Big Lads Wrestling

One of the essential Japanese sights I’d yet to experience was some sumo wrestling. Watching, not doing, although with a few more ramen bowls in me I might make the weight cut.

There’s six 'Major' two-week sumo tournaments in the year, so tickets sell out almost on the day of release. But they hold a small batch of day tickets that you can get hold of without having to haggle with the small group of touts who hang around. I found most of this info on other blogs but hopefully I can condense it into a handy how-to guide.

You need to put in a pretty early start - tourists and locals alike all want a piece of the last-minute action. I think there’s about 400 tickets on sale each day, and I was #185 having joined the queue at 7am. This was on day two or three or the tournament, so I’m assuming that's the same sort of as the early days of Wimbledon - no key matches but a few star players on show. Later in the tournament you’d probably have to arrive nearer 5:30 or 6am.

From Ryogoku station just follow the flow of slightly bewildered looking, sweaty people to the line at the front of the stadium, an imposing square building near the equally impressive Edo Museum. It’s all unsurprisingly well-managed to that Japanese standard of organisation. Eventually a man will hand out numbered tickets which is like a pre-reservation pass, you still need to stay in line but the little ticket means you made it in time. Each person has to line up, no nominating of one or two people to hold a spot for eight mates, and around 8:20 the ticket offices open. It’s 2,200 yen per person, cash only.

Then you’re in. Best bet is to make straight for the upstairs - day tickets are for the unreserved back row of the second level and the best spots fill up fast. Sumo arenas are divided up like a compass, with East, West, Main and Opposite sides. Fighters enter from East and West (like red and blue boxing corners) and you want to score a seat on the Opposite side which gives the best view - facing the sumo ring with the referee on the far side from you. The brilliant thing is that you just need to put down a newspaper or coat and then that seat’s claimed for the rest of the day. No-one would think of being a dick and kicking your stuff off. I saw one old guy bagsie his seat with a small bag of trash, then I didn’t see him again til the very end of the day and his seat remained untouched.

Now, doing the day ticket method makes for a LONG slog. Each day of the tournament features three or four divisions each of between 15 and 20 bouts. Imagine going to the football or rugby and watching a Division One match in the morning, Championship game around lunchtime, then a Premiership match at the end of the day. Quality in the morning is going to be… lacking, the wrestlers are younger and smaller and the real prize champions don’t appear until nearer 4 or 5pm. So once you’ve claimed your seat there’s a lot of time to kill. You’ve got free reign to wander about so get a snack or have a nap like a lot of the locals seem to do. You can see some of the wrestlers up close wandering the halls on their way to the changing rooms. They're treated like demi-gods so expect most of them to have a tail of adoring, mostly female, fans. The stadium has a little sumo museum but best of all is the canteen in the basement level serving bowls of chanko nabe, the super-protein meat and tofu stew that the wrestlers eat to build bulk. Most of the restaurants around the arena seem to serve this but all at top tourist-trap prices - I was pretty happy with my 300 yen (£2) bowl just to try the flavour.

Reserved seats don’t start filling up until 2 or 3pm and until then you can basically go anywhere, so the morning’s a good chance to see some action up close. I walked right down to the second or third row from the ring without any bother and could see some of the athletes up close. Make no mistake, these are athletes. It may be about as close as you can get to seeing humans clash like bears in the wild, but it’s not just a case of Fattest Man Wins. The sheer size and speed of some of these guys is ridiculous, and it’s amazing to see from a few metres away. Later in the day, when some of the really huge guys pair off, there’s an audible clap when they collide and with a full crowd wedged into the steep arena it makes for a pretty intense environment.

Sumo is roughly 95% ceremony and 5% action, a combination of religious rites and artistic performance. Before each match there’s a short fan-dance and song, then a series of proclamations from the referee. Each wrestler hauls himself up to the ring, and then there’s a ritual dance to their opponent which is a combination of showing that you show respect and don’t carry any weapons. Then they enter the ‘psyche out phase’. Each wrestler approaches their starting mark, but within a small time limit they're allowed to back away from the face-off, do more grunting, slapping, dry themselves with a towel. It’s all mind games and the senior wrestlers are masters of the last-second wheel-away, the crowd get totally sucked in. At some unpredictable moment both wrestlers decide they're ready and slam together like two small vans colliding. Most fights last about twenty seconds and come down to one slip or skilful trip, a few bouts turn into drawn-out battles of wills. Then there’s a respectful bow, the referee signals the winner and it all repeats again. That’s one thing that impressed me - there’s no whooping and hollering to celebrate a win or shouting about a loss, the wrestlers have to stay within the bounds of the etiquette at all times. The best moments are the judge discussions on fights too close to call. The four judges around the ring gather around the referee, flowing robes making them look like a cabal of wizards.

And that’s it. I sort of regret not leaving the arena for longer earlier in the day, or having a proper sleep when the place was empty. By 4:30pm or so I’d reached saturation point and had to make my exit, maybe missing out on the really big fights where the crowd were totally fired up. It’s worth knowing that you’re allowed one arena exit and re-entry per day - go to the south exit and get a stamp on your hand for later. Akihabara is only a few subway stops away so in theory you could leave totally to do some shopping, come back for the big bouts later in the day. But at the very least you can go out, stretch your legs and stock up. No-one in Japan does bag searches and having a stash of beers makes the afternoon session a lot more fun.

#travel #japan #Workaway #japanese