Sumo Dream

Second visit to the Otakebeya-Stable. This time to observe a young sumo hopeful..

Entering the stable I noticed a young fellow in his twenties who had not been there for the training when I came in March 2013. He was apparently new in the stable. During the following 2 hours it was interesting to see how he was pushed to the limits by his fellow sumo-wrestlers and guided by his trainers.

Let´s look at the warming up which meant stretching, push ups and moving through the ring.

I was quite impressed by his flexibility compared to the other heavyweights. He has not gained the pounds yet.
Being the youngster he was the one to sweep the ring for the training fights.

The following sequence is put together from several rounds of fights against the most experienced sumo-wrestler that day in the stable.

These fights continued for at least 20 minutes continuously and left the poor fellow increasingly exhausted. At the end he was barely able to get up.

Rules at the stable apparently demand that the trainee offers water to the trainer right afterwards. Afterwards he was summoned to receive some advice.

While training in the ring continued he took a brief rest. But the attention of the trainers was now focused on him, by this honoring him for his shown commitment. One example was the lifting of the legs, a sumo-wrestler shows several times before the actual fight starts. It´s about the right position, height and angle of the legs.

After the other sumo-wrestlers had completed their training and some cooling down the group of four circled the ring and sat down for a closing ceremony where our young fellow was taking the lead.

Looking into the sumo ring I noticed the calligraphy next to the pictures of the two most famous sumo stars of Otakebeya which not there at my first visit in May. It reads “yume” which means dream. This was quite symbol for this exercise that morning on December 30th. There will a lot more training until the dream of being Nr. 1 will come true for this youngster.