<slims and slim-mores> Sumo is taking hold on the streets of ... Brazil
By Todd Benson The New York Times Friday, January 28, 2005
SÃO PAULO Like most Brazilians his age, Leonardo Soares dos Santos loves playing soccer with the kids from his neighborhood. But on Sundays, he prefers to hang out with what some of his friends disparagingly refer to as "a bunch of Japanese men wearing diapers."
.
In reality, Leonardo, who is just 13 but has the body of a burly 18-year-old, <<you ca imagine the size of the 12 year old girls training for volleyball in Curitiba!!>>is one of numerous Brazilians of all ages and ethnic backgrounds who religiously gather once a week in a vacant field house in an old industrial district of São Paulo to practice sumo wrestling.
.
"My friends always make fun of me," said Leonardo, who because of his dark complexion is affectionately known in the sumo world as Brigadeiro, which is the name of a popular dark chocolate here. "But they don't understand sumo at all. People think it's a violent sport, but it really isn't."
.
If this seems like an odd, possibly bizarre, setting for sumo, consider that Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan, with more than 1.5 million people of Japanese descent.
.
What's more, sumo has become so established here that the country is even exporting some of its most talented sumo wrestlers to Japan: in 1990, Luiz Go Ikemori became an instant celebrity back home when he won the Japanese National Collegiate Sumo Championship, the first Brazilian to do so.
.
Leonardo says he was first introduced to sumo wrestling just over three years ago, when an elderly Japanese man spotted him playing on the street and, impressed with his robust physique even at that tender age, asked him if he wanted to give it a try.
.
Like most Brazilians who are not of Japanese descent, he knew next to nothing about sumo then, let alone that it even existed in Brazil. So when he agreed to give it a shot, he was even more surprised to discover that he was not the only non-Japanese Brazilian who was learning the sport.
.
"I thought it was going to be just Japanese people," he recalled.
.
If he had taken up sumo wrestling five years sooner, it might have been.
.
Until the mid-1990s, sumo wrestling in Brazil was almost exclusively practiced by Japanese immigrants and their offspring.
.
Today, however, about 70 percent of all sumo aficionados in the country are Brazilians with no Japanese blood, in large part because of efforts by the local sumo association to popularize the sport among the public.
.
By holding sumo matches in city squares and other public arenas for everyone to see, "we managed to teach a lot of people to appreciate our sport," said Oscar Morio Tsuchiya, the vice president of the Brazilian Sumo Confederation.
.
The group has more than 2,000 members all over the country and organizes a national championship tournament for amateur wrestlers every year.
.
One of the oldest martial arts in Japan, sumo wrestling is believed to have emerged more than 1,500 years ago as a ceremony aimed at pleasing the gods of the Shinto religion.
.
Sumo was brought to Brazil almost a century ago by Japanese immigrants, who started flocking to the South American country in the early 1900s in search of work, initially on coffee plantations and eventually in agriculture in general.
.
Many of the immigrants ended up settling in all-Japanese colonies in the countryside, mostly in southern states like São Paulo and Paraná, where they thrived as farmers and set up schools to teach their traditions from back home.
.
Using coffee sacks as mawashis, the traditional loincloths worn by sumo wrestlers, the first sumo matches in Brazil were held on these colonies to honor the emperor of Japan every year on his birthday.
.
And in 1914, the first official Brazilian sumo championship was celebrated in Guatapará, in the interior of the state of São Paulo.
.
"They did everything they could to cultivate Japanese culture because they intended to return to Japan someday, and practicing sumo was a big part of that, but very few ended up going back," said Célia Oi, the executive director of the Museum of the History of Japanese Immigration to Brazil in São Paulo.
.
Today, sumo is a way for older Japanese-Brazilians to teach the younger generations about their cultural heritage. At the weekly matches here on Sundays, for instance, the sport is practiced in its purest form.
.
Decked out in nothing more than loincloths, wrestlers of all shapes and sizes recite traditional sumo chants in Japanese, going through all of the prefight rituals that have been associated with the sport for centuries.
.
Despite the intensity, sumo is still just a hobby for most. But for a select few, it can also be a ticket to a high-paying professional career in Japan.
.
"Ever since I was a little kid, sumo has been a huge part of my life, but if you want to do it professionally you have to go to Japan," said Fernando Yoshinobu Kuroda, a 28-year-old from São Paulo.
.
Kuroda recently returned to Brazil after a 12-year stint in Japan, where he reached Division 1 of the professional sumo league.
.
These days, Kuroda, who went by the battle name Waka-Azuma when he was a professional wrestler, spends most of his time tending to the Japanese restaurant he recently opened in the heart of São Paulo's Japantown.
.
But on Sundays, he makes sure to head down to the field house where the city's sumo enthusiasts meet to do his part to keep the tradition alive.
.
"For me, sumo is more than just a sport," he said.
.
"It's a way to preserve our culture. So I feel like I should be out here teaching the kids what I learned in Japan."
.
.
See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
.
< < Back to Start of Article SÃO PAULO Like most Brazilians his age, Leonardo Soares dos Santos loves playing soccer with the kids from his neighborhood. But on Sundays, he prefers to hang out with what some of his friends disparagingly refer to as "a bunch of Japanese men wearing diapers."
.
In reality, Leonardo, who is just 13 but has the body of a burly 18-year-old, is one of numerous Brazilians of all ages and ethnic backgrounds who religiously gather once a week in a vacant field house in an old industrial district of São Paulo to practice sumo wrestling.
.
"My friends always make fun of me," said Leonardo, who because of his dark complexion is affectionately known in the sumo world as Brigadeiro, which is the name of a popular dark chocolate here. "But they don't understand sumo at all. People think it's a violent sport, but it really isn't."
.
If this seems like an odd, possibly bizarre, setting for sumo, consider that Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan, with more than 1.5 million people of Japanese descent.
.
What's more, sumo has become so established here that the country is even exporting some of its most talented sumo wrestlers to Japan: in 1990, Luiz Go Ikemori became an instant celebrity back home when he won the Japanese National Collegiate Sumo Championship, the first Brazilian to do so.
.
Leonardo says he was first introduced to sumo wrestling just over three years ago, when an elderly Japanese man spotted him playing on the street and, impressed with his robust physique even at that tender age, asked him if he wanted to give it a try.
.
Like most Brazilians who are not of Japanese descent, he knew next to nothing about sumo then, let alone that it even existed in Brazil. So when he agreed to give it a shot, he was even more surprised to discover that he was not the only non-Japanese Brazilian who was learning the sport.
.
"I thought it was going to be just Japanese people," he recalled.
.
If he had taken up sumo wrestling five years sooner, it might have been.
.
Until the mid-1990s, sumo wrestling in Brazil was almost exclusively practiced by Japanese immigrants and their offspring.
.
Today, however, about 70 percent of all sumo aficionados in the country are Brazilians with no Japanese blood, in large part because of efforts by the local sumo association to popularize the sport among the public.
.
By holding sumo matches in city squares and other public arenas for everyone to see, "we managed to teach a lot of people to appreciate our sport," said Oscar Morio Tsuchiya, the vice president of the Brazilian Sumo Confederation.
.
The group has more than 2,000 members all over the country and organizes a national championship tournament for amateur wrestlers every year.
.
One of the oldest martial arts in Japan, sumo wrestling is believed to have emerged more than 1,500 years ago as a ceremony aimed at pleasing the gods of the Shinto religion.
.
Sumo was brought to Brazil almost a century ago by Japanese immigrants, who started flocking to the South American country in the early 1900s in search of work, initially on coffee plantations and eventually in agriculture in general.
.
Many of the immigrants ended up settling in all-Japanese colonies in the countryside, mostly in southern states like São Paulo and Paraná, where they thrived as farmers and set up schools to teach their traditions from back home.
.
Using coffee sacks as mawashis, the traditional loincloths worn by sumo wrestlers, the first sumo matches in Brazil were held on these colonies to honor the emperor of Japan every year on his birthday.
.
And in 1914, the first official Brazilian sumo championship was celebrated in Guatapará, in the interior of the state of São Paulo.
.
"They did everything they could to cultivate Japanese culture because they intended to return to Japan someday, and practicing sumo was a big part of that, but very few ended up going back," said Célia Oi, the executive director of the Museum of the History of Japanese Immigration to Brazil in São Paulo.
.
Today, sumo is a way for older Japanese-Brazilians to teach the younger generations about their cultural heritage. At the weekly matches here on Sundays, for instance, the sport is practiced in its purest form.
.
Decked out in nothing more than loincloths, wrestlers of all shapes and sizes recite traditional sumo chants in Japanese, going through all of the prefight rituals that have been associated with the sport for centuries.
.
Despite the intensity, sumo is still just a hobby for most. But for a select few, it can also be a ticket to a high-paying professional career in Japan.
.
"Ever since I was a little kid, sumo has been a huge part of my life, but if you want to do it professionally you have to go to Japan," said Fernando Yoshinobu Kuroda, a 28-year-old from São Paulo.
.
Kuroda recently returned to Brazil after a 12-year stint in Japan, where he reached Division 1 of the professional sumo league.
.
These days, Kuroda, who went by the battle name Waka-Azuma when he was a professional wrestler, spends most of his time tending to the Japanese restaurant he recently opened in the heart of São Paulo's Japantown.
.
But on Sundays, he makes sure to head down to the field house where the city's sumo enthusiasts meet to do his part to keep the tradition alive.
.
"For me, sumo is more than just a sport," he said.
.
"It's a way to preserve our culture. So I feel like I should be out here teaching the kids what I learned in Japan."
.
.
See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
.
< < Back to Start of Article SÃO PAULO Like most Brazilians his age, Leonardo Soares dos Santos loves playing soccer with the kids from his neighborhood. But on Sundays, he prefers to hang out with what some of his friends disparagingly refer to as "a bunch of Japanese men wearing diapers."
.
In reality, Leonardo, who is just 13 but has the body of a burly 18-year-old, is one of numerous Brazilians of all ages and ethnic backgrounds who religiously gather once a week in a vacant field house in an old industrial district of São Paulo to practice sumo wrestling.
.
"My friends always make fun of me," said Leonardo, who because of his dark complexion is affectionately known in the sumo world as Brigadeiro, which is the name of a popular dark chocolate here. "But they don't understand sumo at all. People think it's a violent sport, but it really isn't."
.
If this seems like an odd, possibly bizarre, setting for sumo, consider that Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan, with more than 1.5 million people of Japanese descent.
.
What's more, sumo has become so established here that the country is even exporting some of its most talented sumo wrestlers to Japan: in 1990, Luiz Go Ikemori became an instant celebrity back home when he won the Japanese National Collegiate Sumo Championship, the first Brazilian to do so.
.
Leonardo says he was first introduced to sumo wrestling just over three years ago, when an elderly Japanese man spotted him playing on the street and, impressed with his robust physique even at that tender age, asked him if he wanted to give it a try.
.
Like most Brazilians who are not of Japanese descent, he knew next to nothing about sumo then, let alone that it even existed in Brazil. So when he agreed to give it a shot, he was even more surprised to discover that he was not the only non-Japanese Brazilian who was learning the sport.
.
"I thought it was going to be just Japanese people," he recalled.
.
If he had taken up sumo wrestling five years sooner, it might have been.
.
Until the mid-1990s, sumo wrestling in Brazil was almost exclusively practiced by Japanese immigrants and their offspring.
.
Today, however, about 70 percent of all sumo aficionados in the country are Brazilians with no Japanese blood, in large part because of efforts by the local sumo association to popularize the sport among the public.
.
By holding sumo matches in city squares and other public arenas for everyone to see, "we managed to teach a lot of people to appreciate our sport," said Oscar Morio Tsuchiya, the vice president of the Brazilian Sumo Confederation.
.
The group has more than 2,000 members all over the country and organizes a national championship tournament for amateur wrestlers every year.
.
One of the oldest martial arts in Japan, sumo wrestling is believed to have emerged more than 1,500 years ago as a ceremony aimed at pleasing the gods of the Shinto religion.
.
Sumo was brought to Brazil almost a century ago by Japanese immigrants, who started flocking to the South American country in the early 1900s in search of work, initially on coffee plantations and eventually in agriculture in general.
.
Many of the immigrants ended up settling in all-Japanese colonies in the countryside, mostly in southern states like São Paulo and Paraná, where they thrived as farmers and set up schools to teach their traditions from back home.
.
Using coffee sacks as mawashis, the traditional loincloths worn by sumo wrestlers, the first sumo matches in Brazil were held on these colonies to honor the emperor of Japan every year on his birthday.
.
And in 1914, the first official Brazilian sumo championship was celebrated in Guatapará, in the interior of the state of São Paulo.
.
"They did everything they could to cultivate Japanese culture because they intended to return to Japan someday, and practicing sumo was a big part of that, but very few ended up going back," said Célia Oi, the executive director of the Museum of the History of Japanese Immigration to Brazil in São Paulo.
.
Today, sumo is a way for older Japanese-Brazilians to teach the younger generations about their cultural heritage. At the weekly matches here on Sundays, for instance, the sport is practiced in its purest form.
.
Decked out in nothing more than loincloths, wrestlers of all shapes and sizes recite traditional sumo chants in Japanese, going through all of the prefight rituals that have been associated with the sport for centuries.
.
Despite the intensity, sumo is still just a hobby for most. But for a select few, it can also be a ticket to a high-paying professional career in Japan.
.
"Ever since I was a little kid, sumo has been a huge part of my life, but if you want to do it professionally you have to go to Japan," said Fernando Yoshinobu Kuroda, a 28-year-old from São Paulo.
.
Kuroda recently returned to Brazil after a 12-year stint in Japan, where he reached Division 1 of the professional sumo league.
.
These days, Kuroda, who went by the battle name Waka-Azuma when he was a professional wrestler, spends most of his time tending to the Japanese restaurant he recently opened in the heart of São Paulo's Japantown.
.
But on Sundays, he makes sure to head down to the field house where the city's sumo enthusiasts meet to do his part to keep the tradition alive.
.
"For me, sumo is more than just a sport," he said.
.
"It's a way to preserve our culture. So I feel like I should be out here teaching the kids what I learned in Japan."
.
.
See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
.
< < Back to Start of Article SÃO PAULO Like most Brazilians his age, Leonardo Soares dos Santos loves playing soccer with the kids from his neighborhood. But on Sundays, he prefers to hang out with what some of his friends disparagingly refer to as "a bunch of Japanese men wearing diapers."
.
In reality, Leonardo, who is just 13 but has the body of a burly 18-year-old, is one of numerous Brazilians of all ages and ethnic backgrounds who religiously gather once a week in a vacant field house in an old industrial district of São Paulo to practice sumo wrestling.
.
"My friends always make fun of me," said Leonardo, who because of his dark complexion is affectionately known in the sumo world as Brigadeiro, which is the name of a popular dark chocolate here. "But they don't understand sumo at all. People think it's a violent sport, but it really isn't."
.
If this seems like an odd, possibly bizarre, setting for sumo, consider that Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan, with more than 1.5 million people of Japanese descent.
.
What's more, sumo has become so established here that the country is even exporting some of its most talented sumo wrestlers to Japan: in 1990, Luiz Go Ikemori became an instant celebrity back home when he won the Japanese National Collegiate Sumo Championship, the first Brazilian to do so.
.
Leonardo says he was first introduced to sumo wrestling just over three years ago, when an elderly Japanese man spotted him playing on the street and, impressed with his robust physique even at that tender age, asked him if he wanted to give it a try.
.
Like most Brazilians who are not of Japanese descent, he knew next to nothing about sumo then, let alone that it even existed in Brazil. So when he agreed to give it a shot, he was even more surprised to discover that he was not the only non-Japanese Brazilian who was learning the sport.
.
"I thought it was going to be just Japanese people," he recalled.
.
If he had taken up sumo wrestling five years sooner, it might have been.
.
Until the mid-1990s, sumo wrestling in Brazil was almost exclusively practiced by Japanese immigrants and their offspring.
.
Today, however, about 70 percent of all sumo aficionados in the country are Brazilians with no Japanese blood, in large part because of efforts by the local sumo association to popularize the sport among the public.
.
By holding sumo matches in city squares and other public arenas for everyone to see, "we managed to teach a lot of people to appreciate our sport," said Oscar Morio Tsuchiya, the vice president of the Brazilian Sumo Confederation.
.
The group has more than 2,000 members all over the country and organizes a national championship tournament for amateur wrestlers every year.
.
One of the oldest martial arts in Japan, sumo wrestling is believed to have emerged more than 1,500 years ago as a ceremony aimed at pleasing the gods of the Shinto religion.
.
Sumo was brought to Brazil almost a century ago by Japanese immigrants, who started flocking to the South American country in the early 1900s in search of work, initially on coffee plantations and eventually in agriculture in general.
.
Many of the immigrants ended up settling in all-Japanese colonies in the countryside, mostly in southern states like São Paulo and Paraná, where they thrived as farmers and set up schools to teach their traditions from back home.
.
Using coffee sacks as mawashis, the traditional loincloths worn by sumo wrestlers, the first sumo matches in Brazil were held on these colonies to honor the emperor of Japan every year on his birthday.
.
And in 1914, the first official Brazilian sumo championship was celebrated in Guatapará, in the interior of the state of São Paulo.
.
"They did everything they could to cultivate Japanese culture because they intended to return to Japan someday, and practicing sumo was a big part of that, but very few ended up going back," said Célia Oi, the executive director of the Museum of the History of Japanese Immigration to Brazil in São Paulo.
.
Today, sumo is a way for older Japanese-Brazilians to teach the younger generations about their cultural heritage. At the weekly matches here on Sundays, for instance, the sport is practiced in its purest form.
.
Decked out in nothing more than loincloths, wrestlers of all shapes and sizes recite traditional sumo chants in Japanese, going through all of the prefight rituals that have been associated with the sport for centuries.
.
Despite the intensity, sumo is still just a hobby for most. But for a select few, it can also be a ticket to a high-paying professional career in Japan.
.
"Ever since I was a little kid, sumo has been a huge part of my life, but if you want to do it professionally you have to go to Japan," said Fernando Yoshinobu Kuroda, a 28-year-old from São Paulo.
.
Kuroda recently returned to Brazil after a 12-year stint in Japan, where he reached Division 1 of the professional sumo league.
.
These days, Kuroda, who went by the battle name Waka-Azuma when he was a professional wrestler, spends most of his time tending to the Japanese restaurant he recently opened in the heart of São Paulo's Japantown.
.
But on Sundays, he makes sure to head down to the field house where the city's sumo enthusiasts meet to do his part to keep the tradition alive.
.
"For me, sumo is more than just a sport," he said.
.
"It's a way to preserve our culture. So I feel like I should be out here teaching the kids what I learned in Japan."
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