A day at the sumo

I am waiting for the slowest bath in the world ever to fill up and thought this would be a golden opportunity to tell you all about sumo wrestling... obviously my bathing needs come first, but I hope you're pleased to learn that the blog came a very close second.

Sumo was amazing, as you might expect. In classic Japanese expectation-dampening-style, we were warned that the seats we had booked were 'rather far away from the ring' and that we 'might wish to use field glasses'. This had me conjuring up visions of trench warfare and overfed military commanders peering through lenses at their men bayonetting the enemy several kilometres away, over the brow of a hill... but when we got there, we could see perfectly well. The only time you might need the binoculars was if you wanted to have a closer look at the referee's robe - this sounds unlikely but there was one section in which the referee appeared to be wearing leopard-print, which obviously merited closer inspection. Disappointingly, it turned out to be an ornate bird motif, not the aforementioned animal print. Overall the winning costume (we had an ongoing competition for the best-dressed referee) came near the start, and was a shiny gold robe with blue detailing. It wouldn't have looked out of place in a gangsta rap video.

A whole paragraph and I haven't even mentioned the wrestlers yet. They were generally mega-huge by Japanese standards, and most of them were pretty hefty by Western measures too. Just before I came in, there was apparently a bout between a quite small guy and a morbidly obese man, in which the smaller wrestler managed to bury his entire head inside the flab of the other wrestler. The crowd went wild, even more so when the small man managed to use his head to thrust the fatso out the ring. You can't help but get caught up with the feeling of the crowd - the wrestlers egg people on with the ritual throwing of salt into the ring (the prelude to a match, often done several times to psych out the opponent) and occasional strong-man gestures to the audience which transcended language. In that respect it was weirdly similar to World's Strongest Man or, dare I say it, Gladiators. The atmosphere generally was great - people really got into the fights, especially when there was an obvious disparity between the wrestlers or when a favourite was up. At one point the reigning champion was beaten by an underdog, and people threw their seat cushions into the ring in appreciation. The nearest seats to the ring, which I'm sure cost an arm and a leg, are at foot level only a metre or so from the boundary rope. I would fear for my life if I sat there, as the risk of being asphyxiated by sumo flab is not insubstantial.

Possibly the highlight of the day - though that's definitely the wrong word to use here - was the light entertainment between the two divisions of the tournament, when kids aged 7-10 from Tokyo International School came on to tackle a professional wrestler. There were tons of these kids, most of whom seemed to be cherubic and blond, who took on the professional three at a time. He could send them scuttling with one lethargic swipe, and at one point scooped a boy up by his nappy-thong. The poor boy's legs were flailing as the audience went wild. It was horrific but marvellous entertainment, though I fear it may have come at the cost of significant psychological trauma to these small boys.

An interesting phenomenon of wrestling in recent times has been the emergence of non-Japanese wrestlers. Some of the most successful have been Mongolian, but there were even European wrestlers yesterday: you could guess their genetic heritage by the telltale celluloid on their thighs, something that none of the Japanese wrestlers seemed to have, despite their wobbly bellies. This notwithstanding, I'm thinking that sumo wrestling might be a good career move for me - what do you reckon?