Sumo and friendship (EN)

I was lucky to meet a couple of old friends in Tokyo:  a dozen years ago I had renamed them as Maria and Giorgio for my phonetic convenience (born Haruna and Keiji), and I finally also saw their daughter  Hinata (renamed Carlotta, to follow my own tradition) who now is a 10 year old girl with a fantastic smile and overwhelming friendliness.

It was wonderful to understand that, despite distance and time, there is always a beautiful deep bond between us, regardless time, distances and differences. Spending a day together was natural, pleasant, fun, as if we had only seen each other a few days before, or as if we lived on the same balcony.

They took me first, for lunch, enjoying a sublime example of the Japanese “one soup, three side dishes” tradition, called Ichiju-Issai, dated back to the Kamakura period in the Twelfth Century. It is a magnificent exaltation of simplicity and frugality that transforms the lunch in a tasteful, delicate and profound ceremony.

The afternoon was reserved for the Sumo Tournament, taking place here in Tokyo for about ten days. I have always wanted to see this live show, and experience something moving between the sport discipline of wrestling, the tradition and rituality in a truly thrilling way.

Wrestlers are human beasts of considerable size, and I compare them to me where, here in Asia, normally I stand a good span in height and two doors in size (to be completely honest even in Europe I am classified among the “really big” in any case ).

The elegant ritual of they moves on the dohyo, the gestures in clapping their hands and balancing their weights by alternately raising their legs in the air while they are crouched, and finally all the moments and tensions that prepare, postpone, threaten and simulate the clash are all part of a prehistoric tradition.

The whole context, from the referees to the judges, to those who constantly clean the dohyo, up to the throwing of salt to purify the circle, are details that you never get tired of continuing to see..

Then their masses clash against each other, in a dance where the blows and thrusts are rigidly traced in 82 kimarite (victory techniques): a few seconds of incredible strength and intensity. Two bows and the referee’s paddle awarding the victory. This is the only place and the only time where I heard the Japanese screaming, caught up in the heat of typhus.

Spectacular.

Time to get back on track and return to Europe for a few days, before relocating again (for the seventh time in 20 years) around the Land of Sand Castles, leaving my apartment in Dubai, moving to Abu Dhabi, and then again traveling to Singapore, Viet Nam and Indonesia.

Stay tuned, more is coming…