Sumo Confidential - Japan

July 2009
Sumo is in crisis. The grueling training and relentless discipline can be too much to take for young trainees. We follow the daily routine of two wrestlers and wonder if the ancient sport can survive.
A young sumo is pushed off the ring and made to get up again and again. We are inside a training stable. It's like going to boot camp 365 days a year says this commentator, They're the dirt on the floor and they've just got to work their way up. Cooking, cleaning and endless training, Shoheis life is typical of a junior sumo. If you are the youngest disciple you have to do twice the duties compared with your seniors, says popular Estonian wrestler Baruto. Sumo increasingly relies on ambitious foreign imports like him. For Shohei however, the discipline proves too much and he absconds - a disgrace for his stable. Although the stable owner is concerned about the future, the age-old training wont change: I have never thought I have pushed them too far. I feel I am still spoiling them.

Made by Foreign Correspondent, ABC Australia

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• sumo
• train
• training
• young
• japan
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman
• journeyman pictures

[notsukutsu]

The documentary didn't point out one thing: Everyone, including the highest ranking star wrestlers, including the stablemasters (all former wrestlers), who in turn make up the Grand Sumo Council overseeing body, and every sumo wrestler before them for centuries have withstood with the same kind of harsh training and discipline themselves. You have to really want to become great in sumo in order to succeed. This kid joined for his and his parents' wellbeing, which is nice, but not what it takes.

[vihmaussivenitaja]

"The destructive lure of Estonia's nightclub underworld??!!!" LMAO :D There's really no "underworld" in the tiny Estonia, let alone a specific "nightclub" one :D

[ozekiozeki1]

I wonder if Murray Johnson is predicting Baruto to become a Yokozuna.

[ozekiozeki1]

Baruto was a bit harsh at 21:10 - the kid could do simple choirs, grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, I know the young rikishi fled but don't degraded him so badly.

[ozekiozeki1]

19:55 "Once a sumo wrestler joins a stable, he stays in it for life."

Oh yeah? Baruto moved from another stable to his, rikishis transfer from stable to stable all the time when they are at a higher rank...

[12valvepower1]

i do TKD. and i like sumo alot.

[12valvepower1]

i like baruto

[MrFFSMAN]

what a dick that Estonian guy is

[oharafactor]

@hadashi05 Ten thumbs up.  I couldn't believe my ears.

[briansuck]

@discoverydavid: I agree, this is what happen when they assigned feminist to write a documentary review for Sumo. In any sport, everyone tries to go beyond their body limit, through harsh training, failures, and hardworks to learn more about themselves. If the feminist want to see sport with no violent, they need to stick to their own feminist type of sport. It's called "Sleeping". Who slept the longest, win.

[hadashi05]

I dislike how they refer to a wrestler as 'a sumo'. The proper term is rikishi.

[koisumaz2000]

Sumo is for real men. Who can't take it, don't do it.