is organised in a strict hierarchical structure based on sporting merit. The wrestlers are ranked according to a system that dates back hundreds of years, to the Edo period. Wrestlers are promoted or demoted according to their previous performance, and a carefully prepared banzuke listing the full hierarchy is published two weeks prior to each sumo tournament.
There are six Grand Sumo tournaments (or honbasho) each year: three at The Sumo Hall (or Ryōgoku Kokugikan) in Ryōgoku, Tokyo (January, May, and September), and one each in Osaka (March), Nagoya (July) and Fukuoka (November). Each tournament begins on a Sunday and runs for 15 days, ending also on a Sunday. Each wrestler in the top two divisions (sekitori) has one match per day, while the lower ranked rikishi compete in seven bouts, approximately one every two days.
Rikishi are not normally allowed to eat breakfast and are expected to have a form of siesta after a large lunch. The most common type of lunch served is the traditional "sumo meal" of chankonabe which consists of a simmering stew cooked at table which contains various fish, meat, and vegetables. It is usually eaten with rice and washed down with beer. This regimen of no breakfast and a large lunch followed by a sleep helps rikishi put on weight so as to compete more effectively.
