Toby Barrett

After the castle we made our way over to the Dolphin Stadium for the quarterly Sumo competition. It goes on all day for two weeks, we caught it on day 13. The matches are in order of rank, from the lowest ones in the morning to the highest at the end of the day, and the higher ranked wrestlers are on the last few days.

We found our seats in the last row (these sell out as soon as they go on sale) and we were fortunate to have a very sweet retired English teacher seated next to us. She told us it was her first tournament as well, and that she had won her ticket in the newspaper. She still practices English when she can, and for fun she is learning German, French and Russian. She nornally watches the matches on TV, and sure enough there was a big bank of cameras and a press box to our left.

The matches last about 5 minutes, about 10 seconds of which is actual wrestling. At the beginning of each match the wrestlers' names are sung out by a man in a kimono, then men with flags of companies awarding prizes walk around the ring. The more flags there are, the more prestigious the match. Then there is a lot of stretching and salt throwing (to purify the ring) and squatting as though they are ready to start and then getting back up again. The whole thing requires a lot of patience from the audience, which the Japanese seem to have in abundance.

Once they actually start, this is a huge burst of energy followed immediately by a massive collision, which is incredibly exciting to watch. I like it a lot better than I thought I would! They tangle and push each other until one of them steps out of the ring or puts something other than a foot on the floor.

The Japanese politely call out the name of the wrestler to cheer for them, and clap loudly at the end of each match. We stayed for about 2 hours and felt like we saw plenty.Read more