November 6, 2007--Sumo Yokozuna

I remember staying in a fleabag of a hotel in Madrid in 1993 and, seeking relief from the depressing surroundings, tried to find something on TV to distract me. The only program in English was a World Sport program about sumo wresting. Desperate, while waiting for 10:00 p.m., the respectable time to go out in search of tapas, I watched; and wouldn’t you know it, before very long I found it to be fascinating. The announcers, both Brits, were terrific, and after a half hour I began to think about myself as an aficionado. I was in Spain, after all, where a fellow countryman and writer, years before, had become a bullfighting aficionado and so, in a manner of speaking, I felt right at home.

I learned that each match was preceded by various rituals derived from Shinto practice—for example, each competitor faces the audience, claps his hands, and then stomps his legs to drive evil spirits from the dohyō or ring. Then, each wrestler is given a ladleful of water, the chikara-mizu ("power water"), with which he rinses out his mouth; and a paper tissue, the chikara-gami ("power paper"), to dry his lips. Then both combatants step into the ring, squat facing each other, clap their hands and spread them wide (traditionally to show they have no weapons). When they go to their corners, they each pick up a handful of salt which they toss onto the ring to purify it.

So you can see, I really got into it.

The matches I watched in Madrid proceeded one after another very quickly, some lasted only 10 seconds, and built up to the highlight of the evening, a match between a Japanese grand champion, or yokozuna, and an American. An American? When I heard that I pulled myself up in the bed to pay closer attention. If this other countryman of mine managed to win, they said, he too would become a yokozuna, the first American ever to do so. So I had even managed to stumble onto something potentially historic. And it turned out to be so—that mountain of a man, named Akebono, did win the required number of falls and was anointed with this ancient designation.

Thus you can only imagine my disappointment when I read recently that this ancient sport, like so much else, is being adulterated and is beginning to be riddled with corruption. A coach has been expelled from the sumo association because he killed one of his apprentices through excessive hazing. Hazing, which is also traditional, is supposed to have its limits—smashing a glass bottle over the head of an apprentice and killing him is considered going too far. There are even reports of match fixing. And then to make matters even worse, Japanese women who are sumo fans are making a mess of things. The dohyō, the ring is considered to be a version of a sacred space and, as with most other sacred spaces, is considered off-limits to women. So when last month one female enthusiast eluded security people at a sumo match and crawled into the ring, by so doing she “defiled” it, thereby making it impure, and thus it had to be destroyed. (See NY Times article linked below.)

Just think about what a comparable set of circumstances would mean at Yankee Stadium. But then again, they are building a billion dollar replacement for it. Will Mayor or President Giuliani be there to throw out the first handful of salt?