Routine: Life of a Sumo Wrestler

Sumo is Japan's traditional form of competitive wrestling, and the only country where the sport is still practised professionally. The idea is simple on paper: two wrestlers face each other inside a circular ring, the dohyō, and try to push the opponent out or force any body part other than the soles of the feet to touch the ground. The weight, balance and ritual that surround that short clash, however, are anything but simple.

Japan is the birthplace of sumo, and many of its ancient traditions have survived inside the sport. Salt purification before a bout, the bow to the ring, the referee's costume and the wrestlers' topknots are all borrowed from Shinto practice. If you want a broader background on the sport itself, this introduction to sumo covers the history and curiosities. Here the focus is narrower: what a wrestler's life actually looks like, day after day, inside a training stable.

The short answer is that life as a sumo wrestler is highly regimented, with rules set and enforced by the Japan Sumo Association. Most wrestlers are required to live in communal training places, the heya, similar to traditional sports boarding schools. Inside the heya, almost everything, from meals to dress, follows long-standing custom rather than personal preference.

Contents 7

What is sumo and what makes it traditional?

Sumo is a contest of pushing, leverage and footwork. Each wrestler tries to get the other out of the ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of their feet. Matches are short, often under a minute, but training and preparation last a lifetime.

What sets sumo apart from other wrestling styles is the sheer weight of ritual around the action. Wrestlers throw salt into the ring to purify it before a fight, they stamp their feet to drive away evil spirits, and the referee performs a series of prescribed movements that have barely changed in centuries. Clothing, ranking and life inside the heya follow rules that would feel familiar to a wrestler from the Edo period. To understand how much of that tradition is still alive, it helps to read about Shinto, the religious background behind most of these gestures.

Life inside the heya

Most professional wrestlers live in the heya they belong to. The heya is run by a former wrestler, the oyakata, and functions a bit like a traditional boarding school: shared rooms, shared meals, fixed hours for everything. Rules set by the Japan Sumo Association cover the day from wake-up to curfew, and breaking them can mean fines or suspension, both for the wrestler and for the master in charge.

One of the most visible markers of a wrestler's life is the hair. On entering the professional ranks, wrestlers grow their hair into a topknot, the chonmage, and are expected to keep wearing it, together with traditional Japanese dress, whenever they appear in public. It is part of the spectacle, but it also means wrestlers are almost always recognisable in everyday life, which leaves very little privacy.

Divisions, ranks and attire

Sumo has a strict ranking system, and the clothes a wrestler is allowed to wear change with it. The setup is similar in spirit to the coloured belts in karate or judo: the higher the rank, the more elaborate and the better quality the garment. The six professional divisions, from highest to lowest, are:

1. Makuuchi
2. Jūryō
3. Makushita
4. Sandanme
5. Jonidan
6. Jonokuchi

Wrestlers in the top two divisions are called sekitori; the rest are usually referred to simply as rikishi. The line between sekitori and lower-ranked rikishi is a strong one, and it shapes almost every aspect of daily life, from clothing to sleeping arrangements to who serves whom in the bath.

Wrestlers in the bottom two divisions wear a simple cotton robe, the yukata, even in winter, and pair it with wooden sandals called geta when they go outside. Those in the makushita and sandanme divisions can add a short traditional overcoat on top of the yukata and wear straw sandals, the zōri. Sekitori, the top two divisions, can wear silk garments of their own choice, and the quality of the outfit is significantly higher. On formal occasions, they also wear a more elaborate topknot called the ōichō.

Daily schedule and the sekitori's privileges

Sekitori do not just dress better; their whole day is structured differently. They can sleep in until around 7:00 AM, while lower-ranked wrestlers are expected to be up by 5:00 AM for morning practice. Sekitori also get their own room in the heya, or, if they prefer, the option of living in their own apartment, the same as married wrestlers.

The hierarchy shows up in the training hall, too. When the sekitori are practising, junior wrestlers tend to chores: helping to cook lunch, cleaning the stable, preparing the bath, or standing by with a towel to wipe sweat. Bathing order and seating order at lunch follow rank as well. It is, in effect, a merit-based reward system: the more skilled you are, the more comfortable your day is, which is meant to push the lower ranks to keep working.

Salaries and prizes in yen

Salaries in sumo vary widely, and the figures below are meant as a rough guide for the top division. Junior wrestlers in the lower divisions receive a much smaller monthly allowance, and the gap from one rank to the next can be large. Within the top division, the makuuchi, monthly pay is usually broken into roughly five bands:

• Yokozuna: about 3,000,000 yen per month
• Ōzeki: about 2,500,000 yen
• San'yaku: about 1,800,000 yen
• Maegashira: about 1,400,000 yen

Sekitori also receive a bonus called mochikyūkin, paid six times a year, once per tournament. The amount grows with career achievements, including the number of kachikoshi tournaments, that is, tournaments with more wins than losses, and even more so for winning the top-division championship, going undefeated through a championship, or scoring a kinboshi, a rare win by a maegashira over a yokozuna.

There is also a cash prize for the winner of each divisional championship. The amount scales with rank, from 100,000 yen for a jonokuchi title up to 10,000,000 yen for winning the makuuchi championship. Wrestlers who put in a particularly strong tournament can also receive one of three special prizes, each worth 2,000,000 yen, on top of the rest.

A day in the life of a sumo wrestler

The harder side of the sport

For all its rituals, sumo is physically punishing, and some of its costs only show up over the long term. Estimates of life expectancy for professional wrestlers often sit between 60 and 65 years, around ten years below the Japanese national average. The combination of body mass, repeated joint stress and a calorie-heavy diet plays a role, and rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems are noticeably higher than in the general population. Heavy drinking in some stables adds another layer of risk, including liver problems, and the constant pressure on knees and hips from carrying the weight is linked to arthritis later in life.

There is also a social cost. The hierarchy inside the heya is steep, and the gap between sekitori and junior wrestlers is wide, which can make life hard for newcomers and, in some stables, has fed reports of bullying. None of this is unique to sumo, but it is part of the picture for anyone thinking seriously about the career.

A typical day in a heya

Day-to-day life in a heya is tightly scheduled, and most wrestlers in the lower divisions follow a rhythm close to this:

• 5:00 AM, wake up;
• 5:30 to 11:00, morning training (keiko);
• 11:00, a heavy lunch, traditionally built around chanko nabe, the protein-rich stew the stable serves in large pots;
• early afternoon, a long nap, since the body needs rest to process the meal and the training;
• afternoon, lower-ranked rikishi handle chores around the heya, while sekitori usually do a second training session;
• evening, free time to relax until dinner;
• 7:30 to 10:30 PM, more free time, with curfew at 10:30 PM and lights out, in shared rooms for the lower ranks.

The heya is, in practice, a small community with its own rules, and the day rarely changes from one week to the next. Daily routine can differ from one stable to another: some heya are stricter, others more flexible, and tournament weeks bring their own adjustments. The one constant is that training, meals, chores and rest take up almost the whole day.

The picture that comes out of all this is mixed. Sumo preserves a remarkable amount of tradition, and a successful sekitori's life can be genuinely privileged. At the same time, the road to that point is long, the schedule is unforgiving, and the long-term health trade-offs are real. If you have ever watched a tournament and wondered what the wrestlers' day actually looks like behind the ring, the heya is where the answer is, and it is more interesting, and a bit more demanding, than the matches alone suggest.