November 25, 2006

Sumo movies (Windows Media, though the older ones are in Real)

My favorites here have got to be the slow-motion replays, here and there, of close outcomes. One of you monkeys with video editing skillz (unlike myself) could probably come up with a pretty entertaining YouTube mashup using these little balletic snips. Will it start to catch on in the West? The crowds in Vegas last year seemed to be pretty well entertained, I think. This year's Kyushu Basho concludes tomorrow - hope that video from this will be posted soon. At the Grand Sumo Home Page you can watch tiny B&W Quicktime movies of historic matches.

posted by Vin Ethyl 18 years ago
  • Channel 4 in the UK showed Sumo for a while in the mid-1980s. I loved it - found all of the ritual and tradition and technique enthralling.
  • Brave people, those spectators at ringside.
  • Suna-kaburi The first six spectator rows around the dohyo. The name is derived from suna, or sand, and kaburi, to wear on one's head. A spectator sitting in the first few rows around the dohyo may be hit with flying sand from the bouts in the ring.
  • I often turn on the Sumo on telly. Only managed to actually go once - it was good fun. Those guys could stop trucks.