Women's Sumo

An interesting, if brief, article here on the history of women's sumo (onnazumo), which was at one time more popular than the men's sport. Another good article here details the current state of the sport. Finally, here is a good profile of Katrina Watts, the Australian woman who serves as one of the English language commentators, as well as dating a former champion. Registration is required for this last article, but it's free.

I saw sumo for the first time two days after arriving in Japan, and I have always thought it an ideal introduction to Japanese culture. The bouts are easy to follow, and even a first time viewer can appreciate the sport at that level immediately, but the ritual, history and the baroque system by which wrestlers rise and fall through the various ranks can take up as much of your time as you care to give them.

But women's sumo, while it still exists (one of my students wrestles), is all but invisible. There are a number of factors involved here, from shinto preoccupations with ritual purity (women menstruate), to the seedy reputation it garnered through too many vaguely sleazy sideshow attractions (like pounding rice into mochi-cakes on the stomachs of wrestlers). Another factor may be simple jealousy on the part of male practitioners who, ultimately, hold absolute control over access to the highest levels of the sport.

The most famous judoka in Japan at the moment is a woman. Why not women's sumo? Classical sumo involved hundreds of locks and throws that have all but vanished from the modern sport as the men become increasingly heavy and less agile. Allowing women into the ring might revive the sport, even preserve certain elements of it, in the same way that anyone wanting to see real team-play in basketball is better off watching the women's version now that men have developed a paralyzing phobia of passing the ball.