Sumo at Ryogoku

Originally uploaded by -nanio-

Today was pretty friggin awesome. I spent most of the day watching sumo at Kokugikan Stadium. I bought a fairly cheap ($35) ticket so got stuck in the 2nd highest nosebleed seat in the house but security wasn't particularly tight so I spent a lot of time moving around lower. The lowest level isn't actual seats, but rather a series of tatami mats. Sitting on one of those for six hours would have been a nightmare, and much more expensive.

Sumo is a really odd sport. The matches themselves are extremely, short, usually 10 to 30 seconds long. Before they get rolling though, the wrestlers go through the same set of rituals over and over in a way that would put Nomar Garciaparra to shame. Here one of them is throwing salt, something the advanced sumos do maybe 4 or 15 times repeatedly before each match for purification purposes. They also do some stomping motions and scrub their faces with a towel and act exasperated. The funny thing is these consistently repeated behaviors actually build anticipation much more than constant action would.

Media-wise, in all I shot an inordinate amount of sumo video, far more than anyone could healthily use in any sort of sumo retrospective. We'll see I guess.