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During March of 2019, I watched the televised Sumo Tournament in Osaka, Japan, on TV Japan’s channel, exercised, and imagined the origin of this sport. The internet has information about the dates of historical matches, certain traditions, and famous champions. Here is a travel guide link with information about the sport and how to view it:
https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2080.html
Even though some of the factual information is available, I couldn’t help but imagine its reason for existence.
In my mind, I saw the beginning as an ancient village’s simple, peaceful way to select its leader. I imagined that the villagers were civilized well enough to wear kimono clothing made of sturdy fabric, which in those days, required much skill to make. One day at a social event, two prominent citizens were disputing, and one said, ‘Let’s draw a large ground circle and stand in it. We will wrestle without weapons. The one who remains in the circle wins. The first one out loses.’ Everyone wanted to be leaders, so the sumo tournament became a popular event. They originally wore their kimonos to the event which damaged the clothes. Everyone was dismayed because they all understood and respected the difficulty of creating fabric. The wives privately told their husbands that if they were going to wrestle, they should remove their clothing. The husbands understood the logic and shared the idea with other wrestlers. They all agreed to wear only their sash belts while wrestling, from that day on. The travel guide links above provide the actual names, locations, and dates of events.
My imagination provided me with a suitable answer as to the design of the sportswear for that sport. The next question was about the weight of the wrestlers. Perhaps they wanted to resemble a bear and be as fierce and strong both visually and physically as possible, to push their opponents out of the circle. The stance, squats, and ritual leg lifts show the strength and agility of the individual wrestlers. Now whether my guess is accurate about the origin or not, I could not be sure because I did not find the answer in my swift research. This musing alone made it much more interesting to watch. I know it was one of my grandmother’s favorite televised sports to watch along with baseball.