Practice Starts in Earnest

The wrestlers are sweating heavily from their warm-up when stablemaster Takadagawa arrives shortly after 8:00. The atmosphere immediately thickens with tension as under his watchful eye the lower-ranked wrestlers enter the ring and grapple with one stablemate after another. Winners of their bouts pick who they want to fight next, and especially strong wrestlers can go on for bout after bout.

Stablemaster Takadagawa, clad in a loincloth like the wrestlers he oversees, will occasionally bark out instructions. He is particularly vigilant about awkward throws or other physical movements that could lead to an injury. Today, he advises the wrestlers that “Keiko isn’t about winning or losing; you battle against yourself. Even if you lose a bout, there’s still tomorrow, but if you injure yourself, it’s all over.”

Sumō stables belong to groupings called ichimon. Of current 47 stables, 43 belong to six ichimon, while the other 4 stables are unaffiliated. Stables within the same grouping have mutual exchanges. For example, on the day we visited, two sandanme wrestlers from the Minezaki stable, like the Takadagawa stable a member of the Nishonoseki ichimon, were present for a “visiting practice,” or degeiko. Stablemaster Takadagawa directed the visiting wrestlers as carefully as his own charges, demonstrating the correct way to perform shiko and admonishing them: “The point isn’t how many of these moves you do. You need to practice to get your center of gravity way down. It’s tough, but that’s the right way to do it. You do it so that you’ll get better at it. You know you want to get better, don’t you?”

Wrestlers take turns lunging at each other in butsukari-geiko.

The practice session continues, with relatively evenly matched wrestlers engaging each other in one bout after another. The final stage of practice is butsukari-geiko, where one wrestler lunges at his sparring partner’s chest with all his might and pushes him out of the ring. That wrestler then rolls to the ground and the roles are reversed. In many cases, the stronger wrestler of the pair is the one who receives the lunges. Within five minutes his chest has gotten bright red from the thrusting and the air is filled with the grunting breaths of his challenger, who can by this time barely stand, so great is the effort involved.

The sekitori enter the ring at the end of the practice. The force they expend in butting against each other is on a whole other level.
Keiko ends with words from the stablemaster, and the wrestlers perform a ritual kashiwade clap while in crouching position.