Scribbler's Cafe

It's SUMO time!

My intense love for sumo thrills and delights me on this steamy day. I watch not the clash of titans, but the hungry scramblings of adolescent boys - my sweet studious junior high students. The drama is all the more palpable. The mawashis won't stay appropriately placed - causing the boys to tug and pull at the sidelines. Then the fateful moment arrives and is over in a just a few seconds. The overcome offer sheepish grins to their classmates and the triumphant flash surprise and pride across their features.

Most of these children move like string cheese - flailing their gangly limbs this way and that. Occasionally contenders with actual measurable amounts of flesh will mount the ring. The waiting students stop joking and playing and tugging at their mawashis. They focus their eyes on the performing students and yell and cheer. Sometimes, through a slight of fate, a pairing occurs with an obvious mismatch of strength and bulk. The kids laugh and holler. The smaller boy in the ring smiles, his eyes wide. What is interesting is that in these unequal pairins, one time out of three the slight boy will conquer. A twist of the hips, a false footing can be manipulated to full advantage. Both sides clap when such an upset occurs.

Enjoy the photos....

posted by Scribbler @ Wednesday, July 13, 2005