One day after work, I was stopped at a light on the way home. While sitting there, I looked to the left, and saw this...

Yep...After School Sumo. Intrigued, I went back a few weeks ago (and coincidentally a couple of days before the kids sumo tournament in Tokyo) and spent a half hour or so there talking with one of the guys (a dad, I think). The kids were obviously pretty serious about it, and it looked like they had a pretty good coach...Elvis-san! "Arigato Gozaimasu!!" ("Thank you very much!!")

The two tiny titans (or Rikishi "big strong bast**ds", according to the guy who wrote "The Joy of Sumo") wrestled (or sumoed, since sumo means wrestling in Japanese) each other in a series of matches, before getting schooled in some of the finer points by Elvis-san.

Just before the tachiai (when they smash into each other).

Tachiai

I've decided that getting into sumo (um...I mean watching, of course...not becoming a rikishi) is one of the things I plan to do while I'm here in Japan. I'm not much of a sports fan, really...don't have any true teams that I follow (I like the Auburn Tigers and the Buffalo Bills, but couldn't tell you if they've won any games or not). The current champion (yokozuna) is a Mongolian guy, and there are a couple of Bulgarians and Russians as well...quite an interesting and very quintisentially Japanese sport. Check it out!

For some good info on Sumo, check out the Wikipedia site...or just Google it. Google knows all.