Sumo-aholism

I am totally addicted to Sumo. It is really aggressive, but I love it. I hate violent movies, boxing, etc... but LOVE this. They really are rough... they kind of slap each others faces, grab each other's faces and chins, pinch, push, crack heads... it is awesome. The referees wear elaborately embroidered robes and hold black and gold paddles. And the sumos, when not wrestling, wear beautiful skirt-like garments.
Our friend Glen and I went looking for another stable training session this morning and found the location of the number 3 guy in all of Japan, Kaio Hiroyuki. It was in this beautiful temple with statues and altars scattered up and down a steep hill. After a few minutes of peeking around, we saw an older woman coming down some stairs... so we followed her path.

At the top of a path was a permanent tent-like shelter with a few sumo wrestlers practicing on the sumo ring inside. The videos below are what we watched. We just caught the end of the practice. Then later we went to watch the actual tournament on TV and saw our guy win his 700th (I think) match.

The first video are of some practice matches between lower-ranked sumo wrestlers... the big guy is our guy. The second video is the post-match stretching/conga line? they did. I have no clue what it is... but it is funny to watch. We are going to the finals of the Nagoya tournament in two weeks, so will report more then ... unless I go to another practice session.




This is the funnier one.