Voice of Will: Sumo

2007-05-21 - 3:34 p.m.
What can I say about sumo?
Wow?
Nope. That doesn't sum it up.
A very large build up, then a quick climax?
well it is that, but so too are many other things that get you sweaty.
Sumo is just... undescribable, but I will try.
We arrived at 11am to watch the days sumo bashio. The kids were excited, criss's co workers were excited and midly worried. I was looking forward to it.
So we get to the tournament center, and we have a problem right from the get go. When criss bought the tickets (on the first day they went on sale) and was told, "no you get kids tickets the day you go for 200 yen." Oh, ok. 200 yen for the kids, that is dirt cheap. ok. Well not ok. It appears they only have very limited kids tickets each day, and they were sold out. Ok, buy a regular ticket. Nope. The only tickets are 9200 yen. yes that is right $90.00 per person.
WTF? Ok. I guess the kids go home. who with? I can take them home, and then come back and watch the bashio later (we have 2 tickets). Just then, a co worker of criss's offers us her 2 tickets, so we would have to buy one adult ticket, and they would buy 2 tickets... We had a discussion, and decided that would be ok, because we didn't want to ruin the sumo match for the kids.
We go in, and it is 11am. This means the scrubs of sumo are fighting. They don't even have the indoor lights on yet. But becaue this is the scrubs, the unranked sumo, they have NO ONE there. The tournament hall is deserted. So we all move down to the third row behind the judge. We are so close we can see every pore on each sumo's face. We can see the hands, the feet, and the butt cracks (some of them were huge).
Some thoughts on watching the scrubs. There were two that stood out. The first one was the individual who had 6 operations on his knees. You could see 3 scars on each knee, and you could hear them creak and pop (worse than mine) as he worked his way up the step onto the platform. I kept thinking, "If you have had to have 6 operations, and you are still an unranked scrub, why do you keep fighting?" Now maybe he had once been ranked, and was working his way back into rankings... or maybe he just loved sumo, but at somepoint you have to look at your body, and say, enough is a enough. I played just enough football in jr high school, and early high school to hurt my knees, and ankles. I decided I didn't want to walk in pain the rest of my life, so I stopped.
The second thought was watching this romanian sumo. He was BUILT. There was no fat on him. He moved like he had lots of judo or other martial arts. Watching the women watch him was like watching a human with a hungry vampires... the girls were licking their lips, and you could see how handsome he was. He won. He was against a larger guy, but he managed to move the behind the big guy, and when it looked bad, he did a great hip throw.... wow.
At this time we moved up above to watch from the original seats. The idea was to go up, and let the kids read their books, and maybe play some gameboys. Well the kids went to the bathroom. Rae comes back, will jr comes back. No zeb. No zeb. 15 minutes go buy, no zeb. WTF? I go in the bathroom, no zeb. I go into the other bathrooms, NO zeb. Go back to the seats, no zeb. He is gone!! We call in the security guards, they start looking for zeb. we are looking all over at the top. Criss says, hold on, and looks downstairs. There he is sitting with the people we came with. Turns out, he purposefully snuck out behind dad, and snuck downstairs.
Well needless to say, he got in a boat load of trouble. At this time, criss who was not feeling well, started feeling nauseous. We spoke about it and she wanted to go home. So she left and took the kids with. I stayed.
I must say the best fights were the second ranked fighters. They are ranked, but are inbetween the scrubs and the top notch fighters. These guys all are HUNGRY, they all want that higher level ranking, so they all put up great fights.
The highest level guys were pretty awesome. People who are my size, but who are exceptionally quick and strong. In this group you have 3 current foreigners from eastern europe. 2 of the 3 won todays matches. It was good to see them win.
One of the other benefits of sumo, is the sumo have to walk among the crowds. There are no special exits, there are no team busses. So as you can see from my picture. I got near two of the same sized sumo's in the hall. Both had won their matches. They looked at me, and asked if I wanted to learn sumo...
No thanks I replied, I like my original bone structure. They didn't understand that english and I said, No NOSE and then make a squishing nose. And pointed to my collarbone and said "crack",and then said "no thud" They laughed, and said, yes lots of "nose" squish and thud... I said no thank you. They replied, well you get lots of girls, and with that a group of japanese women surrounded the sumo and away they went...
sumo groupies...go figure...