SUMO!!!

Sunday I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the final day of the Sumo tournament in Tokyo with some friends from church. We left Yokohama pretty early and made our way up to Tokyo on the train. The first few hours were basically the lower ranked guys. There were a few really good matches and some mismatches, which made for entertaining Sumo. After the lower ranked guys were the middle/upper lever guys. There was a dramatic increase in skill and time before the match started. There is a whole ritual that is done before each match, which includes "singing" the names of the wrestlers, throwing salt into the ring, squatting, slapping, squatting more, getting a drink, squatting, throwing salt, squatting, wiping off sweat, throwing more salt, slapping, squatting, and finally sumo... It was a pretty interesting routine. After the middle level was the top guys (Makuuchi). These guys were the top of the top and they were even better. The yokozuna (top ranked sumo wrestler) was the last group to wrestle. The yokozuna was actually from Mongolia, and he was really good. After the matches the winner received two giant trophies and a flag along with a ton of other papers and littler trophies. Going to a sumo match has been a life long dream, and I am happy to say that I can now check SUMO off the list. Here is a link to a video I made of the SUMO DAY.

http://www.vimeo.com/29602556