所作  Rituals & the Ring

Watch a sumo broadcast and most of what you see is not fighting. Men throw salt, stamp, crouch, stand up again, and take a towel from an attendant. None of it is filler, and none of it is decoration added for television.

Start here

1. Why Sumo Wrestlers Throw Salt Purification, roughly five kilograms a day, and who is allowed to do it.
2. The Gyoji: Sumo's Referee, and What He Is Actually Doing He never starts the bout, he always names a winner, and he can be overruled.
3. The Mawashi: The Belt a Sumo Bout Is Fought Over Not clothing. The handle half the techniques are named after.
4. Shiko: The Leg Stomp, and What It Is For A ritual, and the most important exercise in sumo training. Both at once.
5. Dohyo-iri: The Ring-Entering Ceremony Two ceremonies, not one — and the only time you see the rope.
6. Kensho: The Banners and the Envelopes Prize money, carried round the ring in public. Count the banners.
7. Why Sumo Looks Like a Ceremony It began as a rite and never stopped being one. The reason behind this whole section.
8. The Yobidashi: The Voice That Calls the Bout Not an announcer. A ranked profession that also sweeps the ring and starts the clock.
9. The Roof Above the Ring It hangs, with nothing holding it up. Four tassels, four seasons, four directions.
10. Women and the Dohyo What the Sumo Association has actually said, in its own published statement.