Heya (sumo)

[3] Closer to a medieval fraternity than a modern sports team, a stable is a group that lives, eats, trains, sleeps and socializes together, under the authority of one or more elders.

[b] These groupings of heya, each with their own history, traditionally serve to maintain the cohesion of stables linked by family ties, but also have a role to play in the struggle for influence within the Japan Sumo Association.

[11] Rōnin had no choice but to put their martial art skills to good use in street sumo tournaments, called tsuji-zumō (辻相撲, tsuji-sumo, lit.

[12] Similarly, a number of street entertainment wrestling groups formed and began touring, sometimes with the support of shrines that occasionally recruited them as part of religious festivities and to help priests raising money for the construction of buildings.

[15] These wrestlers, who continued to wrestle for their stable, were however considered "borrowed" from the lords rather than officially attached to their heya, thus giving the name kakae-rikishi (抱え力士, lit.

[30] Only wrestlers who have reached the ranks of san'yaku (meaning yokozuna, ōzeki or sekiwake and komusubi) and have held it for at least one tournament are directly entitled to apply to remain as an executive within the association.

[35] Since 1976, if a foreigner wishes to remain in the Sumo Association after his retirement to acquire an elder share and found a stable, he must give up his nationality and become a Japanese citizen.

[48] In this system, where the big stables receive large sums of money, the distribution of funds is designed as an incentive for elders to recruit and train winning wrestlers.

[47] Although the association gives money to the stables, they remain financially very complicated to maintain, with costs such as food purchases running into the thousands of US dollars per month.

[55] Since most young recruits become wrestlers after junior high school, the emotional and physical separation from their families can be very painful, and it's the okamisan's role to comfort and advise them.

In fact, even in the stable, a woman is not allowed to move around the training area, and must remain on the observation platform next to it to converse or watch the wrestlers.

[36][71][72] Paradoxically, all wrestlers involved in professional sumo are formally treated the same once they have joined the stables, and no distinction is clearly made as to any special treatment for foreigners.

[72] John Gunning also proposed another interpretation of the decision, claiming that this rule was not based on racist sentiment but to ensure that foreign rikishi assimilate into sumo culture.

[8] The current rule was introduced in particular because of the fear that wrestlers who share the same training, coaches, hobbies and meals would give in to the temptation of wanting to help a stablemate.

[99][103] This particularity is often a challenge for architects who work on the construction of stable buildings because this land is considered sacred ground and no one is supposed to walk or sleep above it.

[105] However, some stables choose to relocate, in particular under the impetus of districts wishing to revitalize their neighborhoods by setting up a sumo institution, which is usually a popular tourist spot.

[5] In the internal organization of the stables, the hierarchy often implies that successful wrestlers barely out of their twenties have authority over newly recruited teenagers, which regularly creates discipline problems.

[120] In most stables the cooking brigade is supervised by one of the oldest and most experienced of the low-ranking wrestler, the chanko-cho,[121] often affectionately referred to as ojii-chan (おじいちゃん, lit. 'grandpa').

[124] During the afternoon hours, the non-sekitori wrestlers often take on other tasks, such as cleaning the entire stable and the baths, emptying the garbage cans or doing the laundry and drying the used mawashi.

[123] Afternoon periods are generally devoted to relations with support organizations and fan clubs, hobbies, or taking care of a family, if a wrestler has obtained the right to marry.

[126] In the 1970s, the testosterone-rich environment of the stables created a number of problems, including frequent police interventions for public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, brawling and inappropriate behavior towards women.

[128][129] As early as the 1990s, stablemasters and okamisan also began to take part in housekeeping and cooking activities, whereas in previous decades these tasks had been assigned exclusively to low-ranking wrestlers.

[100] These new developments can sometimes be taken to extremes, as with Asahiyama stable, which, with a view to asserting itself as a community center, founded back-to-back an animal shelter and a bakery in 2021.

These partnerships often aim to cooperate further in a wide range of areas, including tourism, culture, sports, and educational promotion, and work closely to revitalize local communities.

[150] At the start of the Meiji era, professional sumo went through a period of disfavor and many stables continued to exist without having the means to invest in training grounds.

[148] Because of the traditional construction of professional sumo, the clan system was able to survive because the modern factions had been built on the basis of personal relationships between the masters and the students.

[158] In the immediate post-war period, his successor, the former sekiwake Tamanoumi Umekichi [ja], launched a policy of clan expansion by encouraging independence.

[9] After the initial post-war period, the clan continued to gain influence,[160] while being led by then-young figures like yokozuna Taihō, Tamanoumi, Wakanohana I, Wajima and Kotozakura I.

[149] Chiyonofuji himself, however, never rose to the rank of chairman of the Sumo Association despite his sporting achievements, one of the reasons given being his membership of a weak clan and a certain arrogance in his dealings with the other elders.

[178] After a wrestler is promoted to the rank of yokozuna, it is traditional for the ceremony to create his tsuna (sacred rope belt) to be organized by his stable and those of his ichimon.