TV Program on Univ Tokyo Sumo

[cpfre@mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp (Carl Freire)]

Those of you who have seen the recent movie _Sumo Do, Sumo Don't_ or are
serious (as opposed to casual) followers of sumo are aware that there are
extracurricular sumo clubs at many high schools and colleges/universities
in Japan.

Tonight on the popular Japanese news program _News Station_ they took a
look at the sumo club at the University of Tokyo.  The reason why show the
focused on this club -- aside from the fact that "Todai" is regarded as
Japan's top university -- is because its coach is being sent to England for
a year and the club is set to lose its training facility to the boxing
club.  Furthermore (and just like in the movie), the club is facing hard
times.  It had only four returning members at the start of the academic
year in April.

The start of the 10-minute report focused on the club's efforts to attract
new members during what might be called "club pledge week."  They only
managed to attract two freshman!  The show went on to show some club
training (keiko) and a handful of college-level basho.  The club got
pummeled in their first outing at the end of April (or was it early May?
Sorry, I wasn't taking notes!), but gradually improved.  Their final match
in front of the soon-to-depart coach about three weeks ago ended with two
wins and three losses.  Fortunately for them, the coach got together alumni
of the club ("OBs," or, yes, "Old Boys" in Japanese!) and one who is a grad
student at Todai volunteered -- or maybe it was "was volunteered!" -- to
serve as temporary coach while the real coach is gone.  Part of the report
slipped past me, but I got the impression they worked out a deal wherein
they could continue to use part of the clubhouse together with the boxers.

On the whole, it was a pretty interesting report.  The club looked pretty
pathetic at pledge week, with everyone avoiding or simply ignoring displays
they had in two different locations.  One of the two guys who did join up
looked like the proverbial beanpole -- probably around 5'9" and (I kid you
not) 100 pounds (that's maybe 170-175 cm and maybe around 40-45 kg?), but
he was starting to fill out at the end of the three months covered in the
report.  None of these guys were particularly large or even slightly plump,
except for the grad student alumnus (though whether this a result of his
sumo days or his current grad student status was unclear ;-).  Some of
their opponents, though, were quite large, especially some of the guys from
Meiji University, which unless my memory is totally mistaken is the
university from which one of the top uni-sumo rikishi in makuuchi hails
(Abe-san, can you help me out here?).  And, as an added . . . "bonus," we
got to see a most unusual winning move: what I shall call the
"gero-yorikiri."  Yes, Japanese readers, that's right: the vomit attack.
One of the Todai boys was exerting himself so hard that his diaphragm
pushed up that which should not have made an appearance, and his opponent's
reaction was much like that of everyone who's reading this right now.
This, understandably, made it easy for our Todai boy to win, much to the
amusement of his clubmates!

Too bad my imminent departure from these shores for a few years will make
it more difficult to watch such events (the program, that is!).  A breath
of fresh air to clear the air of scandal floating about the pros these
days.

Carl Freire

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Carl Freire                      |  "I'd rather have a free bottle in front
Kyoto, Japan                     |       of me than a prefrontal lobotomy."
cpfre@mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp      |                          -- Groucho Marx
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