By Penelope Morris

During a recent lesson, the Japanese Plus class learned about sumo, a Japanese wrestling sport in which competitors try to force their opponent out of a ring, or into touching the ground with any part of their body other than the soles of their feet. Takahashi-sensei brought up sumo in the context of the week’s grammar lesson – describing the time and location of an event. So not only did we get to learn about the sport itself, we got to learn a bit about the culture surrounding it and how Japanese people interact with it.

Takahashi-sensei explained that many sumo tournaments occur throughout the year in Japan, usually at large halls where substantial crowds can gather, and she showed us a brief video of a sumo match. I was surprised by how quickly the match was over, and especially by how different it was from other martial arts with which I’m personally more familiar. I’m used to seeing lots of kicks, punches, and other more aggressive attacks in combat sports, but the sumo wrestlers had a very different fighting style that involved much more grappling and close contact. Overall, the lesson on sumo was very interesting and I enjoyed getting this insight into a part of Japanese culture about which I didn’t know a lot before.