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NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD Sayaka Matsuo lies on the tatami mat as a personal masseur works on her neck and shoulders to squeeze out the knots.
But this is no pamper package with relaxing music or detoxifying mist. Matsuo is warming up for a head-clashing bout of Japan’s national sport — sumo.
Strapping her “mawashi” — loin cloth — over her lycra bike shorts, she squats into position, her 60kg frame squaring off against a man more than two-and-a-half times her weight.
The huge size difference is no obstacle for Matsuo, whose determination and technique shuffle her massive opponent across and out of the ring.
“I started sumo as a hobby. I feel a lot of pressure from my dad and my goal is to win the women’s Sumo World Championship one day,” she says.
As the daughter of a former professional sumo-wrestler, whose ring name was Sadanohana, Matsuo had a leg up into a sport not usually associated with women, and started to wrestle at just five years old.
Now she is part of a small, but growing band of female grapplers who are turning the tables on one of Japan’s oldest boys’ clubs.
Shintoism
Opening up the sport to women is part of an effort to legitimise sumo as a possible future Olympic event, Tokyo University’s Sumo Club coach Toshiaki Hirahara said.
“When you think of sumo you think of a sport reserved for fat men,” says Toshiaki Hirahara of Tokyo University’s Sumo Club. “We need to change this and show the world that women can also take part and appreciate the sport.
But Hirahara is also quick to point out that the top-level wrestling millions of Japanese watch on television needs to preserve its religious and spiritual origins and women should not take part.
“I think the fact that women cannot enter the sacred national dohyo (ring) is understandable as it is the realm of the gods. But the amateur league has nothing to do with gods, so let girls and boys do it equally.”
Sumo traces its origins back 2,000 years to a time when it was an integral part of the rituals of Japan’s native Shintoism, an animistic religion.
But the sport’s stock has fallen in recent years with claims of bout-fixing, illegal betting and bullying, including the death of a young apprentice wrestler in 2007.
It has also struggled to slough off claims that it is linked to the Yakuza, the country’s home-grown mob.
The sport’s popularity among the general public has suffered because of Japan’s failure to produce champions — all three of the present “yokozuna” (Grand Champions) are Mongolian.
Establishing a parallel amateur sport, with proper weight divisions could be a good way to help boost sumo, says Hirahara.
It might also get around the negative associations sumo wrestlers can have among Japan’s image-conscious women, who balk at the idea of eating the whopping 20,000 calories a day like Hakuho, who tips the scales at over 150 kilogrammes.
“I want to remain in the under 65kg weight category so I try to eat well-balanced food,” Matsuo says, although she admits she has a weakness for “chankonabe”, a traditional sumo stew of vegetables, meat and rice.
Fellow grappler Anna Fujita, 21, is also happy to stay on the lighter end of the sumo scale, and wrestles in the same under 65kg category.
“If I get bigger I’ll fall into the heavyweight category and have to fight against girls weighing more than a hundred kilogrammes,” she says.
And eating lots is too expensive anyway.
“I’m a student and have no money,” she says, adding she lives on a diet of Corn Flakes, rice and stir-fried vegetables.
Female strength
The proportion of female sumo wrestlers remains small — there are almost 300 boys taking part in the sport for every girl in Japan’s elementary schools, according to the Japan Sumo Federation.
Despite the yawning gap in numbers, female strength reigns supreme.
“Because the girls grow at a younger age, they are stronger than the boys,” coach Hideto Tsushima of Nihon University says.
Fujita, who studies Taiwanese history by day, is testimony to the fact that, with a little training, female wrestlers can remain on top — by night she throws men twice her size at Tokyo University Sumo Club.
So far, it’s a passion practised in private, and she is yet to tell her parents.
“I think they’ll be surprised… I plan to tell them after I graduate, or maybe when I get married,” she said.
We can’t police our streets as it is at the moment. How on earth are they going to police public transport? We need an American style type of policing, three strikes and you’re done. We also need our judiciary system to up their game and hand down harder penalties and to stick to them. That way our streets and transport will be more safer.
@Brian k.: the jails are full and they haven’t opened a new one since 1989. No point in increasing police numbers until that is sorted.
@Brian k.: We absolutely do NOT need the American model of anything, especially policing. It’s been shown time and time and time again to be biased and ineffective. All it does is increase the numbers of disadvantaged people in the prison-industrial complex, which is exactly what it’s supposed to do. Updated slavery by another name. We’re better than that
@Brian k.: three strikes is proven not to be a deterrent and is proven to increase violence among offenders. It doesn’t work.
@Paul C: We have to start somewhere. Currently we have repeat offenders with 100+ convictions and no sign of them reforming.
@John Fahy: The midlands prison opened in 2000. I agree with your point that more prison space is urgently needed.
@John Fahy: start executing some of the serial offenders with 500 previous convictions would soon clear out the prisons. No loss to society.
@Brian k.: What’s your goal, to punish those who commit crime or reduce crime overall? If it’s the latter, the US model has shown harsher sentences and prison conditions don’t achieve this
@Brian k.: American style policing, what just shoot everybody who you perceive as a threat. Believe you me American style policing is the last thing we need in this country.
@Brian k.: imagine a public transport police somewhere in another Eu country. Crazy how Ireland is being crazily mismanaged by the government and how baffling how there is absolutely 0 accountability for it.
@Brian k.: are you going to pay the massive tax hike to facilitate the building of more prisons, courts, and hiring of more staff at every level of the justice system to facilitate this? America is more dangerous than it’s ever been and mass incarceration is not a deterrent.
@John Fahy: exactly, and worse part is that over 20million Euro was spent buying a site for a prison and it’s costing thousands more to secure it now and not a block or foundation dug..
@John Fahy: That’s correct. We need a lot more prisons to be built.
@Dave G Doe: very good point!
@John Fahy: Helen mcentee was looking at potential a few years ago. Nothing happened, no surprise there then.
@Paul C: Woke people believe that if they say something, then it is so!
Only one way for the Government to take back control of our streets and that is to hit offenders where it hurts.
Take away their freedom and hit them in the pocket by making deductions from bank accounts or social welfare payments to ensure that fines are paid.
Start by sacking every judges in the country. Most of them haven’t a clue. Giving out suspended sentences for paedophiles like it’s no bother at all
@reg morrisey:
Judge Nolan should be up the first one there.
If they were serious about tackling crime and marking those responsible accountable then hit offenders in the pocket. Increase court fines and take it from their dole (yes most offenders do not work!) and not in lots of small instalments. If they’re fined €500, take €50 a week for 10 weeks. If teenage thugs under 18 are convicted, take it from their parents children’s allowance. Nothing else works, there are no prison places and community service etc doesn’t work. Mandatory fines taken from your pay for dole will make many of them think twice before committing crimes.
Once they keep the Luas Green for members of better stock and no North or West Side Skangers on it.
Eight thousand soldiers sitting on their holes, why not use them, the French do
Like everything in Ireland I don’t think any of the 4 .5 % reduction will be seen by the consumer…
Ah I see the usual sock puppets are heavily active on this thread cheering each other on with their usual hang’em high cow feces
How about we focus on actually sentencing people properly first? There’s no point hiring “transport police” when we can’t even police the main streets in the city centre. Even if we did hire these “transport release”, unless we fix our sentencing laws it’s still just going to be more catch and release for the criminals. There is no reason why the Dáil can’t pass a bill which mandates that the government has to build at least 5 new prisons in the next 10 years on state-owned land. We also need to introduce mandatory minimums for all crimes and make sure that a life sentence means exactly that – a life sentence. You’re not released after 18 years and no chance of getting early parole. We also need a three-strikes rule with a minimum 25 year sentence for those who break it.
Lol! So a new ‘Dublin’ police force then?
The NTA and TFI are not fit for purpose, bring back the carriage office and let them police all public transport services including taxis, the amount of illegal/undocumented taxis on the road is unbelievable
Gardai can’t cope with current level of antisocial behaviour. Judicial system is broken with repeat offenders having no incentive to desist.
Now a new type of garda with different level of authority and can only operate in certain environments and likely will have to hand over detainee to a garda anyway. Recipie for inefficiency.
Will believe it when l see it
If men were just men again it be grand. Telling ye, a few pud mouths wrecking my head and illnjust drag them off at the next stop. I was born in the 90s but I know this was how it was done in the 70s
would they fine their recurrent traffic offenders and report those rude drivers who deliberately miss their bus stops ?
…
Can’t recruit gardai naval personal army airport and now they want transport police lol
have your say