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Sumo - Ep15 - Archaic Wrestling
18 Plays4 days ago
The guys are joined by JJ Jones to talk about the incredible tradition of sumo.
Music By Josh Kasen
Twitter: @ArchaicWrestle
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Archaic Wrestling' and focus on sumo
00:00:18
Speaker
What's up, folks? What's up? This is Evan. I'm joined, as always, by Sasha, and this is Archaic Wrestling. How you doing, Sasha? Hello, everyone. Good. Good. Are we doing good? Are we doing good? we've ah We've got a really great show coming up here.
Current issues in the wrestling community
00:00:36
Speaker
We're going to be focusing on sumo today, um and I actually did an interview with JJ Jones of Honosumo, and I'll be clipping segments of that interview into this episode.
00:00:47
Speaker
but There's a lot going on in the wrestling world this summer of 2025. um All kinds of dramatic things, but also just terrible things as well.
00:00:59
Speaker
um and it's a It's kind of a really discouraging time to be a U.S. wrestling fan and to just kind of feel like you're swimming in ah human sludge sometimes. Yes, very much so.
00:01:15
Speaker
Just the type of people we have to interact with online. um It's not a good time to be checking um the comments of any space that exists. yeah It's not a good time to be looking at comments from people with first name bunch of numbers.
00:01:31
Speaker
Yeah, and to be like specific and and explicit about this. you know we've We've got this Karaki Allegations um That, you know, gets balled up into all kinds of shitty things that famous wrestlers have been doing um over the last few years. And just the way in which we respond to this as a community is incredibly disappointing.
00:01:55
Speaker
um Just victim blaming and ah just the the way we treat ah victims in general. Well, I think they're just the broader wrestling community really likes to do the whole, oh, wrestling makes you a better person and like, and, and you know, ah wrestlers are a very special breed of people in so many ways.
00:02:14
Speaker
And there's part of that that's true where it's like, yeah, yeah, we're really tough people, you know, and that's kind of that for me, that's kind of where it ends. Like we're not special. Yeah. that terms That's in terms of ethics and morals.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. um and yeah, that's really frustrating to, um, just see so many people that, you know, sometimes you respect them in, in the, the world of wrestling, but then outside of that, you're just like, wow, this person's kind of a piece of garbage, you know?
00:02:40
Speaker
um Yeah, really, really rough to have to do that, have to like listen to, ah not have to, but happen to listen to an episode of FRL where they're being shitty or whatever, right?
00:02:52
Speaker
It's just, ah you know I wish our community was better. Yeah, it's I mean, I think the the problems inherent to it are, these are not problems that are, i would say, incredibly specific to the wrestling community. i mean, any sport any any sport has these has these things, right? Athletes and famous people to any extent, you know, have allegations like this come out about them um all the time. And of course it happens a lot in sports and it you know, maybe you might see things like this, like in the NFL subreddit or whatever, you know, there are other spaces
Recent scandals and cultural issues in women's wrestling
00:03:31
Speaker
in sports.
00:03:32
Speaker
It's not like it's incredibly specific to fans of wrestling or wrestlers themselves. um And it's not like it's even really that specific to sports.
00:03:42
Speaker
um I think all of these problems that you see, i think wrestling is maybe worse than some of the other ones I've seen. You know, some other sports communities do not have these problems to the same extent.
00:03:56
Speaker
I think wrestling is one where yeah you see people say these things and stick up for abusers in a way you you see it more than in, than in other situations and in other sports, but all of these problems are problems that are very inherent to, uh, I mean, know at least from my perspective, uh, you know, just Americans to America itself.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah. I think there's a lot of truth to all that. I think the, like the, the additional frustration is just the hypocrisy within the wrestling community, you know? And it's like, I remember one of my coaches, my head coach in high school, and he told a story about like how someone like was violated with a broomstick when he was a kid in the wrestling room. like They threw a blanket over somebody and like and yeah assaulted the sexually assaulted them.
00:04:48
Speaker
um And it was just kind of like, oh, Jesus. you know like youre You hear that story and you're like, oh, that's terrible. um And then like as you continue and and and and and experience this ah this a little bit more it's like yeah we haven't really moved past a lot of that stuff and like you said it's not specific to wrestling um but you know as i said earlier it's just really frustrating to ah have these people that like to think of wrestling as like this very special and unique sport that um is supposed to breed this sort of uh uh chivalrous standing young man yeah it's like oh this will make well well i'd love to
00:05:29
Speaker
I'd love for him to date my daughter. Yes. Yes. That sort of stuff. Thank And coupled with like the HBO documentary being released ah on Ohio state and ah ah Dr. Strauss's and yeah crimes against ah athletes for decades.
00:05:47
Speaker
um Just a lot of that is circulating around wrestling right now. And for me, stuff like, you know, Kyle Snyder's arrest and, and, and shit like that, that kind of, for me is kind of like, okay,
00:05:59
Speaker
you know, probably not good to cheat on your wife and and deceive
Hope for change in wrestling culture
00:06:03
Speaker
your your kids. And, you know, I'm not going to villainize sex work in any way either. um But it's just one of those things where it's like you have all these like little things or like ah Bo Bassett's, his decommitment from Iowa and all this stuff like creates a lot of drama.
00:06:17
Speaker
But then you get like these really serious like crimes that that are allegedly happening. And the yeah like the difference in the way the community reacts to it, yeah, just...
00:06:29
Speaker
Gross. um The fact that, you know, women's wrestling is so new as a sport um to have and to have wrestling be like this thing that is still has all of this macho culture in it.
00:06:42
Speaker
Doesn't always have a separate room, right? For women's wrestlers. Some, a lot of times it's co-ed um and there are not the same opportunities from that perspective to then also on top of it have,
00:06:58
Speaker
this like very conservative culture that, you know, every time there is an allegation of sexual assault, you can hear, there's a couple, you know, you hear a couple of different things, which is, okay, well, where's the police report?
00:07:10
Speaker
Okay. And then if there is a police report, it's, oh, well, he wasn't, you know, it didn't go to trial. And if it did go to trial, you know, the verdict was up in the air, not guilty, whatever it is.
00:07:23
Speaker
You, they, you know, you hear any number of these things, the goalposts always move from, Oh, it was only one person. Oh, that's yeah Hey, he was charged, but you know, there was no trial. So it doesn't matter. evidence or you know, in the case of, you know, prominent wrestler, uh,
00:07:43
Speaker
there was a loophole that the DA specifically said they couldn't prosecute. And and you it does not matter, right? it it To these people who say these things, it does not matter.
00:07:54
Speaker
One way or the other, what the actual thing is. In the case of Carter, you have, you know, four different accusers, two of them for, you know, very acute sexual assault. Two of them would still, you know, with sexual crimes of a sexual nature, right? Whether it's like something that I feel like would fall under the category of revenge porn or it's, there are four accusers here, right. And you go, you you know, it can't be, Oh, it's just one person. There's four people, four credible accusers, but it's, it's always going to be the same thing. The goalposts will always move.
00:08:28
Speaker
Um, because to these people, it's, it's not a good faith argument. It's, you know, whatever they, whatever they can kind of throw at the dartboard uh,
00:08:40
Speaker
to shed doubt on any of these claims, they will, whether it's, it's only one accuser. Okay. It's four accusers, but there's no police report. Okay. There's a police report and this person was charged, but it didn't go to trial, whatever it is, you know? So with the backdrop of still not having, you know, women's wrestling and still having prominent wrestlers at times, uh, bad mouth women's wrestling or, you know, talk against it.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's just an effort to preserve a misogynistic culture that these actors essentially benefit from, right? um I will say it's like encouraging to see like you know Bartlett be deciding to come out. like like that's That's good, his and his support from his wife.
00:09:22
Speaker
And you know as you take a broader look at the response to this, ah pretty much everyone who's being shitty is a man yeah or at least they're a burner who is very male coded and obviously a man. but And there's been lots of, lots of women, women wrestlers who have, you know, come out and support and, and, and, you know, it, I appreciate the ones that are able to be a outspoken about it in the response to all of this. So,
00:09:51
Speaker
you know, I don't know. Uh, I, hope that there's, uh, going to be some shift, I guess, uh, or something going
Introduction to JJ Jones and his sumo journey
00:09:58
Speaker
on. I don't know. I don't know if anyone's going to face any real consequences at all.
00:10:02
Speaker
Um, I'm very doubtful that anything will happen to Kale Sanderson. if all of this, uh, um, comes out on the side that makes him look real bad, which I think it does. Um, yeah, so I, I'm not, I'm not super confident that there's going to be a lot of, uh, uh,
00:10:19
Speaker
official repercussions. um But I'm just, you know, fingers crossed that there can be at least a little bit of a cultural slide somewhere that's going to be a little bit better and safer and more productive. But who knows? It's still early.
00:10:34
Speaker
um And I guess we'll find out. Anyway, moving on. We're going to covering sumo. um Sumo is a little bit personal to me because I have been practicing it for about a year and a half now.
00:10:45
Speaker
I've started competing and it's ah it's a fun sport that I do want people to know is an option after you stop wrestling. Especially if you, maybe you try BJJ and like maybe it's not for you. Maybe you don't like rolling around that much. If you really like the takedown game and you just like to, to to you know,
00:11:03
Speaker
knock people on the ground sumo can be really fun so i'm very happy to introduce jj um who is ah you know what i'll let jj introduce himself a little bit and talk about who he is what he has to do with sumo and after that we'll maybe we'll get into your background a little bit jj uh go ahead tell us who you are all right i'm jj jones i am uh the co-founder of Honu Sumo, located in San Diego um and Orange County.
00:11:34
Speaker
we We're a little bit all over the place in the SoCal. Also, i am the third third year in a row national head coach, IFS coach. The title changes a little every year, but we're going for the third time this year, and is's going to we're going to Thailand, so I'm excited about that.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exciting, very exciting. And this your third year in a row, is that what said? Third year in a row. First year was Japan, second year was Poland, and then now now we're going all the way to Thailand, Bangkok.
00:12:14
Speaker
Yeah, quite the trip. um Glad that you are in that position, JJ. We got to meet um at the SoCal Open, which you put on. um i think you saw that I entered and you chose not to compete.
00:12:25
Speaker
that day. i think that was very clear that you didn't want to catch these hands.
00:12:33
Speaker
I saw what you did to I saw it. I was like, well, you know. No, you guys put on a really awesome tournament. um it For me, it was my first tournament. It was a a really good intro to the sumo community for me.
00:12:47
Speaker
um And yeah, I really appreciated it. I had family members come talk about how great it was and how good of an experience it was. Um, so you guys, Hanosumo in general, um, really good leadership on your part and you guys are doing good stuff. So really appreciate it. And that's, that's why we wanted to invite you on today for sure.
00:13:04
Speaker
Um, we, we, we liked what how you represented the sport. Um, but you know, getting into that a little bit, how did you end up like connecting with Sumo? Like what, did where, did where'd that come from for you?
00:13:15
Speaker
So for me, Sumo, it was like always in the back burner. I grew up, uh, I was born in the 80s, so that officially makes me old, i know.
00:13:26
Speaker
But I grew up and I was watching Kanishki. i walk I was right there at the end of the Kanishki run. They were on ESPN2, I want to say. um And I kept catching the end of someone. was like oh, that's cool.
00:13:42
Speaker
And I kept seeing it and thinking, i think I could do that. And then one year, it was in 07, I saw a flyer for the US Sumo Open.
00:13:54
Speaker
I reached out to the director and i didn't really get any response back. For me, I wanted to make sure that if I'm doing sumo, it's not in the blow-up suit, right? I think that the blow-up suit is kind of like a blackface It's just my immediate interpretation. I'm like, this doesn't represent the nation. This doesn't represent the culture. And I always thought of wrestling as a very primal way of expressing your emotions.
00:14:28
Speaker
And it kind of precurses English, right? It precurses all language. And from there, i was like, how do I figure this out? A few years pass and podcasts start becoming popular must have been in 2010, 2012, there's a podcast called 230 Dudes.
00:14:50
Speaker
They picked miscellaneous subjects to talk about, and one of them was sumo. And as they were talking about sumo, they talked about grand sumo. And then they talked about this thing that I never heard of, amateur sumo.
00:15:02
Speaker
And they talked about weight divisions and how there were all these different ways of doing things, which then helped me realize that I could Google my because Google is around now, it wasn't around before, like, or YouTube wasn't around before, so i start looking around, i see Bayamba doing sumo, and I reach out, and I was able to go and train a couple days in LA with Sumoyama, Takeshi, and Bayamba, which was eye-opening.
00:15:35
Speaker
My very first match that I ever did was with Danny Avila, and he crippled me. And when I say that, you're like, oh, like, oh, he gave you a good roll. Like, no, no, no, no. no Like, I ran into him, and I think one match I beat him, and then the next two I did not.
00:15:55
Speaker
And he hit me so hard that my back stopped working a little bit, because I'm a judoka by nature, right? I'm a judoka, so I'm like, oh, I'm going to, like, accept his tachyai, and then just use it as kizushi to off balance and try to throw doesn't work that way in sumo.
00:16:12
Speaker
Tachi hurts. And yeah, that was that's how I started sumo. So before that, you were doing judo. And how what was that like for you? and tur Well, how long had you done judo of previously?
00:16:25
Speaker
I started judo when I was five years old. So that means I've been doing judo longer than anything else in my entire life. but Did you do other grappling arts other than judo before Simu? I'm also a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brought to me by judo.
00:16:45
Speaker
Sure, we gotcha. you know Judo was my base, and then from there I started doing other things, including a little bit of wrestling. And as of recently, in the last like two years or so, I've been doing bulk.
00:16:59
Speaker
Oh, awesome. Yeah, we're big fans of bulk here. ah and and obviously there's plenty of talk about its transition in the Mongolian coming into sumo. We'll talk about that eventually here.
00:17:11
Speaker
um Just from your perspective, especially as a judoka, um that transition to sumo, um you know, I'm coming from a wrestling background, American wrestling, freestyle, Greco, all that
Sumo techniques and cultural significance
00:17:22
Speaker
stuff.
00:17:22
Speaker
um And there's aspects that I definitely bring in. I think that there's very clear similarities. I try to tell every wrestler I can that sumo is kind of a cool option for you when you're done with your wrestling career because everyone everyone goes to bjj right that's kind of what is is kind of expected with a lot of wrestlers afterwards it's hard to do wrestling like as an adult as a hobby it's just too hard it's it's so grueling um so i'm trying to push more people towards sumo especially those of us that really like the takedown game and don't care so much about rolling around you know
00:17:54
Speaker
um Yeah, so for you, like what what was that transition like? Obviously, you probably know how to grab a Mawashi a little bit better than I would have, um I would assume. But yeah, what's that transition like?
00:18:06
Speaker
So I think that the Mawashi is honestly, for better or worse, it's a crutch, right? I think that since there's only one thing, like quote unquote object that you can grab in sumo is the Mawashi, it ends up making your sumo kind of weird, right?
00:18:26
Speaker
If you watch pro sumo, high school sumo, college sumo, the businessman sumo, all the different levels of sumo, the Mawashi is barely used as as though as, because when you look at the winning techniques, it's usually Oshidashi or frontal force out, frontal push out, right? It's either one of those.
00:18:52
Speaker
And um you you You see that and then you go, oh, holding the hands here isn't really helping, right? Now, of course, there's a lot of different โ I'm a grappler's grappler, right? Like in sumo, I'm going to be grappling and I love hip toss.
00:19:10
Speaker
But for you to be like in judo mindset, you're thinking big throw, right? You're going for the iphone. So you grab the mwashi and the big part of it is to finish the throw.
00:19:24
Speaker
in sumo with the ability of pushing someone out or forcing someone out, you kind of have to use the Mawashi and then throws with the Kimarates into kind of a, like as a Kazushi, right? So you use it as an off balance then to force the person out and then that can bump up your winning, right? And sumo's, you know, a lot about winning.
00:19:49
Speaker
So I think that I came in with a lot of th throws and it's, Sumo has made me a better judoka because now I'm not as dependent upon grips.
00:20:00
Speaker
Now I've kind of adapted more into like ah little bit more of a, like a no-gi judo mindset or a no-gi like wrestler, right? Where I'm utilizing more overhooks, underhooks.
00:20:14
Speaker
um Also judo has the... rural change of 2008, which really affected me for going into the Olympics.
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah. hu The like exclusion of grabbing legs really kind of hurt the martial art of judo. um And you don't have to really worry about that in sumo where I, I like to, I'm a big grappler, right? I try to look at all grappling and look at the similarities of grappling And try not to look at the differences of grappling, right?
00:20:51
Speaker
So when I went into jujitsu, it was โ I went in with my judo mindset. And I was like, okay, so jujitsu is kind of like the m MMA of grappling.
00:21:04
Speaker
And I was like, all right, cool. And then you start adding in groundwork, and then it gets a little bit too focused on the groundwork. I love it. Don't get me wrong. It's what holds like pays my bills. I absolutely love jujitsu. Don't get me wrong.
00:21:16
Speaker
But it's really focused a little bit too much in the ground where it's mutated into a double guard pool kind of weirdness of it where I think it's less important as a as a martial art.
00:21:27
Speaker
Right. But then in sumo, the importance is basically either you're you're controlling the space and You're forcing somebody out or making them but making them fall, right? And so was like, oh, this is the other side of that mixed martial arts of grappling where the emphasis is standing, which made me so happy.
00:21:52
Speaker
I think I relate to a lot of what you're saying. um I think something I've learned over the last year is um The Mwashi can be a distraction, um especially if you're coming from a different grappling art where you not you don't have that as much. Where it's like, I first started Sumo, I'm like, I gotta to be grabbing the Mwashi. That's what you're supposed to do. That's what it's there for.
00:22:10
Speaker
And I started going like, I'm really just putting my hands down and opening myself up to in a lot of ways that I'm not used to. um So i'll that's an adjustment I'm making. um And the way I describe it to a lot of people, especially wrestlers, is um I like Sumo um because...
00:22:28
Speaker
it's like you don't have to finish your takedowns it's like the hardest part about wrestling sometimes it's just it's not just getting on that leg you know it's finishing the takedown and they're resisting the whole time right and it's like well now i don't know i just got to get their hand to touch it's fine this is easy now this is a lot better and my knee's not getting tweaked nearly as much um so yeah what's that that part my my knees are so It's so much healthier to do sumo. Yes, yes ah Much less time being tired with someone else twisting me around is probably good for me at my age. I'm an 80s guy too, so yeah.
00:23:03
Speaker
So I would say the one of the big things that I, want when I first came in contact with sumo, that wasn't just pop culture and like seeing you know people in the fat suits on ah you know ah Austin Powers or something, right?
00:23:19
Speaker
um was i actually went to Japan 2005. I got to go for about a month. And, you know, we're I'm doing the tourist thing, visiting castles and things like that. One of the castles in Kyoto that we went to, they had this really big board, and it had all these different results from sumo tournaments going back like 300 years.
00:23:42
Speaker
I'm like, whoa. you know, just seeing a sport that old was really cool. And 300 years is nothing in sumo, right? um I think generally it's, I mean, the thing with grappling arts is like you were saying, it is so primal that it's really hard to say like, this is when sumo started and this is when, you know, whatever started, right?
00:24:03
Speaker
But in general, it's kind of thought that sumo as we generally know it um probably started around 1500 years ago during the Heian period. um And, ah you know, pre-18 or 1185 so, it was very much connected to, like, ah the harvest, right? and Agricultural ritualism and almost like a dance in a lot of ways where it wasn't even necessarily always a fight necessarily, right?
00:24:30
Speaker
um Really connected to just a lot of Shinto ritualism and and respecting the harvest and and hoping for the best, right? It was interesting to see, you know, from some of these sources, know,
00:24:42
Speaker
I mean, obviously, every time we do this, we like we get a source that, you know, has a claim um of something, you know, what like this existed in right some very distant time period.
00:24:55
Speaker
And it's always interesting to try and follow up on those and see, like, okay, to our knowledge, how much can we verify that, you know, for example, first sumo match was in 23 BC, right? And what would that even look like?
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah, so like you're saying, you know especially with these older folk styles where you want to put a you know a number on when it began, you can't, right? Because it's probably evolved from just that very natural thing that humans do, right? they ah We like to wrestle each other. It's just something we kind of figure out across cultures. Yeah.
00:25:32
Speaker
When is the first sumo? When did it start? We can't really say. There has been a thing happening that we call sumo for a very, very long time. Yeah, 100%. it's you know It starts off from the the the two original Yokozunas, which were deities.
00:25:51
Speaker
you know like And so it it's in that oral history, and it is literally just a harvest festival. that ends up becoming a sport where, you know, like most wrestling comes from.
00:26:06
Speaker
And those deities you mentioned, um, those are first mentioned in the, uh, Kajiki manuscript, uh, from 712, um, 712 AD. Um, and yeah, between two gods who, and I'm going to try to pronounce their names, uh, uh,
00:26:22
Speaker
Teka Mikazuki and Teka Mikazuki are the two names of the gods and I guess it was like a battle between themselves for the Japanese Isles and control of the Japanese Isles right um so fascinating you know having a lot of like mythology behind a sport right is really cool not always something that's usual in sports especially ones that survive to this day.
00:26:45
Speaker
And the word sumo actually just means ah fighting each other, like hitting each other with your hands is is essentially what sumo means. So it's very vague, right? um In terms of its of its ah ah the origins of the word.
00:26:59
Speaker
um And we see that in sumo throughout history as well. um We do have actual documentation of a claim for the very first sumo match. And that's found in the Nihon Shoki, which is essentially a history of of Japan.
00:27:14
Speaker
that was published in 720. And the claim made there was that the first actual sumo match, like the a match that is called a sumo match, takes place in 23 BC.
Sumo's historical evolution and influence on other martial arts
00:27:25
Speaker
And at this time, this is still essentially very unregulated contests, right? And they were very much fought to the death, right? We are talking about the same culture that has samurai and Bushido and this extreme honor culture behind it, right?
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah. and Yeah, matches were fought to the death just because basically all kinds of fights were fought to to the death. um But it was essentially unarmed combat in that sense, right? Rather than fighting with a weapon. That's what sumo is.
00:27:55
Speaker
um Yeah, so when we talk about like fighting to the death, you know obviously in in current day sumo, right strikes open palm strikes are allowed.
00:28:08
Speaker
So when we're saying, you know, so fight to the... I wonder... Obviously. So like, what is this, what would the rule set of that even be? You know, are, are we still talking about it as sumo? It would just be called fighting and there would be, it'd be, you know, unarmed combat to the death or would there be something about it that we would say, you know, links it to the current understanding of it, right? Where it's, you know, first, uh, extremity to touch the ground.
00:28:37
Speaker
You're out, you know, out of the ring, you lose, uh, Do we know like what would connect that to current day sumo? I would say at this time, where we it's it's hard to really connect sumo other than just the description of it um in terms of what it's being called, the words being used to describe it.
00:28:57
Speaker
um So it's hard to say that you know what that actually looked like, that fight to the death, whether you know you could... you know, is someone on the ground and they're, you know, throwing elbows on them in in mount, who knows, right?
00:29:09
Speaker
Hard to really say. But these, like I said, these were just fully unregulated as far as we can tell. When it comes to the actual, the first recorded fight, not just one that is, ah not just one that's claimed in the neon show key, um the actual first recorded fight where they say these two guys fought each other, we witnessed it, we we saw it, that doesn't come until 642.
00:29:29
Speaker
um so uh before the neon shoki is written published um but very much kind of in that same time period so this is essentially when we're seeing a lot of um uh effort in japan to start recording history right obviously if that's the first uh written testimony we have of it it was probably happening much sooner than that um sumo was often uh later on utilized more as like uh Something that the an audience at the Imperial Court would watch, you know, especially during the Kamakura period.
00:30:02
Speaker
um And once it kind of left this, like, entertainment aspect of, like, the high courts and nobility, it became much more of, like, samurai training, right? Right.
00:30:14
Speaker
And this is where from what I understand, people say this is where you get a lot of like, uh, judo coming out of, so out of sumo, as well as, uh, Japanese jujitsu and these, and techniques from that coming out of sumo itself, which I did not, had not heard about previously.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah. Um, if you, John Jocks is one of my favorite people to talk to. He's one of the founding, um, sumo federation members.
00:30:43
Speaker
Um, and he'll he'll speak to it and he always refers to sumo as the grandfather of martial of japanese martial arts and if you think about it in that way you're like oh that makes sense and then when you see the kimarates you're like this all makes sense because it that japanese martial arts you'll see it in sumo and then it'll be in jiu-jitsu and you'll see it in judo and then obviously judo is the most diluted of them yeah and it's something we see throughout everywhere right like everyone figured out the underhook no matter what part of the world you were from like people figured out the underhook people figured out getting wrist control people figured out um our stances are all extremely similar you know some might be more staggered some might be a little bit more bent over but the concepts and the
00:31:37
Speaker
um the logic behind how we're moving our bodies is essentially the same, right? um It's not, it's not too divorced from ourselves just because, you know, you can study European martial arts, you can study sword fighting.
00:31:50
Speaker
You're going to see those exact same concepts across martial arts in general, just because it works. If it works, it works. Right. And, you know, the human body, we're again, more similar than we are dissimilar.
00:32:03
Speaker
And regardless, we have two arms, two legs for the most part, and we're trying to throw somebody onto the ground with two arms and two legs. There's only so many different ways of doing that.
00:32:16
Speaker
um And that's why you'll see like Iponseo nage or Iponseo in different martial arts around the world. Sumo initially very much about like showing off for the court.
00:32:30
Speaker
um And I feel like we we've covered other styles where that was also the case, where right? Where it was, um I would say, even the ah the Cornwall, the Cornwall stuff, right?
00:32:41
Speaker
There was kind of an ebb and flow between it was really popular with the aristocracy and then it became more popular with the the common folk, right? And we actually see the same thing with sumo, where it initially is really popular with the aristocracy.
00:32:56
Speaker
um The daimyos are you know big sponsors of sumo. um but they become even bigger sponsors when it lo starts to lose a little bit of popularity within the ah the court, and it becomes more something that they do for training, ah training training the samurai specifically.
00:33:13
Speaker
In fact, there is a possibility for you to become a samurai and be granted that status if you win a sumo match with somebody. We're still an area where it's like they're fighting to the death still. It's still a a ah very violent sport, it sounds like.
00:33:28
Speaker
um yeah and And so essentially by the Muromachi period in the 1300s, it reaches the masses. And now masses, the the the average person is becoming interested in these fights.
00:33:40
Speaker
And it's still really unre unregulated, which essentially leads to sumo being temporarily banned at part of the Edo period. um just because people are getting in sumo street fights and you know people are getting hurt, people are being injured, people are dying.
00:33:55
Speaker
um Just this very like honor culture aspect um to this fight. right they are just So at this point, we're we're still more in the range of like maybe not a wrestling style, but a you know a propensity for MMA matches to break out.
00:34:14
Speaker
Yeah, i would I would say it's something more like that. where you know they're calling it sumo because sumo is just fighting at the end of the day, um but yeah it's not regular in a way that they are concerned about safety. It is more about, i got to fight this guy.
00:34:27
Speaker
um Might have to kill him, right? um During the early and mid Edo period where a lot of aspects of Japanese culture were not being shunned necessarily, although I guess you could say it was, um but there's this idea of um they're not in the Meiji Restoration yet, and there's kind of this idea of like moving away and um and moving towards a um a sort of ah less Japanese view of the world, right?
00:34:59
Speaker
And like this almost rejection of traditionalism. But this isn't too far off to when they were like starting to say, okay, we're going to ban samurai swords or we're going ban certain ah haircuts and things like that, right?
00:35:10
Speaker
So it's kind of in that same time. But it does return eventually um under like an official organization in 1684. And this is kind of a big time where ah Sumo, you know, it doesn't go away after this. It remains popular and at this time, but it's like towards the end of the Edo period.
00:35:32
Speaker
And Sumo is now under an official organization and they're putting on tournaments. Um, And ah like I said, it was losing popularity due to Western influence, especially when um moving towards that Meiji Restoration period, right?
00:35:52
Speaker
And under Emperor Meiji, as part of like his like nationalistic sentiments, that's when Sumo like really gets restored and brought back to popularity because they're trying to repopularize a lot of Japanese traditional cultural stuff.
00:36:05
Speaker
um And then like around 1868, you know, they started putting on tournaments, they had a lot of changing of the rules, like the doyo is invented, right? um And which, you know, and like a lot of the and we're gonna we're gonna talk about some of the terminology, not all the terminology, because there's too much, obviously, um for this one little podcast.
00:36:23
Speaker
But yeah, for the last couple hundred years, sumo has been largely unchanged. There's probably a few little rule tweaks they've made here or there. But the idea of like, hey, we have a Basho series, you know, everyone fights, um you know, whoever's got the best record wins.
00:36:39
Speaker
um And that's kind of where the evolution of the modern sports started. so So we can draw a sort of like we can draw a line easily you know the culture of sumo of just of fighting in Japan, right? For very long, very long time.
00:36:59
Speaker
But it probably is not until 1684, where we can say that it sort of resembled anything of what we may call like sportified sumo wrestling, as opposed to, I guess, it seems like it was maybe more a culture, a general culture of fighting, right?
00:37:18
Speaker
that led to the need for a sportified version of it to exist at least to some degree um i mean i would argue that we could probably go back as far as like maybe the 1500s um where they probably have started to shift more into just wrestling because it was more about training and military training and it's much less about um you know the uh the uh It's much less about the honor aspect of it where someone's going to die um and it is a little bit more controlled so that you'rere you're training, right? So that you can live to fight another day and it's supposed to make you better at it, right?
00:37:58
Speaker
um And Sumo did, like like I said, it's had this ebb and flow in popularity. It really had a drop in popularity um during the Meiji Restoration. um For those that don't know, maybe if someone has seen like movies like The Last Samurai, right?
00:38:14
Speaker
This is the Meiji Restoration, right? This is when there's a lot of Western influence coming into Japan. um And we did we did use The Last Samurai as a major source yeah in our and our sourcing for this episode. Yeah, maybe like 50%. I watched it
Modern sumo structure and rituals
00:38:28
Speaker
a couple times. yeah um um But yeah, so that's the Meiji Restoration where you have a lot of Western influence coming in.
00:38:37
Speaker
um And not only is there this kind of popularity of moving away from... um some sort some aspects of Japanese traditionalism um and this this this embrace of a lot of Western ideas, whether it be America, Portuguese, or the British, right? Whoever it is that is coming in with stuff.
00:38:59
Speaker
um This is also where you start to see the dismantling of the shogunate system, of the daimyos, of the samurai themselves, and And we see power essentially returning to the emperor specifically.
00:39:15
Speaker
um And so paradoxically, even though they're becoming more westernized and more industrialized in Japan, um there is a growing sense of nationalism that comes with that as well.
00:39:27
Speaker
So although we see this this little bit rejection of the traditional aspects of Japanese culture, like and sumo including that, it does come back Um, and, and, uh, Emperor Meiji actually puts on a big tournament, um, as part of this national, nationalistic sentiment, um, towards the end of the Meiji Restoration.
00:39:46
Speaker
Um, so it kind of gets restored at the same time after being a victim of this sort of, of this sort of Westernization at the same time. Um, and really from this moment, there's not a whole lot of difference going on.
00:40:00
Speaker
um They usually had ah had about, I think it's 15, or excuse me, 15. ah You have like five or six bashos, they're called. These are the actual tournaments that happen each year.
00:40:11
Speaker
um and that's mostly stayed the same. We kind of have a sumo season that ranges for several months. um And they fight each other, they go through it. And, you know, what you see on TV is essentially what sumo is. And it's what it's been for several hundred years now.
00:40:27
Speaker
um So plenty, even though it's like you can kind of quibble quibble about like, when did Sumo start itself? Sumo itself has been around a long, long time.
00:40:38
Speaker
um And I thought we could talk a little bit about some of the terminology in Sumo. um I've already used some of it. I'm not going to use all of it um just because it's a lot. um And I'm not that great at pronouncing everything. But as I mentioned before, you have the... you have the yeah Makes it easier. hunt You have the rickshaw, the sumatori, and that's just someone who practices sumo or can be interchangeable for just wrestler.
00:41:03
Speaker
um Often like the the freestyle wrestlers in Japan, they're still kind of ah referred to like they are doing sumo. Like you can have like arm wrestling is still called sumo. ah Like thumb wrestling would still be called sumo, right?
00:41:16
Speaker
um But yeah, so those are the wrestlers themselves, the rikishi. And then you, I'm sure everyone, when they see sumo, they notice a lot of that ritualism, right? The throwing of the salt and then the whole, like, you know, their hands going out and they're squatting down.
00:41:32
Speaker
That's called the chiri chozu. So chiri chozu is the starting religious part I like to just say the ritual of sumo. So you're going to go into a second term called sankyo, which is basically like a deep squat with your feet fairly narrow and your knees pointed outward.
00:41:55
Speaker
um And then from there, it's um dipping your hands into sand, washing and purifying your hands, opening up. There's a clap in everything that you see in the Chirichลzu is purposeful.
00:42:12
Speaker
So that clap is to scare the demons away. Again, this is a religious art. um So that is a big part of it. The clap needs to be loud and deliberate, which is supposed to get rid of the bad spirits.
00:42:26
Speaker
And then from there, you bring your hands out, up, and you present that you have no weapons. Beautifully said. um This all takes place on the doyo, which is the circle, um invented in 1578. It's about 15 feet in diameter.
00:42:44
Speaker
um yeah That is a raised stage, essentially, made out of clay. It's a really beautiful process to see it being made. If if folks ah ever look up a video of a doyo being constructed, um lots of people working together.
00:42:58
Speaker
um And yeah, it's a really cool piece of craftsmanship. You'll see in some tournaments it may even crack at times, totally understandably. um It has to be repaired sometimes.
00:43:08
Speaker
um Those of us participating in Amateur Sumo, generally we're not able to participate on a raised clay doyo. And we have just, you know, flat canvas that we put down. um But that is what the circle is generally called.
00:43:21
Speaker
We already talked about the Mwashi, which is the belt. And there's generally three people with on the doyo at a time. You have your competitors and you also have your gyouji, who is essentially the referee.
00:43:35
Speaker
um And something quite interesting and cultural about them is they are carrying a knife. Would you like to talk about why they would have a knife on the doyo? Yes. So the the knife is um in case they call the wrong decisions.
00:43:53
Speaker
they are supposed to end their own life with that or at least um start to do it which is wild absolutely wild but again this is um yeah like it at least 2 000 year old art and religion so there is a lot of um Archaic parts of it, which I absolutely love. It's also a beautiful knife. If you ever get to see one, it's ah it's a pretty dope knife.
00:44:26
Speaker
there's One part of the dojo, the doio anatomy of the dojo that you neglected, it's the Tawada. So the Tawada is the so raised rice spell or in in America and around the world, in amateur sumo, it's made out of this very dense foam.
00:44:46
Speaker
And it should be very dense foam, not squishy. ah should It's supposed to be unmovable, dense for a reason. It is the border of the match.
00:45:00
Speaker
um And as a person that's competed on the world stage, I have competed in clay. um So there eve on the outside of the Tawada, they will put salt on the outside.
00:45:15
Speaker
in fresh sand and salt. So you will see if, for some reason, there's a fight right at the edge, they'll be able to look at the print to see whose foot hit first.
00:45:27
Speaker
And then you'll hear, you probably heard the term Yokozuna, which is the grand champion in sumo. Yeah, so Yokozuna, very interesting concept that you have a person in sumo who is like the best.
00:45:41
Speaker
um It's evolved over over the years to where you can have more than one Yokozuna. um There are currently two Yokozunas. One very recent Yokozuna is Onosato, and he is the first Japanese Yokozuna in a while.
00:45:57
Speaker
um Probably since like 2017. Yeah, because it's been... and we I mean, we will kind of went over this, right? But obviously the Mongolians have very strong wrestling culture and they got a lot of big dudes.
00:46:10
Speaker
Yes. Yes. It's a veryary i it makes it's ah transition that makes a ton of sense. Also, of course, considering that, you know, Mongolia is not ah the wealthiest nation around. Yeah, I think like out of the last eight Yokozuna, I think six of them have all been Mongolian. The way you become a Yokozuna has traditionally been very...
00:46:31
Speaker
um what's the right word? It has been very political. um You wouldn't be able to become a Yokozuna if someone just didn't want you to be Yokozuna. um Like when they do the voting, there's a lot, there has been like traditionally corruption within it.
00:46:45
Speaker
You have the Yakuza who are involved. um But in general, the idea being if you win two tournaments in a row, you are eligible to become a Yokozuna if the committee decides that you are deserving.
00:47:02
Speaker
And they take a lot of things into account. There's a lot of like expectations of how you represent Sumo and represent Japan. um Because keep in mind, all these people are all the people competing in Sumo and being paid to compete in Sumo.
00:47:16
Speaker
They're paid by the Japanese government. and These are all government employees. It's not like a private league. um you know There are sponsors and things like that. um But it is it is the Japanese government who pays for this, which is kind of kind of wild to me um that's not just like oh well if you win the like you know in a lot of countries oh you go to the world championships you get a medal you'll get some money right you gotta you get a fund yeah not in pro sumo right so uh just a really interesting dynamic in that sense and then we also ah something another uh term to bring up is uh heya um which are the stables which are famous
00:47:57
Speaker
um In sumo, where ah ah competitors are training, they're living there, they're training, there's often a hierarchy, um there can often be ah problematic aspects of hazing historically. um And yeah, really interesting interesting aspect of the culture within sumo where it's like, um you know, it's it's not necessarily like other sports where people are just on a team, right?
International sumo competitions and cultural influences
00:48:22
Speaker
it's It's a like hyper team, it's almost like family oriented, um where you have ah expectations of duty to take care of each other in certain ways. um And there's a lot of like, um the service is very upward, right? Traditionally, um the the the the stronger rikishi are going to have some privilege around there.
00:48:43
Speaker
um And younger guys are probably going to get less food or or only have a ah chance to get food ah after their more senior heya mates have eaten, right?
00:48:56
Speaker
um There's a lot of this. And I don't know do you feel like that's a culture that is starting to shift within Sumo from your perspective? No, I think that that's living very strong.
00:49:07
Speaker
And um I think that there's less, less abuse happening now, or ah at the very least, less reported abuse. I also think that it's hard to imagine Heia.
00:49:22
Speaker
It's, it's...
00:49:25
Speaker
It is a family dynamic, right? But it's also unlike any other sport where each person is literally trying to do the same thing, right?
00:49:40
Speaker
So even the the younger people that come in, and most of the time they're just responsible for cooking, cleaning, and they might practice a little bit. And if you're a foreigner coming in, you're doing like a year of just being like,
00:49:55
Speaker
like Japanese indoctrination just like pushed upon you. And from there, you're expected to rise up.
00:50:06
Speaker
And then there's a point where your athletic endeavors just will not, um you know, some people are just meant to be champs and some aren't. um But when you look at that and you're like, oh, it's kind of like the harassment that you'll see in football, it doesn't quite fit because everybody has the same They're in the same team, and it's a winning team, and everybody has different roles.
00:50:30
Speaker
But it would be like a house full of quarterbacks, and you know they're not making millions. Instead, they're making maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 and below, and they're forced to live in the same house.
00:50:46
Speaker
So it's like a weird big brother thing. meets keeping up and then sucking up it's like the ultimate fighter houses kind of yeah yeah that's a lot closer right that's a lot closer yeah that's good that's a
00:51:06
Speaker
um and yeah you know professional sumo today it's run by the japanese sumo association um the jsa and ah there are pro divisions, right? It's not just a single division. There are, you know, top divisions, and depending on where you are in the divisions, um and even within the divisions, there's a further breakdown, right?
00:51:27
Speaker
um With the Yokozuna at the very top. And then, apart from the Yokozuna, you'll have the Ozeki, you'll have the Sanyaku, you'll have the Mayagashi. No, hold on.
00:51:40
Speaker
I'm going to get it. My, uh, Gashira. My, god did I get that right? Hey, bro, you, you, my, my Japanese is terrible. You got it. And then there's the Juro. Um, and these are, like, the top, uh, these are all, like, the subdivisions of the top divisions. The people that, like, are actually getting decent money.
00:51:59
Speaker
Um, anywhere from, you know, $25,000, uh, like, per month, uh, $10,000 per month. Um, so these are kind of like, the big dogs, right? These are all the people at the top.
00:52:12
Speaker
Um, which is pretty cool. um But at the same time, if you're not competing, your ranking can fall drastically and very quickly, meaning that your yeah what you're actually ah being paid can swing quite a bit and be very unreliable, your payment, right? And there is no, I mean, there's very small exceptions where they'll allow someone to not fall.
00:52:39
Speaker
But for the most part, doesn't matter if you're injured, doesn't matter, no matter what, you will fall down that rank. The only person that is exempt to that is the Yokozuna.
00:52:50
Speaker
Yeah. And this has caused like some issues historically, too, where people or there's a lot of practice within sumo of you have to compete even if you're hurt. like There's no like getting healthy, and and that could have probably led to a lot of really good fighters like maybe having not as long of a career as they could have had. right If you're constantly...
00:53:11
Speaker
competing while injured because you're you know trying to keep your ranking, um it's only a matter of time before that kind of burns out. Well, and keeping your ranking is multiple fold. So one, that yeah the more money that you make, obviously it's better for you as an individual, but also is better for your Heia because your Heia...
00:53:38
Speaker
is only able to feed people off of the money that they get from the GSA. But a very different system than what we generally think of with professional sports, right? It's not franchises, right? It's not this thing where you got, you know, i mean, you do have a bunch of billionaires funding things, obviously, um and there's some other stuff going on there with the GSA.
00:54:00
Speaker
um But it's it's very different. It's not this like very collaborative thing where we're going to go against each other like you would see in American football, right where there's just lots of money coming into it um in a way that is able to be distributed in this in this like meritocracy way kind of thing.
00:54:15
Speaker
it's It's a little trickier. and so so interesting Another term that you brought up earlier was Kimarate. um And Sumo is known for having the 82 Kimarate, right?
00:54:26
Speaker
Um, camaraderie meaning winning move or winning technique, right? The way in which you win a sumo bout. Um, and something for for me, when I coming from a different background where it's like, if someone told me there's 82 techniques and folk style wrestling, I would be like, yeah, if you're a new person, you know, um, like I I'm so used to being like, no, there's like thousands of different variations and things like that. Right. But there's a lot of more elements to it. Right.
00:54:56
Speaker
um And especially when we... so If you can look at the list of Yokozuna and you can kind of, as we alluded to earlier, you see, especially in the 2000s, the Mongolians coming into sumo and really starting to dominate.
00:55:10
Speaker
And to me, from the way I've interpreted this and watched video, it seems like they're kind of doing some new stuff that just wasn't happening, like technique what technique-wise. A little bit more leg attack stuff that... Not that it wasn't a known technique,
00:55:26
Speaker
ah previously in japan but it wasn't being utilized as much so i'm very curious to hear your thoughts on like do you think like when you hear there's 82 techniques do you go okay that's a very oversimplified situation or is it like no that's kind of it that's kind of like what actually works in the sport so it's it's judo and sumo this is where they meet like exactly head to head right where um like you have the 67 throws of judo and you know you got your 82 kimartes you're like oh that's all it is but of course there's variations of it right that's just how they try to classify and for those 82 it's a classification and if you look into sumo as a whole
00:56:17
Speaker
is probably the best recorded sport ever because they go back and go back 800 years and see what was the most popular winning technique at that time.
00:56:30
Speaker
Right. So you can go back and then now you can see like people like aura pulling out a throw. That's only been done 0.02% of all sumo history.
00:56:43
Speaker
That's my boy. And that's, you know, like it's, It's absolutely insane. So I think it's more of just um trying to categorize, right? Of course, from there, it goes into interpretation. Like, was that this throw or this throw?
00:56:58
Speaker
um As a judoka, and this is always going to be one of those things. Japanese think that Harai Goshi, Uchimata, Hanegoshi, Ogaruma are basically all Uchimata.
00:57:16
Speaker
right like The competition aspect of it, it's Uchimara, Uchimara, Uchimara, Uchimara. like, but your legs in a different spot. right So that's one of those, like it's mostly used to categorize.
00:57:31
Speaker
um And I guess this is a good time to talk about like what are the specific rules of sumo. And thankfully they are, like I said, just very simple. Uh, if you step out of the doyo, you lose.
00:57:44
Speaker
Uh, so if any part of your body touches outside, you lose. If, uh, any part of your body except the bottom of your feet touch the ground within the doyo, you also lose. And that's pretty much it. Um, you, uh, you can't throw closed fist punches, but you can slap people's faces a little bit.
00:57:59
Speaker
Um, you know, you can't really, uh, there's like parts of the Mwashi that you're not allowed to grab, but for the most part you can grab wherever on the Mwashi. um And that's kind of it. That's kind of it when it comes to like what the rules are.
00:58:11
Speaker
There's like other things where they take into account, like, you know, whose move is it? Same like in in like freestyle, right? Where we yeah you might have throws it's like, okay, whose move was that? um They don't allow it. This is something that I feel like when I watch the, you know, clips of pro sumo or whatever, anytime I see someone, you know, initiating a throw, it's all, it's,
00:58:33
Speaker
pretty much every time I'm watching it, I'm like, oh yes, the person thing who, whose throw it was won the match. Yes. Yeah. And the what you know, it really didn't take a long time in watching like, you know, an amateur YouTube video, right. if Like amateur sumo in America to see, you know, a guy throw somebody maybe land on his elbow first. And then, you know, he got out, which so that was, that's an interesting, uh, I wonder if you can expand on that. Like, yeah, have the,
00:59:00
Speaker
you know, that experience also has, you know, with that rule set. Yeah. So like the main thing is like, they they do take that into account. For instance, an example would be ah control, right? So let's say I just bear hug somebody and i pick them up off the ground, right?
00:59:16
Speaker
They're completely off the ground and I just walk out of bounds with them. um Now, technically I'm the one that touched out of bounds, right? But they're going to look at that and go like, okay, he's obviously the one that was in control and they will give the win to the person who's in control. Right.
00:59:31
Speaker
um They also have what's kind of what's called and the rules are actually kind of frustratingly vague and they do that on purpose. um But they also have what's called like a dead dead man rule. And that's where um say I'm like, once again, like say I'm bear hugging somebody and I'm crunching them down. Right. And they're going down and it's my move. I'm the one putting them down.
00:59:52
Speaker
And I stick an arm out just to stop myself from crushing their head. Right. Even if technically my hand touched first, if they're like already falling and already about to hit, they'll go, okay, it was his move. He's the one that wins. Right.
01:00:08
Speaker
And of course, I think one of the interesting things about any any sport any sport, right, has this where you're looking at um the rules versus like interpretation of rules or things that people do that might be against the spirit of the rules.
01:00:23
Speaker
And i don't I mean, this might be particularly like American um sort of thing, right? But we have... you know, in our sports leagues, obviously like this tendency to like push rules to their absolute limit, to their breaking point.
01:00:38
Speaker
Right. And it's usually, you know, we complain, this happens in obviously in folk style wrestling constantly push limits to their breaking point. People complain, you try to add in something to get rid of subjectivity, um, and, and fix things.
01:00:54
Speaker
But something that's, you know, interesting in in sumo is right not just the starts, but also, uh, You know, every once in a while when you see someone do, right, that move where they they step aside and let the person run, you know, run past them and run themselves out of the circle.
01:01:10
Speaker
That, you know, that's an interesting one just from the perspective of, you know, like, how frowned upon is it or... Right. right So it's it's interesting how even, say, like, for instance, Hakuho, who was...
01:01:26
Speaker
Basically like the Michael Jordan of modern day sumo. I feel like that's an easy like analogy. And he made it look good. He made it look real good. He was real slick.
01:01:36
Speaker
Like watching Hakuho, if if like any listeners, look up Hakuho, look up his matches, his highlights. you'll You'll be blown away by what kind of athlete he was. ah and Yeah, he was incredible. yeah He was big on just getting that W.
Hakuho's impact and global expansion
01:01:54
Speaker
And some of his wins, people just didn't like it. Like, and I'm talking about Japanese people. Yeah. The most important people of that particular cultural. Right. I mean, you watch highlights of Hakuho and, and like, I understand, you know, that the Henke is not like, not what they're expecting. But if, if you're going to want to show somebody like, here's what a good Henke looks like.
01:02:17
Speaker
Hakuho had some, like, it was sick. It was so cool. The stuff he would do, like his quickness and, and just like the swim move, or he'd, you know, he'd stick his hand out right away to to block the vision and step away during that, like, just totally cool, like, just made it look so cool and slick, and it's like, you know, yeah, for from a Western ah view, at least for me, when I watch that stuff, I'm like, God, what a smart guy, you know, just like, just totally good control of his body and technique and timing, just, I have i have to respect it.
01:02:48
Speaker
ah One thing, what do you think of Hakuho's recent, ah like recently stated he's going to try to work on creating a some sort of global, you know, an international association for Sumo.
01:03:03
Speaker
I'm very curious to see what that's going to look like. Hard to really know. um i mean, he's he's got the the power to do it. I don't know who's going to support him necessarily. I don't know the politics well enough for that.
01:03:14
Speaker
um So that that could be interesting. He says he wants to do stuff in the U.S. and now is the time. Um, there's, there's popularity. People are starting to participate it in it more in the U S. Um, it's, uh, it's getting more attention.
01:03:29
Speaker
Um, but yeah, what it really looks like, I don't know. Um, it's going to be hard, uh, without the support of, uh, Japanese, uh, folks. Um, and just because like that's where ah all the money is like even usa sumo is getting i think they get some money from uh the jsa the japanese sumo association who is who is the governing body um i'm not sure if that's true or how much i don't i don't attend the board meetings um but you know there's there there's politics going on with it where they still have a lot of power just the jsa has lots of power to kind of decide like how things go they're still very influential over the
01:04:08
Speaker
over the world championships and things like that. Yeah. So. Well, for, I mean, one thing that was interesting, I mean, it's still so tied to Japan and Japan's governing body, even in America that, right, you can't import a Mawashi.
01:04:22
Speaker
for example, right? Well, you you can. That's where my Mwashi came from. Without there. Sorry, it's the first half of the... Without there, they are the ones deciding how many come out, right? come Can come out of Japan.
01:04:35
Speaker
Yes, yes. So, yeah, when when I had to get my Mwashi, it was like I had to sit there like with the with the order button, like ready to go because they're they like, yeah. Yeah, like you're buying a PS5 day one.
01:04:48
Speaker
Now, we... we we've talked about like the traditionalism within sumo and like also like you mentioned like the importance of maintaining and preserving a lot of that, right? Like there's a lot of it that, um you know, I like when I'm, you know, just running a practice, um there's part of me like, especially because of the background that coming from with wrestling where it's like, there's, we change all the time, right? There's ebbs and flows to the sport and expectations about what works, what doesn't.
01:05:19
Speaker
um what new techniques are worth teaching, what isn't, how we should be training, how we should be structuring practices, things like that. Change happens all the time. um Should we be stretching? Should we be doing a dynamic one? Should we do it? Yeah, that stuff like changes constantly.
01:05:35
Speaker
And with it being a more modern sport, like wrestling specifically, that change is much more welcome and and easier to do. When I'm teaching sumo, like there's things that I do during the sumo practice strictly because I know that we should do this just for the, like, whether it's a good idea or not, we should do this because of the tradition. We should do this to respect the tradition that it's coming from, right?
01:05:58
Speaker
Now, having said that, um are there things within sumo, professional or international otherwise, um that you would like to see change? Oh, yeah. um I think professional is its own thing and i almost don't want to change anything except for um i think that they should have um if someone gets hurt or something along those lines they should be able to like take it like a red shirt right i think that that's that's the big thing there right i think that um different heads are doing different things as far as for um uh like their are particular training some are adding in like um
01:06:40
Speaker
Takata Fujii is adding in powerlifting into sumo, and that seems to work really well for him. But then you have the other side where Kanishki is like, that's all garbage. You just need to do shikos, right? And I think that both are valid. And I like to have kind of an open mind, especially as a person that has science backing them up.
Controversial rules and international politics in sumo
01:07:03
Speaker
But there's something to the traditional movements, right? movements, I think are, um, they get a bad rap, right? Sometimes it's just, looks like you're doing touch butt in the park.
01:07:16
Speaker
That's just the nature of the beast sometimes, but being able to move lateral, uh, different patterns and almost make a, like a cotification.
01:07:27
Speaker
That's a word I just made out. Cotification of, of your sumo practice is good. I think that that's actually good. But um there's a couple like absolute staples of sumo, like Shiko.
01:07:42
Speaker
Shiko is underrated, underrated. Tsuriyashi, underrated. It needs to always be done. But I got a little sidetracked. If there was a rule that I was going to change, it's the strikes to the face.
01:07:57
Speaker
So I was going to ask about this. One of my frustrations, especially after competing in the U.S. Open, um was uh you know there was a lot of a lot of uh controversy around like oh was that a was that a a wind up on that strike to the face was it straight ahead and there's a big part of me it's like please just choose to have the strikes to the face or don't yeah like like i don't i i hate gray area in sports when i don't feel like it needs to be there you know the problem with sumo yeah it's a lot of gray it's a lot of gray um
01:08:34
Speaker
And the strikes to the face, it's if you establish it as a rule and you say that this is what you can't do, you have to call it at that point.
01:08:48
Speaker
Now, sumo, unfortunately, even on the amateur level, doesn't have a penalty system. Yeah. Which some people would say, that's great. Shouldn't have it.
01:08:59
Speaker
It's not traditional. I get that. But as...
01:09:06
Speaker
I think the burden on amateurs, especially um like the term amateur is a little weird. Sure. On the world stage, the the term amateur gets a little weirder where like Ukraine will compete against America.
01:09:21
Speaker
Like we could have an American go out there, win a medal, he comes back home. He gets absolutely nothing from the United States. Nobody cares. It's all good. Like that's your own trophy. Trent, one of the most decorated American sumo wrestlers, has won third place multiple times on the world stage, came back, nobody knows who he is.
01:09:44
Speaker
That's just the nature of the beast. yeah In a different country, let's say Ukraine, for instance, you go out there, you win a medal, a world medal, you get money.
01:09:57
Speaker
You get money. That money will stack up. and it will better your life. It will also set you up once you retire for a government job. So Poland, similar situation.
01:10:10
Speaker
Now, it's a little politicky to make sure that you have something on the back end, but there's this kind of a system established, right? Now, with that being the case, it's like, man, Georgia, for instance, I'm just going to say it, Georgia is one of the worst,
01:10:27
Speaker
countries at striking at the face right that's what they do they know it's against the rules but the rules are great they win money they can win like actual like like actual money they're like i'm gonna do it and if you're gonna call me on it we'll call me on it we'll just restart the match yeah um so with that like their strike to the face it goes out and if it connects and you win i mean what's wrong i mean i can't i can't blame you yeah Yeah, i'm I'm very much with you there where it's just like, like I was reviewing one of my matches and I'm like, I think i I think my strike was probably illegal, but like no one said anything. No one was going to say anything, you know? Have you read the rules?
01:11:13
Speaker
Well, that's hard to do. i don't know if you've noticed, but they're hard to find. They're not on the USA Sumo website. And the one on the international Sumo website is very confusing.
01:11:26
Speaker
Because it's it's translated very vague, but that's kind of the idea of it, right? And I kind of get it because if you ask them, it's you set the rule and they don't break the rule.
01:11:41
Speaker
I'm sorry. The non-Japanese people are just not going to do that. and And they break different rules, but that's different thing. Right, right. um but This rules are going to be always one where I start rambling.
01:11:55
Speaker
ah One that I saw in Japan, and it was done against an American middleweight, and it was Finland. It was hits, close fist to the back of the head.
01:12:11
Speaker
All right? And when I say back of the head, i mean like on the neck. It was not โ Pumble. It's not pummeling. Right. Not not just a good club. but It wasn't a club.
01:12:22
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it was ah was literally closed fist to the back the back. Yeah. Hammer fist. this is where sumo kind of falls apart. And I've seen it a few different rules.
01:12:34
Speaker
They'll have an issue. They'll stop the match. And then when they stop the match, they'll go, hey, don't do that. Bop, bop, bop.
01:12:45
Speaker
And then it will continue. And I'm like, you can't do that with someone hitting in the back of the neck. That's in all martial arts, everything, every like every discipline, MMA, you can't do that.
01:12:59
Speaker
You can't do it. The only one that kind of gets away with it is kick to the back of the head because it kind of happens. Sure. But outside of that, um sorry, that was a long rambling, JJ. No, no.
01:13:10
Speaker
Rules. Rules. Just those though. Like I was expecting you to have even more stuff coming out. I i have more. I have more.
01:13:21
Speaker
um But you know what? We're talking. um Another weird one is the concept of bad sportsmanship.
01:13:37
Speaker
So World Games โ and um the world gain Egypt beat Ukraine and won the lightweight championship.
01:13:49
Speaker
He did a backflip. He did a backflip. They stopped the match. And this is where if he does a backflip, you're like, it's bad sportsmanship.
01:14:00
Speaker
You just call it there. It's done, right? That should be done. um But what kind of happened is he did a backflip and his coach got mad, who was a retired a professional sumo wrestler named Sandstorm, tried to get onto the dojo, ended up getting escorted out.
01:14:19
Speaker
um The guy stayed out on the dojo. They ended up throw drawing the match again or doing the match again. he ends up winning. But it's one of those, like, it's inconsistent.
01:14:31
Speaker
It's one of those, it's like more of a feeling. You try to, like like, penalize the guy, but then you didn't. And then a little later, different athlete from a different country, did a backflip, and then, like, made it a very, like, political thing, and was like, it's okay, don't worry about it.
01:14:50
Speaker
I feel like that weird inconsistency. You have to have rules, and those rules have to be set, and they need to be followed. um There's a lot of rules.
01:15:05
Speaker
The Tachiai Hikimasio rule is is one that I find a little interesting. So you were in the sumo. What's your interpretation of the start of a sumo match?
01:15:18
Speaker
My interpretation of the start? Yeah. so how do how do you start it? like like after So after do you after you do your... After Chirichou, you come into the into the line, you do your Sankyo.
01:15:32
Speaker
um Talk about that position from there. So for me it's for me, it's like if I'm going to put my fist down... I need to be ready to go is kind of where I'm at.
01:15:44
Speaker
um i And like with the rules in amateur international sumo, I know we both have to have our fists down. I know that there was like some bullshit around that where ah for a while people were, you know, taking forever to put a fist down.
01:15:58
Speaker
i will say I'll get to my complaint in a second. but for But to answer your question, we put our fist down. Let's go. I want to go. i want i want to fight. I don't want to do this bullshit where it's like so-and-so is going to stand there for a minute and slowly come down and slowly maybe, you know what? I changed my mind. i'm goingnna stand back up.
01:16:17
Speaker
um That stuff drives me insane. I think we should both get over there. We should put our fists down. We should go. um And I don't want anything else. i don't even like I wouldn't even mind if we treated it more like pro sumo where you don't even have to put your fists down. You just have to be ready to go.
01:16:34
Speaker
yeah right and you have to hit um but i don't like the the games people play when we get ready before our touchy i stop playing games with me let's like i almost told a guy to put his fist down when i was facing against him at one point i was like i almost said put your fist down um but that's how i feel so with the previous rules that there was a lot of like fuckery there's just what it was one knuckle down And then what someone would do, they have one knuckle down and the other one just... and try to jump. in that's
01:17:10
Speaker
And that's not a fair beginning. yeah right Now, the idea of having a fair, even tachii where the tachii is started from you hearing the gyouji say hakyoi.
01:17:25
Speaker
Now, of course, different Gyojis will have different interpretations of when you're supposed to go, which I also think is an issue. Some Gyojis like to finish their full word.
01:17:38
Speaker
The full word, not just the sound. Not just ah just the sound. so Most will allow you to go at the ha. Now, there is a... that The rule is that the Gyoji says hakyoi and you go, right? That's like at least...
01:17:57
Speaker
Within the rules that you can read, that's what it says. and you're like, all right, cool. Well, we can work within that. um Some countries that will never get called on jumping the gun will โ When you say some countries, you generally mean Japan, right?
01:18:13
Speaker
I only mean Japan. I only mean Japan. I was trying to be very political. were like, no! so Bring it on. It's all good. It's all good. So they will jump it So they'll go on the breath in.
01:18:30
Speaker
So, and they'll go. And they can't get called on it. They can't get called on it. And I have had discussions with people that are international Gyojis.
01:18:43
Speaker
They go, i was like, hey, why didn't you call that a false start? And they go, oh, it's because there is a hierarchy on the doyo. So there is a Jioji from Japan, the head judge is from Japan, and they're like, well, no.
01:19:01
Speaker
I'm like, that's not... We can't can't... We can't have that, right? like We want to have a nice, even, fun sport. Can you imagine if... I don't know.
01:19:13
Speaker
Let's ah say swimming. Swimming, they're like, oh, the American can start right before the gun. As soon as I put my hand up, the guy can go. Like...
01:19:25
Speaker
you can't do that you can't do that especially in a sport where the initial tachi eye for the most part wins the wins the match i like yeah not that but it is it is yeah i mean for me as long as long as it's called consistently i don't care when you like i'll like i teach people like when i was coaching wrestling i coached for like 10 years and it's like When you're getting set, right, you're listening for the whistle.
Potential changes and future for women's sumo
01:19:52
Speaker
Part of the coaching in wrestling is you don't just listen for the whistle. You watch the referee. Yep. Right. You watch his hands. You watch his face. And like you're trying to jump that whistle.
01:20:03
Speaker
Right. You're trying to literally be moving as he is starting to breathe. Right. That's what you want. Trying to hack your your reaction time. Yeah. Now, if a different country does it, you can't penalize them.
01:20:17
Speaker
it's That's not fair. right And of course, in sumo, the penalizing is not as extreme because all it is is, no, restart. No, restart.
01:20:28
Speaker
And I think you can do that. I've never seen ah match just get washed. yeah I've never seen it. I don't think that there's actually a framework, even on amateur level. like Never seen it.
01:20:43
Speaker
It's one of those things where it's like, if i So if that's the case, like if i'm if I have those referees and I'm going against a wrestler who I know is going to do that, I'm thinking I'm going to do it too, even if they call me for it.
01:20:56
Speaker
um but But I'm going to set the tone on that Tachi. I'm going to try to make it when we do restart, they're a little bit hesitant. So if you want to see what that looks like, you go back into last year's, I want to say it was open weight. It was either open weight or it was heavy weight.
01:21:14
Speaker
Japan versus Mongolia. That was a battle. That was battle of just false start, false start, reset, chill, mate, false start.
01:21:29
Speaker
I was like, whew. it it It was a war of attrition in a weird way that I don't think most people appreciate it. Me as a like a, just like seeing people beat systems, I'm like, look at that.
01:21:44
Speaker
now Now, glaring omission here, we haven't talked about women's sumo, um which for me, if I'm talking about stuff that I would like to see change in sumo, think that's a big one. I know it's a tall ask, especially in Japan, to see pro-women sumo.
01:22:00
Speaker
um i don't I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon, unfortunately. um But when I watch international sumo, I'm very encouraged by women's participation and getting to see more of that.
01:22:11
Speaker
Um, and, uh, and I, I really want to see that grow. So if there's something I would love to see change, if I'm living in a perfect world, I would love to see more women getting involved in sumo and participating.
01:22:22
Speaker
Um, because it is such a great sport for everybody. And I'm a big believer that's like, if sports good for one gender, it's good for ah every gender. They dominate. Yeah. They dominate the, um, the amateur scene in America.
01:22:37
Speaker
We, in the last since, trent sable we haven't won medal on the world stage outside of the women our women are just amazing and they're doing amazing sumo kanishki loves seeing like kellyann sumo everybody is there it's it's a smaller number of participants but the matches are just fire and anybody that goes against any woman will in like our top women in america they're like oh
01:23:09
Speaker
I'm just getting my butt kicked. And they're like, yeah, that's what it is. Like, therere there there there should be, there well, there used to be a pro circuit of women sumo wrestlers.
01:23:22
Speaker
who oh But it always got into a, I think got into a little burlesque at at a point, but there was, there's always been a like, a thread of,
01:23:38
Speaker
of a system and then it just kind of disappears. And i think some of that has to do with cultural norms, right?
01:23:49
Speaker
um Again, as, you know, an American dude, I don't want to really push upon Japanese culture, but I do think that we should have a, at least a women's circuit and, or a Maybe it's like a team situation, right? I think maybe that could be a fun mix of it.
01:24:09
Speaker
um Yeah. Anything else along the lines where it's like, hey, you know ah you you're an advocate for Sumo in the US.
Promoting sumo to children and community engagement
01:24:16
Speaker
ah what's what's a What's a message you put out to people?
01:24:20
Speaker
My biggest message, and this is to every local club, every everywhere, everywhere. We need to invest in children.
01:24:32
Speaker
There's... I almost feel like I am the, uh, the guy on the mountain wearing a Mwashi saying, children do sumo, come and try it. It transfers over. It gives you balance.
01:24:46
Speaker
And I'm like doing the, the, the, the talk that people do for judo, the talk that they do for jujitsu about self-confidence and body awareness and body acceptance. And just like, I feel like I'm in that, that echo chamber almost alone.
01:25:01
Speaker
Um, as a country, I, I definitely feel, um, that we can do better. we have amazing, strong kids and we have a bunch of different things that kind of blend together. Right.
01:25:17
Speaker
Um, like Mark Jones is in Florida. He also, works with a lot of kids, but his, his entry in is football.
01:25:27
Speaker
So he does football and then he'll play like, um, like sumo drills with them. And then some of them will go over to sumo. And I'm like, all right, that's cool. That's a cool little act to it, right? We're always working the PR of sumo with, because of the Mawashi.
01:25:45
Speaker
And the Mawashi is such a small, small part of sumo, but it's the biggest hurdle, sumo. And one of the things that I've given up a lot of time, especially when it got to Nationals or any tournament that I run or anything along those lines I will do a full circuit and i'll do code calls to every judo gym every mma gym every jujitsu gym every wrestling program every high school wrestling every um, like the high school wrestling programs also do uh, like um, like kind of like training camps during off season or during spring break
01:26:28
Speaker
So I will pop into that and ill I'll donate as much time as possible. And, you know, for as many as I go to, i might only get one, i might get three.
01:26:40
Speaker
Who knows, for for nationals, it's a little easier. I'm like, hey, you want to be a national champion? How about you come out here and try? Like, it's not, you know, you you you uplift them.
01:26:51
Speaker
And I've seen some kids change their lives, right? And I think even if I only get one, right? This time around for for Worlds, for Nationals, I had seven kids go participate.
01:27:08
Speaker
So they flew from San Diego to Austin, Texas. And then of that seven kids, I have two or maybe three. I have three.
01:27:20
Speaker
Sorry, I have four. I have four going to Worlds. I have two clubs. I'm sorry.
01:27:28
Speaker
All last question for you. um When it comes to like a lot of the local tournaments that are popping up here and there around the United States, if you could tell someone to go to one of those tournaments, which one would it be?
01:27:43
Speaker
I think the easiest one that everyone should go to is the SoCal Open in San Diego. Oh my goodness. It is by far my favorite tournament Even though if you see me there, you will be like, oh my God, he's stressed. His world is ending.
01:28:01
Speaker
He doesn't know what's up, what's down. That is how I have fun. I have fun with stress. And I'm always trying to mix in with the Japanese community, which I think that some of the best clubs that run sumo tournaments, there's a lot of other ones. i'm not going say them because I'm only pushing myself right now. I'm only promoting San Diego.
01:28:20
Speaker
um But we will mesh in with the Japanese community. Right. So you will blend in with your sister city community, which ours is Yokohama.
01:28:31
Speaker
They come out and they support us. We had the key to Yokohama at the SoCal Open, which was freaking rad because it looks because it's from Japan. Looks epic.
01:28:43
Speaker
looks super epic it's looks like something out of freaking final fantasy but one other question i always ask guests um doesn't have to be about sumo obviously but is there something about wrestling history or like anything within this realm of of of as you as you so well put it you know just this very primal act that humans do is there a topic that you'd like to see covered i think that um they' there's a lot of wrestling around the world.
01:29:14
Speaker
And again, I like to see that around the world, we all do some way of expressing ourselves, right? In the winning technique of snapping somebody down, putting them onto the floor, there's strangles, there's pickups, there's dumps, there's all of these different aspects.
01:29:34
Speaker
And it's, again, just like a level of communication. And I think if we truly focus on the similarities of people and stop focusing on the separations, right? Like the difference between suey jiao in bulk, come on, let's just think they're the same thing and and expand from there.
01:29:57
Speaker
Like, oh, suey jiao is so different. I can't do that in judo. You can. It's okay if you're not wearing shoes. It's okay. Right? Right. that like there again, we are all people, we are all united and we should not be divided.