What It's Like to be a Ring-side Shimpan

mikawa · July 31, 2022

The annual Tachikawa Citizens Sumo Tournament (立川市民相撲大会) was held today at Tachikawa Renseikan Sumo Dojo in Tokyo. There was both an individual competition (by year group) and a team competition (where the participants were divided into four teams).

This was the first time that I got to meet Wycliff Palu, the former Australian professional rugby player. His son Muti was a national semi-finalist last year, so it wasn't a surprise that Muti came through the tournament today undefeated. One of his opponents even tried a hassou-tobi (jumping upwards at the tachi-ai to avoid the charging opponent) but to no avail. Muti first got into sumo at a local tournament, and was invited by Renseikan's Coach Gohara to come and join the club. Since then, sumo has helped him build self-confidence, make new friends, and he really loves the sport now.

There was also a Nepalese kid at the tournament today (amateur sumo is also getting multinational these days). He started sumo about a year ago because he was too large to play soccer, and has also grown to really enjoy the sport.

What I didn't expect today was to be invited to act as a ring-side shimpan (east side) for part of the tournament, a completely new experience for me. As a shimpan, you have to concentrate very hard throughout each bout to check who wins and who loses (a lot of pressure there), and whenever a contentious decision arises and a mono-ii (shimpan discussion) occurs, you have to state your version of events and be sure about it.

In my first mono-ii, I said that ""one of the wrestlers accidentally stepped out first, probably (tabun)", and was told off for not fully committing to my judgement. I don't know whether or not it's the same in Ozumo, but today, whenever the shimpan couldn't agree on a single decision, that's when a torinaoshi (redo) was called.

Here are some photos from the event: