{"id":12664,"date":"2023-03-20T22:29:39","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T22:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=12664"},"modified":"2023-03-21T22:32:57","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T22:32:57","slug":"go-sumo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2023\/03\/20\/go-sumo\/","title":{"rendered":"Go Sumo!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearbooks.com\/articles\/2023\/03\/20\/the_work_of_sumo_888208.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from RealClear Books &amp; Culture<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Work of Sumo<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Japan\u2019s National Sport Distills Competition to Its Essence<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearbooks.com\/authors\/oliver_bateman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Oliver Bateman<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Violent World of Sumo Wrestling\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R9xHdP1zhZ4?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sumo \u2014 a Japanese word (\u76f8\u64b2) that literally means \u201cstriking one another\u201d \u2014 is a sport that is almost wholly alien to the American experience. I write\u00a0<em>almost<\/em>\u00a0here because the one point of familiarity is that all of the athletes (<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190228121536\/http:\/www.asahi.com\/ajw\/articles\/AJ201902190008.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">who average 366 pounds, up from 276 pounds in 1969<\/a>), like most American football players, are obese,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/asia_pacific\/japan-sumo-coronavirus\/2021\/01\/21\/fc351ea8-54f2-11eb-acc5-92d2819a1ccb_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">morbidly so in most cases<\/a>. But everything else is different: it is formal, excessively so, and the record-keeping \u2014 which began in earnest in the mid-to-late 19th century \u2014 puts the best efforts of the Society for American Baseball Research (<a href=\"https:\/\/sabr.org\/bioproject\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the efforts of which are insanely, absurdly good<\/a>!) to shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We Americans and Western Europeans simply have no sport that is an analog for sumo, which has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=agY-4ADNrhE&amp;ab_channel=Joe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">82 recognized\u00a0<em>kimarite<\/em><\/a>, or winning techniques, and decides in mere seconds which one resulted in the victory, thanks to the efforts of an eminent judge, usually a former sumo (illegal techniques, such as striking an opponent with a closed fist, hair-pulling, finger-bending, and strangulation, are called\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www3.nhk.or.jp\/nhkworld\/en\/tv\/sumo\/sumopedia\/32\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>kinjite<\/em><\/a>). And setting aside the scandals that plagued the sport in terms of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Match-fixing_in_professional_sumo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">opponents gifting each other wins<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a bit of trivia shared widely via the lame,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jxtswIswTBI\">undercooked pop-statistics bestseller\u00a0<em>Freakonomics<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 no other combat sport in the entire world has a more carefully ranked hierarchy:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Professional_sumo_divisions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">six ranked divisions<\/a>\u00a0comprising hundreds of athletes, which are further subdivided in the\u00a0<em>makuuchi<\/em>, or top division, into the lesser\u00a0<em>maegashira\u00a0<\/em>(ranked in descending numerical order by performance) and then the\u00a0<em>san\u2019yaku<\/em>, or champions, who comprise the ranks of\u00a0<em>komusubi<\/em>,\u00a0<em>sekiwake<\/em>,\u00a0<em>\u014dzeki<\/em>, and most illustrious of all, the\u00a0<em>yokozuna<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearbooks.com\/articles\/2023\/03\/20\/the_work_of_sumo_888208.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click to continue reading at RealClear<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from RealClear Books &amp; Culture The Work of Sumo Japan\u2019s National Sport Distills Competition to Its Essence By\u00a0Oliver Bateman Sumo \u2014 a Japanese word (\u76f8\u64b2) that literally means \u201cstriking one another\u201d \u2014 is a sport that is almost wholly alien to the American experience. I write\u00a0almost\u00a0here because the one point of familiarity is that all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art","category-literary-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}