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My First National Sumo Tournament Experience
I went to California to "get the lay of the land" and, boy, did I. It was quite an eye opener. A humbling experience, but one I needed.
Here is how the the weekend went:
On Saturday we had the clinic with Akebono. At the end of the of the clinic there were practice bouts. I lost a few but I also won two or three. I thought I was doing ok. In hindsight, I suspect that most people I went up against were taking it easy and saving themselves for Sunday.
Then Sunday came around...
Here is a breakdown of who I fought:
For the Heavy Weight Competition -
Kelly Gneiting - Age 33, 6' 0" 420 lbs. 2001 US Open Silver, 2001 North America Silver
Mosi Humpfrey - Age 28, 6' 1" 2003 Tourney 1 Bronze 2003 Touney #2 Silver
Randi Stirm - Age 46 5'9 240 lbs. (Don't quote me on Randi's height and weight. I could be wrong) Randi has been doing sumo training in Japan for several years.
For the Open Weight Competition -
Kena Hefferman - 6' 0'' 250 lbs. North American Gold, Sumo - 8 years
Sadly, I did not win one of these matches. I have to acknowledge that Trent Sabo was there and giving me good advice. However, everytime I hit the dohyo, some how I didn't put that advice into action. After the match I was really troubled. I hadn't expected to win the Gold at my first national competition, but I thought that I might have at least won one or two bouts. Such was not to be. I had been training for months yet I found I was completely unprepared for the level of competition I faced on Sunday. I pondered the issue at length and came to the following conclusions:
1) Previous martial arts training got in the way -
Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, Judo and Aikido all have a common theme of waiting for the attack, observing that attack and THEN move to respond. Great for other martial arts. Bad for Sumo. You can't wait and see in Sumo, at least not initially. Everything happens so fast in the Tachiai (Initial Clash) that you really don't have time for observation. You have a small amount of time just before the tachiai to get a feel for your opponent but no time (or really the distance) to see you opponent in action.
2) Coming off the line too slow and too soft -
This could be an effect of the "wait and see" I was doing. Even so, in
retrospect I can see that I do need to train to come off the line faster and harder.
3) Not staying low enough -
This is something that was common to the other martial arts, especially Budo Taijutsu. There were a couple of time I let my center come up and was then easily pushed out.
4) Trying to step to the side instead of going straight in -
I suspect that if I had gone straight in instead of stepping to the side I would have fared better. In hindsight, side stepping, throwing and the like are much more advanced tehniques than I had realized.
5) Not enough "time in the saddle" -
In conversations with Bart Harris, he mentions that despite the number of techniques or throws you learn, you won't really be able to use them until you get comfortable. The only way to get comfortable is to just do a lot of Sumo. I can definitely see after this weekend where that would be true.
6) Training too "nice" and not training with people larger than myself -
Unfortunately for me, I am the biggest person in our little Sumo club here in Round Rock. In fact I outweigh everyone else by 100 lbs. Also, I have somewhat held back to give my training partners more training time in the ring. It may help them but it is not helping me.
Moving Forward
1) Work toward a more explosive and harder hitting tachiai.
2) Travel more and go up against with larger competitors
3) Redouble effors to get more (and especailly larger) people into our local Sumo club.
4) Work on getting lower
5) Stop training "nice"
The big conclusion I have come to is that we in Texas are about two to four years behind the competitors in California. Well, we have to start somewhere. This does not mean that we won't eventually catch up, but we will definitely have to work at it.
Take care,
John Hidalgo
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sounds like fun!
