If you try to remember a Japanese sport, what would it be ? Baseball or football are recently popular but I’m sure some of you remember SUMO wrestling first of all.

Probably Sumo is too strange for other countries people.  For us Japanese, it’s really hard to answer what SUMO really is.  When we are born in Japan, Sumo is regularly held 4 times ( 5 times ?) a year.  Each Sumo time has 15 days to decide the term champion, and everyday during the Sumo time,  sumo matches are on air on national TV of Japan.  We are not especially fond of Sumo for the first time, but sumo just goes on no matter what happens.

The right answer of ours, if we are asked ” do you like SUMO ?”  would be YES for many of Japanese. But it would not be a strongly positive YES, but it’s like saying ” yes, we like it in our custom “.

For me, Sumo was just such a national sport and not a special one for a long time.

Coincidentally I read a book about Sumo some years ago, and got surprised.  Sumo used to be ( and probably still is ) a tribute to our God.  That was not a sport when it started.

Sumo field is a circle with a rope made by straw. Field is surrounded by 4 wood poles. Before the sumo ritual, sumo players throw salt over the field to purify the place. On starting, they shout HaKeH YoHYi ( Hakke Yoi ).  Sometimes in the old sumo tradition, sumo wrestlers play it alone ( so it’s not a match, but a ritual with God).

This is the rough pick up of sumo play.

I’m not a specialist of Old Israel, but some say Sumo is from there in ancient Israel. If you familiar to Hebrew,please imagine  HaKeH YoHY like pronunciation. An expert said it means Throw, Attack ! in Hebrew language ( look at 6:30 place of the video at the bottom ). Also, placing salt over the sumo field to purify it is also a custom of old Israel. Tall poles and circled place means the place to reach God for old Jewish too. In addition, Sumo word is taken from SHEMO ( I don’t know the correct spell and pronunciation ) of Hebrew word.  The origin of SUMO was written in the testament as Jacob took battle ( or sumo ) with Angel and he was named Israel by the Angel then.

Above information might be wrong a little because my memory is not perfect, but roughly they are telling the survey of SUMO origin by some people in Japan.

Anyway, SUMO is a very old ritual for God. This is a true story.

There are so many similarity between Japanese old custom and Jewish custom, this seems to be true too.

Next video tells how it’s similar to Jewish origin, but it’s in Japanese.