Sumo

5.39.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 19th May 2006

Sumo fight

Today was Sumo day although it is the national sport there are only four big tournaments in Tokyo a year and luckily enough today was one of them. Sean and I went to watch and ended up spending the whole day there.

Sumo bow

In the morning it was the younger and less experienced wrestlers, understandable this attracted less spectators so we were able to leave our seats and go ring-side. I had seen Sumo on television before but experiencing it live was great and strangely addictive.

Sumo wrestler lifting his leg

The bout does not take very long you need to get you opponent out of the ring or on to the floor, and can be over in seconds. However the lead-up to the fight is quite a ritual with lots of mind-games being played.

Sumo wrestler pushing another

After watching for a while we visited to Edo-Tokyo Museum which was okay but could have been far more interesting.

Sumo parade

Before returning to watch the top Sumo wrestlers we watched some of the stars arriving and some are not as big as you would think they would be and certainly not fat but very muscular.