Samurai Thunder
Canada gets its first look at sumo’s rites of immortal combat
Equinox, cover story November 1998

cover photo by Kevin Kelly

Ignore the girth: at the first sumo basho ever held in Canada, the world’s best rikishi display the fine art – and rites – of ancient combat.

Business people, politicians, and sports authorities enter the media room of Vancouver’s Pan Pacific Hotel on an early June day. They are normal people, commoners like us, of average height and weight, dressed in suits. As we turn to see who follows them, a hush falls over the crowd. We see swaying kimonos, hear the flap of giant sandals on giant feet. We are in the presence of living gods.

Akebono, more than 6 feet 8 inches tall and 516 pounds, with a steely look in his eyes, moves forward, his purple fabric appearing royal, his jet-black hair oiled into an ancient, elegant style and smelling as sweet as baby powder. He was born in Hawaii, though it might have been Mount Olympus. He is a grand champion sumo wrestler, a revered Yokozuna in an art, a sport, a ritual at least 1,500 years old. Behind him comes Takanohana, his sphinxlike face maintaining an absence of desire that worries his foes. His technique and spiritual power in this oldest of martial arts are almost unmatched in its history, and at the age of 25, he is a Japanese folk hero. Near him is older brother Wakanohana, whose recent entry into the rank of Yokozuna made him the 66th man ever to gain the honour and marked the first time siblings have been grand champions. Yokozuna are considered unlike other human beings and can never lose their rank, but they face the best opponents, and defeat can force them into disgrace and retirement.

The two who follow are from the Ozeki rank, just below Yokozuna: the bespectacled Takanonami looks like a giant chartered accountant and the glowering 470-pound Musashimaru like a human bulldozer.

They are all here to promote the first grand sumo tournament ever held in Canada. Their sport is, at best, a curiosity in North America, an exhibition in which two grotesquely obese, nearly naked opponents lumber up onto a hard clay platform and clumsily bash and push each other onto the ground or out of the ring. But almost from the moment I saw these men walk into the room, looking like warrior-priests in appearance and attitude, I knew these next few days would prove such perceptions wrong. I would be privileged to sit just metres from the sacred dohyo ring and watch the 40 best sumo rikishi on Earth, here to do combat and to participate in a complex, dignified endeavour. Seeing it up close gave me a glimpse of the true nature of sports and what our era has done to them.

Legend has it that godly victory in a sumo wrestling match gained the Japanese supremacy over the land of the rising sun. More precise records trace sumo’s beginnings to the fifth century B.C.E. as a Shinto ritual performed at shrines in prayer for plentiful harvests. Six hundred years before Genghis Khan and 1,300 years before the earliest forms of the historic sport of baseball, there was sumo. From the 7th century through to the 12th, it was performed annually before royalty, and during the medieval centuries of military dictatorship when the shoguns ruled Japan, it became a useful tool for the country’s samurai and soldiers, with its many ways to force an opponent to the ground. In those days, it was even more violent than today, with few rules and submission moves. Street sumo was popular but created such brutality and chaos that it was soon banned. Then it was allowed only in benefit of the gods, and money gained was used to build shrines and renovate public places. In the relative peace of the 1600s, the samurai began organizing tournaments at which victorious wrestlers were given ceremonial aprons and even warrior status, if they did not already hold it. Professional sumo slowly became common, rules were standardized, and by the late 1700s, a well-defined system of ranking, with Yokozuna at the top, had been developed.

Today there are six grand sumo tournaments, or bashos, held yearly in Japan, with almost 800 professional rikishi. The sport retains its honour, rituals, and ancient traditions, though now, with millions of dollars at stake and its elite pursued by the paparazzi, it needs everything that is special about it to resist becoming like other professional sports: an entertainment and a business.

Business was, indeed, a huge part of the Sumo Canada Basho. It was organized not by a samurai but by Parmesh Bhatt, a salesman with Canadian connections. Bhatt conspired with sponsors in Japan and Canada, as well as Tourism Canada and the Canadian government, to bring the sumo superstars to Vancouver. He also brought a few thousand Japanese, who he hopes will return to spend more money.

The day after the press conference, hundreds of fans, many Japanese and female, line the escalators and fill the downstairs floor of the Virgin Records Megastore, desperate for a glimpse of real sumo wrestlers. And Bhatt delivers two of the biggest to his business partners. Here on Robson Street in Vancouver is none other than Akebono, smiling and resplendent in kimono, and Takanonami, still wearing those glasses. They sign their beautiful charactered autographs on handprints and don perhaps the largest Virgin sweatshirts ever made. Looking like two mammoth teddy bears, they grin and dance as flashbulbs click.

The next day, the scene outside the Pacific Coliseum is magnificent. Long, colourful banners displaying rikishi names hang from flagpoles: drummers who in Tokyo would move through the streets to call people to the dohyo, as was done 1,000 years ago, are playing for traditional Japanese dancers who perform in exotic costumes. Inside, sculptures and etchings of famous Yokozuna and Ozeki are on sale; sake is served in square wooden cups, sushi in plastic containers; there is joy on every Japanese face.

Coming to the top of the seating area, I look down and see the dohyo, appearing almost holy under a lambent light. Above it is a wooden canopy that resembles the roof of a shrine; a Shinto priest has blessed this sacred spot before our arrival, sprinkling it with salt, offering sake as a thirst quencher for the gods. We are told not to touch it; women are especially forbidden. Up close, we can see the hardness of its surface: most are composed of arakida, a soil found on the banks of the Arakawa River in Chiba, but this one is a rare exception, made from claylike B.C. dirt, its consistency carefully inspected by the Japanese. The dohyo’s “ropes” are the round tops of rice bales embedded in a circle in the soil and sticking up a few centimetres to form the 4.5-metre-diameter ring. The surface is half a metre above the concrete floor. Its square and round shapes represent heaven and earth.

Bashos in Japan last 15 days. The rikishi winning the most bouts (there is one per day) wins the tournament. A winning record allows a competitor to go up in rank; a losing one drops him. If he loses enough, he falls into a lower division; money and privileges decline. The Vancouver exhibition is a two-day, knock-out event. A loss eliminates a participant from the day’s competition; the first day’s champion confronts the second’s for the grand prize.

Under the stands, in the dressing rooms, the rikishi get ready. Their hair is done by traditional hairdressers; they pace; the underlings attend to the great ones. The life of a sumo wrestler, however, is almost unbelievably gruelling. Most enter the sport at 16, though college stars and foreigners often begin later. Rookies join one of the many heyas, or sumo stables, and withdraw like monks into a strict way of life. Everything about sumo is hierarchical, paralleling Japanese society. Beginners must rise at about 4:30 a.m. and cannot eat until past noon. Practice starts almost immediately: they push against huge poles (sometimes smacking them with their heads to toughen themselves), stomp their feet hundreds of times, and do various other strength exercises, with emphasis on hips and legs. They also wrestle, often for very long periods without a break. Their coaches beat them with bamboo poles to make them work harder. Flexibility is as important as strength, and they are required to accomplish excruciating full splits: others lean on them, forcing them to the floor as they try not to cry out in pain. When the highly ranked veterans arrive, they, too, may inflict punishment on their inferiors to push them to greater heights. No one is allowed to complain, to curse, or to act without dignity. The recruits must bathe their superiors, cook their meals, and attend to their every need. They eat only when others have finished, so their food is often cold, but they are veritably required to eat enormous amounts, mostly of the high-calorie Japanese stew chankonabe, and drink gallons of beer. All eat twice a day and then rest to build bulk. (Their association quotes a study that shows these men have a lower percentage body fat than the average office employee; the average male in his twenties has 13 percent body fat, while a sumo wrestler may have only 11 percent.)

Despite the rigours, typical sumo wrestlers have polite, almost childlike demeanours. They answer questions with short, sometimes impish responses. Akebono replied to one television reporter’s question about his income by saying, “We make a little more than a television reporter,” and quipped that he hadn’t taken up football because he “didn’t like contact sports.” Takanohana, feared by all, seems like the sort of slightly flabby, simplistic guy you might intimidate by raising your voice. And yet on video, I had seen frightening scenes of sumo aggression: skulls meeting with stunning force, 400-pound men being thrown into front-row seats, rapid karatelike blows to the chest and face that would knock most of us unconscious.

This contradiction is part of what it is to be a rikishi and live by the sumo code. A gentleman at ringside named C.W Nicol sheds light on the subject. A leading Japanese citizen of Welsh origin who lived for a time in Canada, Nicol is an author, a naturalist, former professional wrestler, television producer, and martial artist. “A sumo wrestler always maintains his dignity,” he tells me. “You don’t get them biting somebody’s ear off or spitting in public or any untoward behaviour. They don’t do it; they couldn’t do it; they wouldn’t do it.” In a way, he says, they are like modern samurai, “somebody who observes the old ethics of Bushido – that is, the prewar Bushido, protecting the weak, being humble, maintaining your dignity – really the same ethics as chivalry. Sumo wrestlers maintain that.” Besides, being discourteous would mean being out of control, and that would be lethal for one who must dismantle giants on the dohyo. Politeness is a perfect camouflage for a sudden, brutal strike.

But their gentlemanliness is of a medieval sort. They are legendary drinkers, renowned for their ability to consume sake in awesome quantities without apparent loss of sobriety, and their appetite for women is said to be prodigious. The strings that hang from the beaded belts on their mawashi often number 13, significant in Shinto, but any odd number, representing maleness and strength, will do. Women, perhaps surprisingly to the uninitiated, are drawn to them: to their size, manliness, fame, and old-fashioned nobility. Mothers often set babies in their big arms to bring good luck.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
From the minute I take my seat in Vancouver, there is a great deal to observe and understand. First, a yobidashi (ring announcer) kneels before us, welcoming spectators and wrestlers and calling on the gods with an eerie display of staccato drumming. Then the rikishi enter, one group from the “east” side, another from the “west.” They circle in the ring, clap, lift their ceremonial aprons to each other, and exit. The struggles are about to begin.

In North America, we want our sports fast-paced, rituals kept to a minimum. In sumo, the rituals are lengthy and of utmost importance, building to the moment of the fight, which can happen in the blink of an eye. An average bout, in fact, lasts about seven seconds.

Six fleshy rikishi appear, stripped down for battle except for their loin cloth, or mawashi. At ringside, they sit upon enormous pillows, two on each side waiting their turn. All fighters are hierarchically seeded: the legends will fight lower opponents first, and the tournament will build each day to a confrontation of giants. Unless a budding David rises up to defeat a Goliath.

At first, there is little animosity between combatants. An announcer sings out their names in a trained, high-pitched voice. They rise, climb the dohyo, and bow to each other, then head to their corners. They begin to strut. Now the gyoji enters the fray. He is the referee, but unlike any you have seen before, equipped with a dagger, adorned in ancient costume, his status commensurate with the quality of the wrestlers. He holds a war fan in his hand.

The fighters then begin their approach. They squat in front of each other to show respect, clap to alert the gods, and hold their hands out flat to indicate that they have no weapons. All movements are synchronized, the fighters in a strange harmony. Then they pound the dohyo with high leg stomps to drive out evil spirits. They drink “power water”, spit it out, and wipe their brow and armpits, ensuring that they are unsoiled for the fight. Salt is kept in the corners to be thrown by rikishi to purify the ring and their actions and to cleanse cuts. Each fighter has his own throwing style: the big veteran Mitoizumi loves to fire it skyhigh, the salt arching in a rain of little missiles above the dohyo. Akebono drops it from his hand, his concentration elsewhere.

As the ritual builds, their concentration visibly increases, as does their internal power. They lock eyes in a penetrating stare-down. Many aficionados feel this is the pivotal moment in a fight. Niramiai is psychological warfare, and those who master it are the masters of sumo.

To be a champion, a rikishi must develop an arsenal of three components. He must build a powerful and supple body, he must learn 70 officially recognized techniques (from arm bars to leg throws, mawashi grips, and old-fashioned shoves), and most important, he must acquire shin. It is an inexplicable quality, Eastern and mystical; it’s about spiritual composure and is at the heart of the stare-down. With shin, some believe, they can look into another wrestler’s mind and see his fight plan. At that instant, victory is ensured. The Shinto side of sumo is in its reverence for the power of nature, but shin is more of a Zen Buddhist attribute, the other religion behind the sport. A top sumo wrestler, like a Buddhist monk, can empty his mind of all desire and concentrate on the job at hand. When Takanohana ascends the dohyo, his face is serene and blank. Look for his moves in his face, and you will find nothing; but look too long, and you will see your own defeat.

The stare-down may last for four minutes. The wrestlers do not speak. The referee holds the war fan between them. They mutually decide to strike. Both hands of both men must touch the ground in order for the bout to begin. Suddenly it does.

They come out of their squats with lightning speed. The smack of flesh on flesh is resounding, and then, in a second, or a long, calculating wrestle, one rikishi finds a way to send the other to the ground or out of the ring. It is judo, rassling, pushing, shoving, thinking, manoeuvring, reacting; it is strength and speed and martial art. Anything touching the dohyo surface except the soles of the feet means immediate defeat. Takanohana once threw a 450-pound Ozeki over his shoulder and into the seats only to lose because the perfectly balanced stance he used to make the throw employed near splits and, with his head down, his topknot brushed the ground before his opponent landed.

Sumo disallows few moves. Competitors cannot hit with a closed fist; grab the opponent’s genitals, his hair, or his windpipe; kick him in the chest or gouge his eyes. Just about everything else is legal. Intentionally inflicting pain is not honourable, but concussions, broken shoulders, and severe knee injuries are frequent.

I watch the basho move: slow rituals building to sudden explosions, normal life resuming until the next ritual. Expectation grows as we await the champions.

Akebono doesn’t disappoint. His mere appearance draws a crowd reaction. Head high above others, glistening black hair pulled tightly back and knotted, he struts proudly into the arena, the long, muscular arms of a monster praying mantis held wide like those of a gunslinger, his big Buddha-belly sitting below fleshy breasts. His fighting name means “Dawn.” In the ring, he is Darth-Vader, regarding his combatant with utter and magnificent disdain. If stared back at, his glare grows almost evil. He disposes of adversaries one after another, often simply rising up and driving them backwards, slapping, shoving, or nearly crushing their throats with his massive paws.

Takanohana’s bouts are mysterious. He defeats opponents so subtly that they appear to give up. A twist of an arm, a slight shift in stance as someone makes a move on him results in people staring up at him from the ground. Wakanohana is different again. This smallish Yokozuna has to fight every opponent with all his might, but his might and his speed are awesome.

The crowd quickly picks favourites. They roar for Akebono, but they admire the pluck of Kyokushuzan, a fiery Mongolian who smacks his mawashi with clouts that register in the upper seats. And Chiyotaikai, the fighter who wears the red maple leaf on his apron; exhibiting great spirit and technique, he upsets several superiors.

To my Western mind, each fight ends in a sort of anticlimax. There is no celebration, no sense of who is the winner and who is the loser. Victors help up fallen foes, bow to the referee, and serve water to the next wrestler. All is nobility, acceptance of defeat or victory. Killers turn into gentlemen in an instant. Some even catch opponents from falling from the dohyo within a split second of forcing them out.

During lower-level bouts, I sneak out to the dressing rooms to observe the wrestlers’ demeanour between fights. To my surprise, they have returned to being little boys, playing with one another backstage. The Yokozunas are different: Takanohana and Wakanohana are nowhere to be seen, Akebono sits on a chair like a king on a throne. His underlings, other rikishi, rush about bringing him things. He talks to the crowd and occasionally signs things that are thrown to him. Japanese women scream his name and jump up and down. He offers them a boyish smile. Inside, 12,000 people are waiting to see him crush or be crushed.

Musashimaru sits nearby in a corridor, one of his assistants wiping his brow. His presence is spectacular, perhaps even more unnerving than Akebono’s. When he sat in front of me on his pillow near the ring, it struck me that I might never see another human being as wide as he. Even his face looks frightening. To stare him down would seem like trying to stare down fear itself. And yet, when I ask (addressing him by his title) if I can speak to him, he consents graciously and rises to his feet. At any moment he must return to the arena and do battle against men who can destroy world-ranked black belts and have been known to disintegrate apples with a one-handed squeeze, but he answers my questions calmly, standing there in his royal blue mawashi, 6 feet-3 inches and 470 pounds of near-naked machismo.

Musashimaru is trying to follow in the footsteps of the groundbreaking Akebono and become the second foreign grand champion. He is 27 years old and of Samoan heritage. He says he took up sumo because of the challenge: “I had nothing to lose, all to gain.” Now he loves it, especially the one-mindedness of the samurai-style approach to human existence. “You must be disciplined; you’ve got to practise every day. You always have a goal in your mind ... to win.” A samurai, he says, is “a god, a killer. He’s a mean man.”

Half an hour later Musashimaru destroys the mighty Takanohana. Then he confronts Akebono in a riveting, day-one final. I had asked him what ran through his mind during the stare-down. For most, he says, it means, “‘Don’t let that guy scare you,’ but for me, that’s not my game. I’m not out there to stare at the guy. I’m just going out there, and when he’s coming, I’m coming.” When Kyokushuzan had tried his Mongolian death glare on him, Musashimaru sniffed and shook his head as if to say, “Nice stare, buddy, let’s fight.” Then he picked him up by his mawashi and deposited him outside the ring.

But a 516-pound Yokozuna is a different matter. The bout begins, and they come together like elephants, nearly 1,000 pounds of flesh in collision. They grip each other, and Musashimaru shuffles his massive opponent to the edge of the ring. With the crowd roaring, he strains with all his power to force Akebono over the ropes. But suddenly momentum shifts. This seems to be the way with Yokozuna – they often recover from certain defeat. Akebono gives Musashimaru a twist, gets him moving backward, and then ushers him across the ring and over the ropes. The crowd responds. The combatants bow. The first day is over. At the post-fight press conference, the samurai warrior surfaces in Akebono. “I’ll see you guys up here tomorrow, ” he boasts.

The next day every fighter is back to square one, but things proceed as expected, and in the end, the great ones are left standing again. Akebono and the huge Takanonami looking very unlike an accountant now, meet in one quarter-final, and their staredown is long and satanic, bringing a roar from the crowd. Akebono wins in a gruelling bout by okuridashi, rear push-out, to face Musashimaru again, this time in a semifinal.

The other semi is extraordinary. It involves brothers Takanohana and Wakanohana, who have faced each other only once in their lives: being from the same stable, they aren’t required to fight. The bout begins with the crowd truly excited, but the posturing is muted, the brothers looking away. Hands touch the dohyo, and they burst forward, struggle for about 15 seconds, and then Taka, almost reluctantly it seems, calls on one of his subtle judolike moves, uwatenage, an overarm throw, and deposits Waka outside the ropes.

Next is the Hawaiian rematch: Musashimaru again forces Akebono to the ropes, but
with the crowd expecting another recovery, the favourite is suddenly defeated, undone by the frontal force-out of his powerful countryman. Takanohana then confronts Musashimaru at a 100-pound weight disadvantage and outmuscles him. He does it without a hint of emotion. Takanohana is day-two champion.

Akebono reenters the arena, greeted by the roar of the crowd. Takanohana awaits him. It’s day-one champion versus day two for the title. The huge Hawaiian does his squat, shows he has no weapons; Takanohana does the same; they clap; they throw salt; they swagger. Their hands go down, and up they come.

Takanohana, at 386 pounds, goes right at Akebono and drives him across the dohyo. When he gets him to the edge, he tightens his grip on the bigger man’s mawashi, buries his face in his chest, and slightly dips his knees. Now, with his centre of balance much lower than his opponent’s, he tries to force him straight out of the ring. He gets him to the edge. For a long, agonizing moment they grapple, Akebono on the verge of destruction. The crowd rises to its feet. In a single movement, Takanohana seems to both relent and drive forward, and Akebono is suddenly off balance; he falls back on his heels and ... over the ropes. The crowd thunders and stamps their feet: Noble Flower has defeated Dawn.

Somehow, it seems right. Akebono, for all his evil looks and size, is not the master samurai. That is Takanohana. He is the one who can kill and never blink, do it without malice and for all the right reasons. Dawn brings American desire into sumo, but Noble Flower, sphinxlike, doesn’t need it.

Sumo is occasionally tainted by controversies, such as rumours about fight fixing, marijuana use, and unwritten antiforeigner policies; commercialism has made such inroads that sponsors’ names are paraded in the sacred ring prior to championship fights. But the sport, protected by the spirit of ancient codes and a core of values, somehow reigns supreme. Like Takanohana, it is simple on the surface but unfathomably complex, and he is its perfect champion, triumphing because of the power of his spirit.

Most athletics have become businesses, seemingly full of greed and properly in their place next to the entertainment section in our newspapers. Sumo shows us that sports are intended to be something else: rituals that test our physical and mental abilities and our values. They are dramas, meant to display the frailties and the power of our nature to the gods.