Amateur Sumo
アマチュア相撲The sporting form of sumo outside the Japanese professional circuit. It has weight classes, a women'"'"'s division and world championships since 1992.
Quick Facts
JapanCharacter & Origin
Training
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Amateur Sumo
Amateur sumo is the sporting form of sumo practised outside the Japanese professional circuit. The basic rule is the same — you lose by touching the ground with anything other than the soles of your feet or by leaving the ring — but the organisational frame is entirely different. Professional sumo is run by the Japan Sumo Association, is closed, lifelong and has no weight classes; amateur sumo is open, club-based and competed over an annual tournament calendar. The International Sumo Federation (IFS) was founded on 10 December 1992 by twenty-seven countries, and the first world championship was held the same year with 73 competitors from 25 nations. The federation today groups around ninety national associations in six continental federations and is the only sumo body recognised by the International Olympic Committee, recognition it obtained in 1998. Sumo has nevertheless never been on the Olympic programme. The main differences from the professional form are weight classes — lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight and open — and a full women's division, which professional sumo in Japan does not have at all. Bouts are fought in the mawashi on a dohyo 4.55 metres across and last from seconds to a few tens of seconds. Amateur sumo is also a route into a professional career: a number of wrestlers from European and Mongolian clubs have moved into Japanese stables.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.