Word: sumos
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...Sumo matches are announced by an official in black silk who holds a fan in front of his nose while he squeaks the names of the contestants. When sumo champions retire they have their long hair cut, sit behind the four pillars that surround the ring, act as judges in disputes. Chief referee in all sumo championship matches is Okiaze Yoshida, whose position has been hereditary in his family for 23 generations...
...hair curled in a knot on top of his head, dresses in a 15-lb. fringed apron and an enormous belt made of twisted straw and paper streamers, looks as if he were proud of having just swallowed a medicine ball. He is the yokozuna (champion) of Japanese sumo (wrestling). Fortnight ago in Tokyo, some 10,000 yapping devotees of Japan's most ancient & honorable sport saw him attain this distinction in the final of the semi-annual national tournament in the Kokugi-kan amphitheatre. Spry little Musashiyama, defending yokozuna, ten years younger than Tama-nishiki...
...last 300 years,. Japan's professional wrestlers have been divided into two groups-East and West. Most of the year, Easts and Wests tour the country giving exhibitions, developing young sumo addicts. Each group has its own ranking champion, a score or more competent subordinates, a squad of promising novices who are fed underdone beefsteak, trained to lift huge boulders, finally taught the 48 tricks & dodges of sumo. Twice a year a national tournament is held in the Kokugi-kan to determine by round robin the best wrestlers of each group, and the grand champion. Object of sumo...
First maneuver in sumo is rigidly conventional. Both wrestlers crouch at opposite sides of the arena awaiting the charge. When one wrestler charges, his opponent, if unprepared, may say "matta!" (wait). For 300 years the rules permitted Japanese wrestlers thus to delay the beginning of their bouts as long as they pleased. Last year, for the first time, the period in which a contestant could demand a fresh start was limited to ten minutes...
Judo performers wear trousers and jackets. Sumo wrestlers in action wear only a loin cloth and, for bravado, bits of stiff rope. Since weight and girth with which to crowd an adversary out of the ring count for more than muscle, sumo performers eat gigantic meals and occasionally reach monstrous proportions. Biggest among current sumo celebrities is Dewagatake who, a pygmy compared to oldtime sumo giants, stands 6 ft. 8 in., weighs 350 lb. His girth is only 3½ ft. to Champion Tama-nishiki...