0:15

Hello and welcome to the

0:17

History of Japan podcast, episode

0:19

574, The Kings of the

0:22

Ring, part one. So

0:25

when I was debating the idea

0:27

of a sort of historicized biography,

0:29

I quickly narrowed down my list

0:31

of potential topics to a few

0:33

suspects. Miyazaki Manabu

0:35

was of course the one I ultimately

0:37

picked, largely because of how well documented his

0:40

life is and because of the insane

0:42

things he got up to, but there

0:44

were a group of people who were

0:46

my second place choices. And hey, it's

0:48

my podcast, so nobody can stop me

0:50

from just rolling on to them next.

0:53

Besides, I was really excited about

0:55

this potential topic because of one of

0:57

the ways this podcast has affected my own

0:59

life. You see, way

1:01

back in episode 243, I

1:03

did an episode on the history

1:06

of sumo wrestling. In

1:08

a sense, it's Japan's national sport, though

1:10

much to the chagrin of old timers,

1:12

It's also somewhat on the decline today. Baseball

1:15

is of course by far the most popular

1:17

sport in the country, with Sumo in the

1:19

number 2 spot for a long time, but

1:22

recently soccer has started to supplant

1:24

it, and current surveys show

1:26

that of the top 10 most

1:28

recognized athletes in Japan, none

1:30

of them are Rikishi, Sumo wrestlers.

1:34

So, it's a sport that's kind

1:36

of in crisis, in part because, particularly

1:38

in Japan, it's perceived as a

1:40

bit old -fashioned. Something for Oyaji, for

1:42

old men, slaming Kirins as they yell

1:44

at their TV sets. That sort of vibe.

1:47

In part, the sport also has

1:49

an image problem. From its many recent

1:51

scandals, about a decade and a

1:53

half ago there was a big one

1:55

involving revelations that matches at the

1:57

highest level had been fixed by the

1:59

wrestlers participating in them to go

2:01

along with smaller scandals associated with

2:03

the behavior of specific athletes

2:05

that you see in pretty much

2:07

every sport. In a

2:10

word, modern sumo has issues,

2:12

but also it's just honestly

2:14

very fun. And in part

2:16

because of that episode, I started watching

2:18

a couple of tournaments where I could, and

2:20

especially over the last year and a

2:22

half, I've started watching a lot more, and

2:24

really come to appreciate Sumo as a

2:26

sport, and I decided I wanted to do

2:29

more with its history. So

2:31

this is a miniseries that's

2:33

about Sumo history, and especially

2:35

what that history shows us

2:37

about the idea of Japaneseness,

2:39

Japanese identity, because as

2:41

we'll see, Those ideas are bound up

2:43

both with Sumo in general and

2:46

the lives of our subjects in particular.

2:49

Of course, this is also an attempt

2:51

on my part to boost the

2:53

number of non -Japanese people watching Sumo

2:55

because honestly, I think it's really fun,

2:57

but I would also be remiss

2:59

not to note that NHK makes it

3:01

very hard to watch more than

3:03

highlights from the top division anywhere outside

3:05

of Japan, so this is also

3:07

me pleading to anyone associated with the

3:09

Sumo world more closely To make

3:11

it easier for me to actually pay

3:13

to watch the damn tournament instead

3:15

of having to deal with illegal streams,

3:18

I swear I would pay you if I

3:20

could, and maybe if none of us say

3:22

that, they'll actually take my damn money. Anyway.

3:25

The next couple of episodes are gonna

3:28

focus on some of the most

3:30

famous figures of modern Sumo on their

3:32

history and their legacies, and we're

3:34

gonna start with probably the single most

3:36

famous figure in post -war Sumo, maybe

3:38

ever. Like Alrikshi,

3:40

he's best known by his Shikona,

3:42

his ring name. That Shikona

3:45

has a family and personal name

3:47

to it, usually based on others from

3:49

that wrestler's lineage. In

3:51

his case, it's Taiho Kouki, though usually

3:53

wrestlers are just known by the

3:55

first name, by the family name, Taiho.

3:59

The future Taiho wouldn't get that name

4:01

until much later in his life, though

4:03

I am going to stick to my

4:05

usual practice, and just refer to

4:07

him by his most famous name going forward. But

4:10

right from the jump, Taiho had

4:12

a pretty fascinating life, and his name

4:14

is a big part of that,

4:16

because the name he was born with

4:19

was Ivan Borishko. Now,

4:21

those of you with a keenly honed

4:23

sense for these things will note that

4:25

that is not a traditional Japanese name,

4:27

but young Taiho was not a traditional

4:30

Japanese boy. His

4:32

mother, Naya Kio, was a Japanese

4:34

national. I never really found that much

4:36

information about her, but what matters

4:38

for us is that, early in her

4:40

life, she settled in what was

4:42

then called Karaftō Prefecture. I

4:45

imagine a few of you are running down

4:47

your mental maps of Japan right now being like,

4:49

wait, where the hell is that? I've never

4:51

heard of that prefecture. And the

4:53

reason you haven't is because it no

4:55

longer exists. Karaftō is the

4:58

Japanese name for Sakhalin Island,

5:00

that long, thin island north of

5:02

Hokkaido, was once Japanese territory. It

5:05

was actually first settled during the

5:08

Tokugawa years as a part of

5:10

the wide -ranging system of exploitation

5:12

of the indigenous Ainu population of

5:14

Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the nearby Karail

5:16

Islands. There was never a

5:18

big Japanese presence on Sakhalin during

5:21

this time, just a couple of

5:23

merchants and officials from the nearby

5:25

Matsumaya domain who were responsible for

5:27

managing Japanese trading interests in the

5:29

region. By

5:31

the start of the modern era, the

5:33

beginning of the Meiji period, the

5:35

new imperial government of Japan made the

5:37

decision to abandon its claim on

5:40

Sakhalin to another imperial power in the

5:42

region, Russia, in exchange

5:44

for Russia acknowledging Japan's control

5:46

over the Kurail Islands. But

5:49

in 1905, the Japanese would

5:51

come back. One of

5:53

the last campaigns of the

5:55

Russo -Japanese War of 1904 -1905 involved

5:57

Japanese troops landing in Sakhalin,

5:59

and when the Russians finally agreed

6:01

to peace in 1905, one

6:03

of the conditions they agreed to,

6:05

was ceding control of the

6:07

southern half of Sakhalin to the

6:09

Japanese. Southern

6:12

Sakhalin would remain under Japanese

6:14

control until 1945, first as a

6:16

colony and then eventually as

6:18

a full prefecture, with the

6:20

government promoting settlement of the island to

6:22

help exploit coal and oil deposits as

6:24

well as fish and timber. Naya

6:28

Keo was one such settler, working

6:30

as a dressmaker on the island for

6:32

its growing population, after moving to

6:34

Sakhalin from her family's home in

6:36

northern Hokkaido. Tyho's

6:39

father, on the other hand, took a

6:41

very different route to Sakhalin. His

6:43

name was Markian Baryshko, and

6:46

he was born in what was then the Russian

6:48

Empire, though not in Russia proper. He

6:50

was from Kharkov Oblast in what's now

6:52

the eastern part of Ukraine, born

6:54

sometime in either 1885 or 1888,

6:57

So far as I know, there are

6:59

no records from his hometown and

7:01

the Japanese records from the old colonial

7:03

government are not consistent regarding his

7:05

year of birth. What

7:07

we know for sure is that

7:09

Markian Baryshko was, like Nayakiyo, a

7:11

colonizer sent to the region by

7:13

his government. The Russian

7:15

government, hoping to solidify its claim on

7:17

its far eastern territories, encouraged

7:19

resettlement from the far more

7:22

populous European Russia into the

7:24

east. Sometimes, of

7:26

course, this was done as punishment for

7:28

the uppity, but so far as

7:30

we know, the Baryshko family

7:32

volunteered, and Markian resettled

7:34

with his parents in Northern

7:36

Sakhalin. Some of

7:38

the records I found, incidentally,

7:40

call his family Kossaks, a distinct

7:43

ethnic group that the Russians,

7:45

among others, gave some self

7:47

-governing rights to in exchange for

7:49

their military service as cavalry officers

7:51

because the Kossaks were traditionally nomads

7:53

and thus pretty good writers. Today,

7:57

the Cossacks, with their distinct

7:59

history and culture, are the

8:01

subject of much Ukrainian nationalist storytelling.

8:03

They're a big part of a

8:06

national narrative of modern Ukraine. If

8:09

you are not Ukrainian and you've

8:11

heard of them, I imagine it's

8:13

because, like me, you are Jewish,

8:15

because for Jews, the Cossacks are

8:17

often referred to like bogeymen. Cossack

8:19

communities were often involved in pogroms

8:21

against Jewish communities in Imperial Russia.

8:24

Growing up, I didn't even actually know what

8:26

a Cossack was other than scary and

8:28

bad, because I knew from the stories I

8:30

heard growing up that nothing good ever

8:32

happened when they showed up in the old

8:34

country. If they

8:36

were a Cossack family, that would

8:38

explain what the Barishkos were doing out

8:41

east, helping to garrison a vulnerable

8:43

area, and why Markian in particular was

8:45

not conscripted to fight in World

8:47

War I, since my understanding is that

8:49

Cossack rules around military service were

8:51

a bit different. But

8:53

again, they're not consistently called Cossacks in the

8:56

sources I've seen, so I'm not totally

8:58

sure what the deal is here. Anyway,

9:01

the Barishkos lived in northern Sakhalin, which

9:04

meant that Markian was not subject

9:06

to the Japanese invasion during 1905. They

9:08

never made it that far north. However,

9:11

just 12 years later, the

9:13

Baryskos would see their own government

9:15

implode in the Russian Revolution. Northern

9:19

Sakhalin was initially controlled during the

9:21

revolution by forces loyal to the

9:24

Whites, the pro -Zarist side of

9:26

the Civil War, and then

9:28

after 1920 by the Far

9:30

Eastern Republic, a sort of buffer

9:32

state set up to manage the region with

9:34

the tacit approval of the Soviet Union. But

9:37

in 1922 the Far Eastern

9:39

Republic, including Northern Sakhalin, would be

9:41

annexed by the Soviet Union,

9:43

and Markian Baryshko, who supported the

9:46

anti -Soviet side of the Civil

9:48

War, would flee to avoid being

9:50

killed by the new regime. Like

9:53

many other so -called white Russians,

9:55

in other words monarchist Russians, he

9:58

would flee to the territory

10:00

of neighboring power which was deeply

10:02

ideologically hostile to Russia's new

10:05

communist government, Japan. And

10:09

so that's how Markian Baryshko ended

10:11

up in what was then called

10:13

Shikuka County in the center of

10:15

Sakhalin just south of the Japanese

10:17

-Soviet border. It's now Poronesky district

10:19

in the Sakhalin Oblast. There

10:22

he met Naya Kio, his second

10:24

wife actually after having a daughter

10:26

with a Russian woman he'd previously

10:28

been married to. It's unclear what

10:30

happened either to the first wife

10:32

or the daughter, but by 1928,

10:34

Markian Baryshko and Naya Kio were

10:36

married. Marqueen

10:39

made a living as a shepherd

10:41

on Sakhalin while Nayakiyo continued to

10:43

make dresses, and on May 29th,

10:45

1940, they had a son, Ivan

10:48

Baryshko, the future Tyho. Now,

10:52

Tyho would not spend much of his

10:54

life on Sakhalin because, of course, Sakhalin

10:56

was not going to stay Japanese that

10:58

much longer. Over

11:00

the night of August 8th to

11:02

9th, 1945, the Soviet

11:04

Union which in the grand tapestry

11:06

of World War II politics actually previously

11:09

hadn't been at war with Japan,

11:11

since the Japanese had not followed the

11:13

Nazis in declaring war on the

11:15

Soviets, decided to take advantage

11:17

of Japan's bad situation. Turns

11:20

out that Joseph Stalin guy? Not

11:22

the most trustworthy. Who knew?

11:25

Anyway, in violation of an existing

11:27

non -aggression pact between the Union

11:29

of Soviet Socialist Republics and

11:31

the Japanese Empire, The Soviets,

11:33

with American encouragement, declared war

11:36

on Japan and immediately launched a

11:38

massive attack on Japanese positions

11:40

in Asia, which by this

11:42

point largely had been stripped of their defenses

11:44

in an effort to try and ward off

11:46

the advance of the United States towards Japan

11:48

from the south. And

11:50

starting on August 11th, elements of

11:52

the Soviet military, 100 ,000

11:54

soldiers and sailors, mostly battle -hardened

11:56

veterans of the Soviet 16th

11:58

Army, began to advance from northern

12:01

Sakhalin into the southern part

12:03

of the island. They

12:05

overran the whole island in the

12:07

course of about two weeks. Japanese

12:09

defenses in the entirety of northern

12:11

Japan consisted of about 19 ,000

12:14

soldiers and another 10 ,000 reservists, and

12:16

that was only on paper since

12:18

there weren't even enough weapons or

12:20

ammunition by this time to fully

12:22

equip more than 60 % of

12:24

that number. Given those

12:26

odds, the loss of Sakhalin was

12:28

pretty much in inevitability. Taiho

12:32

and his mother were able to flee

12:34

south to the port that was then called

12:36

Otomari, today it's Korsakov, on the southern

12:38

tip of the island, and from

12:40

there, load on to one of the evacuation

12:42

ships headed back to Japan proper, called

12:44

the Agasawara Maru. Now,

12:47

the Ogasawara Maru was scheduled to go

12:49

all the way to Otaru in the

12:51

southern third of Hokkaido, not that far

12:53

from the perfectural capital of Sapporo. But

12:56

Taiho's mother, Nyakio, was not feeling

12:58

very well. Apparently she had bad

13:00

sea sickness, and so the two

13:02

of them disembarked at Wakanae, the

13:05

first stop the Ogasawara Maru made

13:07

in northern Hokkaido, along with some

13:09

other passengers. That

13:11

turned out to be a stroke

13:13

of incredible fortune, because on the

13:15

way to Otaru, The Ogasawara Maru

13:17

would run into a Soviet submarine

13:20

which would mistake it for a

13:22

warship and sink a boat full

13:24

of civilians, one of three refugee

13:26

ships torpedoed by the Soviet Union

13:28

on August 22, 1945, killing

13:30

in total north of 1 ,500

13:32

civilians. It's

13:34

still not entirely clear which

13:36

Soviet vessels were responsible. The Soviet

13:38

government didn't even admit responsibility

13:41

for the sinking until after the

13:43

collapse of the Soviet Union, But

13:45

by August 22nd, all the other

13:48

Allied navies had received orders to stop

13:50

fighting because Japan had announced its

13:52

surrender. That Stalin guy?

13:54

Not a great guy. Again, who could have

13:56

seen it coming? Taihou

13:59

and his mother were able to dodge that

14:01

fate, but I imagine you're wondering, what about

14:03

his father? What about Marke and Baryshko? Baryshko

14:07

was not a Japanese national when

14:09

the war ended. It is, of course,

14:11

famously pretty challenging to get Japanese

14:13

citizenship if you are not ethnically Japanese.

14:17

Actually, from my understanding, he would have

14:19

been eligible. He was married to a

14:21

Japanese woman, which by the pre -1945

14:23

laws made him the legal head of

14:25

household for the family, and thus

14:27

should have opened a path to naturalization.

14:30

But for whatever reason, he didn't, and so he

14:32

had to stay behind. Neither

14:36

Tyho nor his mother Nyakiyo knew what

14:38

happened to him at that point, and so

14:40

I'm not gonna tell you either. But

14:42

given that he was a white

14:44

Russian who literally left the Soviet Union

14:46

out of opposition to communist rule, probably

14:49

nothing good. Now,

14:51

Tyho would have been five when he

14:53

was fleeing Sakhalin, and so remembered only flashes

14:55

of his life on the island as

14:58

a young boy. Most of his memories would

15:00

have been later, as the child of

15:02

a single mother, who had been, like so

15:04

many war refugees, uprooted,

15:06

and relocated. Specifically,

15:08

the family would end up at Teshkaga,

15:11

a small village on the eastern end

15:13

of Hokkaido, the poorest and least developed

15:15

region of the island. Taiho

15:18

would grow up at first the child

15:20

of a single parent, never easy of

15:22

course, and especially in a war -racked

15:24

impoverished nation. His mother

15:26

would eventually remarry to a teacher

15:28

by the name of Sumiyoshi, and so

15:30

the future Taiho did at one

15:32

point have his name legally changed to

15:34

Sumiyoshi, and it was around this

15:36

time he started using the first name

15:38

Koki, meaning something like

15:40

rejoicing in happiness, so

15:43

more aspirational than anything else.

15:47

Given his mother's new marriage, well,

15:49

teachers are not exactly known for

15:51

making bank, and in the immediate

15:53

post -war everyone was poor, especially low

15:55

-ranking civil servants, working for a

15:58

government that could barely keep the lights

16:00

on without American help, and especially one doing

16:02

so in the least developed part of

16:04

Japan. And

16:06

so even with two household

16:08

incomes, the family was still

16:10

very poor and Taiho moved around

16:12

a great deal as his new stepfather's

16:14

teaching posts were constantly being rotated. At

16:18

the age of 10, Taiho even

16:20

got a part -time job selling everyone's

16:22

favorite Japanese delicacy, natto, to help the

16:24

family make a little extra money. Unfortunately,

16:28

the marriage didn't work out long

16:30

term and shortly thereafter, Taiho's mother

16:32

divorced her second husband, and so

16:34

Taiho returned to using the name

16:36

Naya Koki, and the two of

16:38

them returned to having even less

16:40

money than before, Ikenyara living

16:42

on Naya Kyo's seamstress work

16:44

and Taiho's selling of natto. Given

16:48

their economic desperation, it only

16:50

makes sense that when in

16:52

1956 Taiho's big break came,

16:55

he was willing to take a chance. So,

16:58

let's talk about Sumo. Sumo

17:02

is of course Japan's oldest sporting traditions,

17:04

if not one of the oldest ones

17:06

in the world, and of course I've

17:08

already netted myself a million angry emails

17:10

just from phrasing it that way, because

17:12

from one perspective, Sumo is

17:15

not just a sporting tradition. The

17:18

practice has its origins in ancient

17:20

Japanese history and it has long

17:22

had religious connotations. Even today,

17:24

ceremonial wrestling is a part of

17:26

certain Shinto religious festivals, and of course

17:28

there are a lot of shrines

17:30

associated with Sumo, even in the modern

17:32

era. Of

17:35

course, Sumo also has a seedier side

17:37

to its history as it became a

17:39

hotbed of gambling and other vices, and

17:41

so at points in Japan's history,

17:43

the sport was either banned or heavily

17:46

restricted because of its involvement in

17:48

promoting vice. But

17:50

Sumo was just too popular to

17:52

do away with altogether, especially

17:54

among the increasingly powerful

17:56

Samurai class. Oda Nobunaga,

17:58

the great warlord and the first

18:00

of the unifiers of Japan in

18:03

the mid -1500s, was famously a Sumo

18:05

fanatic and sponsored several tournaments in

18:07

his home castle. During

18:10

the age of the Tokugawa

18:12

Dynasty of Shoguns, Sumo promoters finally

18:14

found a solution to the

18:16

sport's respectability problem. organizing

18:18

tournaments with the support of

18:20

religious institutions, Shinto shrines, and

18:23

Buddhist temples. The

18:25

tournaments would thus be beneficial to

18:27

those institutions, part of the money for

18:29

tickets would go to helping the

18:31

temples maintain themselves, and because

18:33

they were now, to an extent,

18:36

charitable and because religious institutions

18:38

enjoyed a lot of legal leeway

18:40

in the Tokugawa system, the

18:42

authorities were a lot more hands -off.

18:45

It was a win -win. for everyone involved.

18:49

This is also why Shinto today

18:51

retains a lot of religious aspects.

18:53

For example, the Gyoji, the referee, dresses

18:56

in an outfit more representative of

18:58

a shrine priest than a sporting official.

19:00

The Dole Hill, the earthen mound atop which

19:03

the wrestlers fight, has sacred objects buried

19:05

inside it and is covered by a roof

19:07

built in the style of a shrine. Until

19:10

1952, that roof was held in

19:12

place by massive wooden columns but to

19:14

give TV cameras and spectators a

19:16

better view, those were replaced with a

19:18

massive set of wires that hold

19:21

the roof in place. Wrestlers

19:23

in the top division even throw

19:25

salt to purify the ring before

19:27

bouts. Now

19:29

the current incarnation of Sumo

19:32

is actually relatively modern because during

19:34

the Tokugawa years, the sport

19:36

had no central governing body in

19:38

any meaningful sense of that

19:40

term. There were

19:42

instead several independent organizations

19:44

based primarily in Edo, what's

19:46

now Tokyo, as well

19:48

as Osaka, the various breakaways

19:50

and splinterings and reconnectings of which

19:53

are well beyond our scope

19:55

here. The upshot of all

19:57

of this is that it wasn't

19:59

until the 20th century, 1925, that

20:01

the current national organization which manages

20:03

the support, the Japan

20:05

Sumo Association, came together in

20:07

its current form out of the merger

20:09

of those existing organizations. Thus,

20:12

Sumo is in one sense one

20:14

of the most ancient organized sports in

20:16

the world, and in another sense

20:18

newer than Major League Baseball, the National

20:20

Hockey League, and the National Football

20:22

League. The

20:24

Japan Sumo Association is to

20:26

this day in charge of the

20:28

sport's major annual tournaments. Currently,

20:31

there are six a year,

20:33

but before 1958, the number of

20:35

tournaments would vary somewhere between

20:37

two and five. In

20:39

1956, there were

20:41

only four, which among other things

20:43

allowed for more of what is called

20:45

Junkyo, traveling sumo exhibitions

20:47

during the offseason, which don't count

20:49

for the official tournament records. These

20:53

are intended to give fans who live

20:55

far from the major venues in central Japan

20:57

a chance to see matches live and

20:59

to drum up interest in the sport in

21:01

general. The future

21:04

Taiho was at one such Junkyo

21:06

event which took place in Hokkaido

21:08

in 1956 in the small town

21:10

of Kuneppu along the remote eastern

21:12

coast of the island. The

21:14

event was hosted by one of the

21:16

major Heia, a term that literally just

21:19

means room but is often translated in

21:21

the Sumo context as stable. The

21:24

various Heia are in essence schools

21:26

of Sumo. Each one is a

21:28

collection of wrestlers that lives together,

21:30

trains together, and socializes together. They

21:33

operate under the authority of an

21:35

Oyakata in Elder, who is

21:37

a former wrestler themselves. Once

21:40

upon a time, an Elder needed

21:42

sponsorship from someone independently wealthy, say a

21:44

feudal lord back in the day,

21:46

or an independent businessman in the early

21:48

imperial period, to set up a

21:50

heia. Now, all of

21:52

the Elders are members of the

21:54

Japan Sumo Association, eligible for stock

21:56

in the Association that also gives

21:58

them a voice in its decisions. That

22:01

stock also gives you the right to

22:04

set up your own Heia, the eligibility

22:06

requirements are very complicated and usually involve

22:08

a combination of factors based on your

22:10

highest rank in the sport, more about

22:12

that in a second, and the longevity

22:14

of your career. Now

22:17

the specific stable the Heia that

22:19

was managing this tour in Hokkaido

22:22

was Nisho no Sekibae, and if

22:24

you follow Sumo at all, that

22:26

is a name you probably recognize.

22:30

So, All Sumo Heia

22:32

today belong to one of

22:34

five Ichimon, a term that is

22:36

usually translated as family or

22:38

clan. These are essentially

22:40

genealogies of Sumo tradition. If

22:43

one Heia, one stable, has enough

22:45

very talented wrestlers who rise high enough

22:47

they could start their own stables,

22:49

only one of them can take over

22:51

the leadership of the current Heia,

22:53

so the others will leave and found

22:55

their own, but remain connected as

22:57

part of the same Ichimon. Within

23:00

each Ichimon there is one stable

23:02

that lends its name to the overall

23:04

group owing to its specific history

23:06

and prestige. Those

23:09

five groups are

23:11

Dewa no Umi, Tokitsukaze,

23:13

Takasago, Isegahama, and

23:16

Nishinoseki. In

23:18

other words, the group of wrestlers Taiho

23:20

Saw on this tour would have

23:22

been from Nishinoseki -bea, one of the

23:24

most prestigious backgrounds you can have in

23:26

Sumo. They were

23:28

led by Saganohana Katsumi. Again, that's a

23:30

Shikona, a ring name, so when he

23:33

was an active wrestler, he would have

23:35

just been called Saganohana. Saganohana

23:38

was the Oyakata, the master of this

23:40

table, and an accomplished wrestler in his own

23:42

right. During his career from

23:44

1934 to 1952, he'd climbed the

23:46

ranks of the sport all the

23:48

way to the position of Olseki,

23:50

champion, the second highest position you

23:52

can attain. Saganohana

23:54

had been a great wrestler in his day,

23:56

which was why he was able to become an

23:59

Oyakata. His overall record

24:01

was 263 wins to 189

24:03

losses, mostly spanning the three

24:05

tournaments a year era of

24:07

Sumo. Unfortunately for him,

24:09

Saganohana also had a reputation for being

24:11

kind of a jerk and unpleasant

24:13

to work with. Not really a welcoming

24:15

man in general, but maybe that

24:17

didn't really matter. Because when Taiho

24:19

saw Sumo for the first time, he

24:22

was fascinated. And Saganohana,

24:24

in turn, apparently saw something

24:26

in this young kid, who was

24:28

more or less just old enough

24:30

at 16, to be in

24:32

the prime age to start training as

24:34

Erikshi, a Sumo wrestler. Nayakiyo

24:38

herself was also a bit unsure whether

24:40

or not this was the right fit for

24:42

her son. What apparently convinced

24:44

her was seeing Chankonabe, the stew Sumo

24:46

wrestlers eat, to provide them with

24:48

enough calories to gain the amounts of

24:50

weight they need to compete. And

24:52

coming from a poor background, I

24:54

can see how my son will definitely

24:56

not go hungry, could be a

24:59

compelling argument. And indeed, during

25:01

the early post -war era of deprivation,

25:03

many sumo stables had no problems at

25:05

all recruiting, because a solid meal and

25:07

a decent home was plenty a draw

25:09

on its own right. And

25:13

so Naya Kiyo agreed to send

25:15

her son off to the nation's

25:17

capital at Tokyo, where he would

25:19

join Nishonoseki -bea, Ezerikshi. one of

25:21

their wrestlers in training. To

25:24

do this, Taiho had to drop out of

25:26

high school, and as far as I know, he

25:28

never actually finished. That wasn't

25:30

uncommon for Rikishi to do at that

25:32

time. Sumo in terms of

25:34

the training demands is a professional

25:36

sport, and like most sports, if you

25:38

want to be seriously competitive, the

25:41

absolute latest you can start

25:43

seriously training full -time is your

25:45

mid -teenage years. These

25:47

days you see a lot more

25:49

kids coming out of high school

25:51

or even college programs and into

25:54

the big leagues But by Tyho's

25:56

day it was pretty much drop

25:58

out of high school and start

26:00

going full -time or you're gonna

26:02

bust So as a junior trainee

26:04

Tyho's lifestyle would have been grueling

26:06

life in a sumo heia is

26:08

hard for anyone doing it Trainies

26:10

are typically up at 5 a .m.

26:12

To start training that training involves

26:14

a combination of strength exercises naturally

26:17

as well as others to promote

26:19

flexibility, particularly in the hips. This

26:22

is very important because executing

26:24

some of the throws that high

26:26

level competition requires requires a

26:28

lot of flexibility. That's

26:30

also why if you've ever seen

26:32

Sumo's flexibility training, it looks brutal.

26:35

The most common version I've seen involves

26:37

sitting on the ground with your legs

26:39

spread apart as far as possible and

26:42

then leaning forward to stretch. If

26:44

you don't go down far enough, your

26:46

fellow trainees are told to push you deeper

26:48

into the stretch, even if it hurts. In

26:50

fact, especially if it hurts. The

26:54

other common type of training is

26:56

something called shiko, a type of

26:58

flexibility and strength exercise that's intended

27:00

to work the most important muscles

27:02

in sumo, your legs and core.

27:06

My deeply inexpert description of how

27:08

to do it, start with your

27:10

legs more than shoulder width apart, hands on your

27:12

knees, Raise one leg up as high as

27:14

it can go, and I mean as high as

27:16

you can get it. You will see Rikishi

27:18

who can get their foot well up above their

27:20

heads, so that it looks like their legs

27:22

are verging on making a straight line. Then

27:25

take that raised leg, stomp it

27:27

down, and do a squat, and

27:29

repeat with the other leg. Now

27:31

do that a few hundred times every single

27:34

day, and you'll be well on the

27:36

road to success in the ring. These

27:39

days you see more conventional

27:41

exercises like Shiko supplemented by modern

27:43

weight training, but that didn't

27:46

start until well after Taiho's day

27:48

with the 1980s career of

27:50

the great Chiyono Fuji, who,

27:52

clocking in at 260

27:54

pounds or just under 118

27:56

kilograms, was one of

27:58

the lightest sumo wrestlers ever to

28:00

reach the pinnacle of the sport, but

28:02

who supplemented his smaller body with

28:04

very aggressive weight training and one hell

28:06

of a muscular physique. But

28:09

in Tai Ho's day, that

28:11

sort of weight training just was not done. And

28:13

from my understanding, though I am not

28:15

an expert, sumo weight training today

28:18

can still vary a lot from heya

28:20

to heya, and is nowhere near as

28:22

advanced as what you see in, say,

28:24

American football, where a lot

28:26

more money has been poured into figuring

28:28

out how to strengthen up competitors as

28:30

effectively as possible. Beyond

28:33

these exercises, of course, you'd be

28:36

doing a lot of training bouts.

28:38

either full on matches or exercises

28:40

where you have to push a

28:42

resisting opponent backwards across the ring.

28:45

All told, a day's training is

28:47

exhausting and it is partially to

28:50

sustain that level of activity that

28:52

reeks she also intake an average

28:54

of 5000 to 7000 calories worth

28:56

of food every day. That

28:59

intake is of course also intended to

29:01

bulk them up, for much the same reason,

29:03

to return to the example of American

29:05

football, that you see offensive and

29:07

defensive linemen bulk up, with apologies to

29:09

the rest of the planet, American football

29:12

is probably the closest analog in terms

29:14

of training requirements to Sumo today, and

29:16

so I'll be referencing it on occasion.

29:19

Anyway, the reason all of this bulk

29:21

is necessary has to do with the

29:24

rules of the sport itself. If

29:26

you're not familiar, the basic premise

29:28

is straightforward. Wrestlers

29:30

meet on what is called a dohio,

29:32

the ring on which they wrestle, which

29:35

has a diameter of 4 .5 meters, about

29:37

15 feet. At the start

29:39

of the match, both wrestlers must have both

29:41

of their hands touching the clay of the

29:43

dohio and then they come at each other.

29:46

The first one to step out or be

29:48

forced out of the circumference of the dohio

29:50

or to touch the ground itself with anything

29:52

other than the bottom of their feet loses

29:54

the match. There are some

29:56

fouls, no close -handed hitting, no kicks

29:58

above the knee, no eye gouges, and

30:00

no pulling of the opposing wrestler's

30:03

topknot are the big ones, but other

30:05

than that, it's pretty no holds

30:07

barred in terms of what's allowed. The

30:10

most common way to get someone down

30:12

and out is either by pushing them out

30:14

of the ring or throwing them, and

30:16

of course the easiest way to resist that

30:18

is by having a lot of bulk

30:20

to absorb your opponent's momentum. By

30:23

the same token, since your own mass is

30:25

a factor in how hard you can push your

30:27

opponent back when you slam into them, having

30:29

some bulk on your end is

30:31

pretty handy. This is

30:33

why the average reach sheet today

30:35

is in the mid 300 pounds,

30:38

around 160 kilograms, in terms of

30:40

weight. Again, you

30:42

don't have to be that big to

30:44

win. Chiyono Fuji, who

30:46

really popularized weight training in Sumo,

30:48

was nowhere close. and during

30:50

the early part of Taiho's career

30:52

one of the Yokozuna, the

30:54

highest rank you can attain, was

30:56

only 110 kilograms or 243

30:58

pounds. That would be Tochi

31:00

no Umi, the 49th Yokozuna if you're

31:02

curious. Even today

31:04

there are top division wrestlers who are

31:06

on the smaller side who do pretty

31:09

well consistently. One of them,

31:11

Midori Fuji Kazunari, is in my

31:13

experience something of a fan favorite.

31:16

But generally speaking, the trend has been

31:18

for Rikishi to get bigger as time

31:20

has gone on. The extra advantages

31:22

of that weight are just too much to get

31:24

around. If you're wondering,

31:27

at his peak, Taiho

31:29

would average 153 kilograms, just

31:32

over 337 pounds, at

31:34

a height of 187 centimeters, just

31:37

barely under 6 foot 2 inches. Now,

31:41

as an initiate trainee, Taiho would

31:43

have had to endure all of this,

31:45

the training, the bulking, the lack

31:47

of sleep, the exhaustion, the injuries, and

31:49

more. And because Heia

31:51

also had a very strict hierarchy, the

31:54

lower ranking wrestlers, the new initiates,

31:56

are also assigned as attendants or

31:58

helpers to the higher ranking wrestlers

32:00

in their stables, based on everyone's

32:02

position in probably the most important

32:05

part of their Sumo career, the

32:07

Bansuke. Now,

32:10

at its core, the

32:12

Bonsuke is simply a ranking

32:14

system published in advance of every

32:16

Honbashō, the major official tournaments, which

32:19

grades wrestlers on a hierarchy. The

32:22

Bonsuke system has its origins back

32:24

in the Tokugawa years as do

32:26

the names of many of the

32:28

ranks, but the current system was

32:30

standardized by the Japan Summu Association,

32:32

which manages most of the ranking,

32:34

though not all of it. The

32:37

core concept is straightforward

32:39

enough. Your record after each

32:41

tournament determines how you do. More

32:43

wins than losses, which is called a

32:45

Kachkoshi, will lift you up the

32:48

ranks most of the time, though it can depend

32:50

on whether or not there are slots open

32:52

above you in the Bansuke ranks. More

32:54

losses than wins, called a Makekoshi,

32:56

will see you go down the ranks,

32:58

though how bad your record is

33:00

will determine how far you drop. Each

33:03

Honba show, or official tournament,

33:06

lasts 15 days, and

33:08

each day of the tournament runs from the

33:10

bottom of the Bonsuke to the top. In other

33:12

words, you start with the lowest ranking wrestlers

33:14

and then finish with the highest ranking ones. Again,

33:17

the ordering and the numbers of

33:20

the ranks has varied over time, but

33:22

the current version standardized by the

33:24

JSA, the Japan Sumo Association, was

33:26

also the one from Taihose Day, so that's what

33:28

we're going to worry about. At

33:31

the very bottom of the Bonsuke,

33:33

not even on the chart, is Mayazumo,

33:35

the pre -Sumo ranks. These

33:37

are amateurs looking for a spot

33:39

on the Bonsuke, looking to join

33:41

the official competition in Old Sumo

33:43

or Grand Sumo, the name used

33:45

to distinguish these tournaments, sponsored by

33:47

the Japan Sumo Association, from

33:50

say, amateur competition or college sports

33:52

or what have you. If

33:54

you do well in these unofficial

33:56

matches, you will get a spot

33:58

in the Jonokuchi division. the lowest

34:00

level rank there is on the

34:02

Bonsuke, which usually has between 40

34:04

and 90 wrestlers in it. Fight

34:07

long enough and hard enough and

34:09

you'll get bumped up to Joe Nidan,

34:11

the next division, which also has

34:13

no fixed size and usually includes hundreds

34:15

of wrestlers. Above that

34:17

is Sandanme, which used to

34:19

have 200 wrestlers, now it's

34:21

just 160, and then finally

34:24

is Makushita, below the curtain,

34:26

with 120. Wrestlers

34:28

in these four lowest divisions are

34:30

different from their counterparts in the top

34:32

divisions in a few ways. First,

34:35

they fight fewer matches in the

34:37

tournament. In Taiho's day it was

34:39

8 out of the 15 days, today it's

34:41

only 7 bouts instead of all 15, because

34:44

each day of the tournament is already like

34:46

8 hours long and those ranks take up

34:48

like 5 hours of that time. Second,

34:50

wrestlers in this division are forbidden from

34:53

wearing nicer clothing. Until you hit Makushita,

34:55

you're not even allowed to wear a

34:57

heavier Yukata or Overcoat to keep you

34:59

warm in the winter. Third,

35:01

you are not paid in these

35:04

divisions. You get room and board,

35:06

a place to live and food from your

35:08

Heia, sustained by the Heia's share of the

35:10

profit from the Japan Sumo Association, but

35:12

that's it. Fourth, you

35:15

are usually kept busy serving the higher

35:17

ranking wrestlers in your stable, since you

35:19

are also doing less matches. If

35:23

you make it to the top of

35:25

Makushita and keep winning, and that's hard to

35:27

do, a lot of people get stuck,

35:29

they cap out in the upper Makushita ranks,

35:32

you make it to Juryo, a

35:34

name that literally means Tenryo, Ryo

35:36

being the gold coins of the

35:38

Tokugawa years. As the

35:40

name implies, that's the first division where

35:42

you actually get paid a salary. It's

35:44

also the first one where you can

35:46

wear a Mawashi, the Sashes the wrestlers

35:48

wear, that's actually colored and you do

35:50

get to pick the color, not just

35:53

plain cotton, and where you

35:55

wrestle all 15 days of a tournament. There

35:57

are 28 ranks to climb within

36:00

Juryo, and by the way, rank in

36:02

Sumo is expressed as a combination

36:04

of East or West sides, plus

36:06

the division plus a number, with lower

36:08

numbers being more prestigious. East

36:11

usually comes first and has a

36:13

little more prestige attached to it,

36:15

so the best rank in Juryo

36:17

is Juryo 1 East, followed by

36:19

Juryo 1 West, followed by Juryo

36:21

2 East and so on, with

36:23

the lowest rank in Juryo being

36:25

Juryo 14 West, the 28th

36:27

spot in the whole division. Above

36:31

Juryo, you finally make it

36:33

to the top division, Makuuchi,

36:35

or you sometimes hear it called

36:37

Makunouchi. This is

36:39

the part of Sumo that gets the

36:41

most coverage, it's the only one that

36:43

so far as I know you can

36:45

legally watch in the United States via

36:47

NHK, and By the way, I get

36:50

that only sickos watch Makushita in below,

36:52

even though it is very fun sometimes,

36:54

but come on in HK, at least

36:56

let me legally watch Juryo too. There

36:59

are 17 makuuchi ranks, so 34

37:01

spots in total, though that can

37:03

flex sometimes. And

37:06

then above those are the big

37:08

boys, the so -called three -rolls

37:10

or Sanyaku, the championship ranks. Those

37:13

are Komusubi, the little knot, Sekiwake,

37:15

next to the side,

37:17

And finally, Ozeki Champion.

37:21

That's a lot of ranks to remember,

37:23

but the basic system is pretty straightforward.

37:25

You go up with more wins than

37:27

losses, you go down with more losses

37:29

than wins, and your rank, with one

37:32

exception, is never fixed. There

37:34

is of course one rank above them all,

37:36

with its own special rules, but we'll get

37:38

to that next week. For

37:41

now, I just want to finish this

37:43

week by starting Taiho's Sumo career. which

37:45

was very quick to get off the

37:47

ground. He joined

37:49

Nishinoseki -Bea in the summer of

37:51

1956. By the

37:53

September 1956 tournament, he

37:55

was taking part in Maisumo, the

37:57

pre -ranking competitions, and in

37:59

the Hatsubashi, the New Year's tournament

38:01

of January 1957. He

38:03

started his climb up the ranks

38:05

of the Bonsuke. How'd it

38:08

go? Well, we'll see

38:10

next week. That's all for this week.

38:12

Thank you very much for listening. This

38:14

show is a part of the Facing

38:16

Backward podcast network. You can find out

38:18

more about this show at our website

38:21

facingbackward.com and you can donate to support

38:23

the network on Patreon. Special

38:25

thanks to new patrons Amy and

38:27

Hachimitsu for donating to support the

38:29

show. Thank you for listening and

38:31

I'll see you next week for

38:33

part two. You

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