Sports
Sports in Japan are a national obsession enjoyed by men and women, adults and children alike. From the time-honored tradition of sumo to the newer sensation of baseball, there's something for every taste - and every time. Indeed, Japan is a rich country for the athletic connoisseur, providing enough home-grown competition and international clout to satisfy even the most die-hard fans.
The most common sports in Japan include soccer and other ball sports. Martial arts - such as Karate, Aikido, and Judo - are also practiced by many people. There is no legally official sport of Japan, but the Japan Sumo Association describes sumo as the national sport of Japan[1]. Of course, baseball is the most popular spectator sport of the country, followed by soccer.
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Baseball
The sport of baseball was introduced to Japan in 1872 by Horace Wilson, and the first formal team was established in 1878. It has been a popular sport ever since. It is called 野球 (やきゅう; yakyū) in Japanese, combining the characters for field and ball. For almost 30 years, until 1906, a game could be viewed free of charge, as it was considered shameful to take money for doing something the players liked.
Organization
Japan's professional baseball association is called Nippon Professional Baseball. There are two leagues, as in the United States. The Central and Pacific Leagues both consist of six teams each. The Pacific League uses the designated hitter style of play. The pro baseball season is eight months long. Games begin in April, with a championship held in October. Teams play 144 games, considerably fewer than the 162 games of the American major league teams.
Corporations own all the teams in Japan. Team names come from the owners, not where the team is based (with the exception of the Yokohama BayStars). Nippon Professional Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in Japan.
Rules
The rules are essentially those of Major League Baseball. In the Nippon league, however, tie games are allowed, and technical elements are slightly different: a smaller baseball, strike zone, and playing field are used. The Japanese baseball is wound more tightly and is harder than an American baseball. The strike zone is narrower "inside" than away from the batter. Also, five Nippon league teams have undersized home fields. A controversial rule also allows a team to have no more than four foreign players, limiting the cost and competition for expensive players from other countries.
Watching
Although attending a Japanese baseball game is very similar to attending one in America, there are some critical differences. Cheering takes on a whole different attitude at a Japanese game, and the fans are famous for being especially organized and synchronized in their cheering. There are designated "cheerleaders" (ōendan - 応援団) who lead crowd sections, making a lot of noise with taiko drums, blowing horns and other noisemakers, waving flags and banners, and yelling through plastic megaphones. In addition to cheering for their own teams, ōendan have been known to lead fans in cheers which tease and taunt the other team and its fans.
Soccer
Soccer in Japan has become one of the most popular sports in the country. Its national organization, the Japan Football Association administers the professional football league, J. League which is the most successful football league in Asia.
Name
Although the official English name of the Japan Football Association uses the term "football," the term sakkā (サッカー), derived from "soccer," is much more commonly used than futtobōru (フットボール). The JFA's Japanese name is Nippon Sakkā Kyōkai.
History
Soccer was introduced in the Meiji period by O-yatoi gaikokujin, foreign advisers hired by the Japanese government, along with many other Western sports. The first Japanese football club is considered to be Tokyo Shukyu-dan, founded in 1917, which is now competing in the Tokyo Prefectural amateur league.
Sumo
Sumo (相撲, sumō) is a competitive contact sport where a wrestler (rikishi) attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring (dohyo) or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, and it is the only country where it is practiced professionally.
The Japanese consider sumo a gendai budō (a modern Japanese martial art), though the sport has a history spanning many centuries. The sumo tradition is very ancient, and even today the sport includes many ritual elements, such as the use of salt for purification, from the days sumo was used in the Shinto religion. Life as a rikishi is highly regimented, with rules laid down by the Sumo Association. Professional sumo wrestlers are required to live in communal "sumo training stables" known in Japanese as "heya" where all aspects of their daily lives — from meals to their manner of dress — are dictated by strict tradition.
Rules
The winner of a sumo bout is either:
- The first wrestler to force his opponent to step out of the ring.
- The first wrestler to force his opponent to touch the ground with any part of his body other than the bottom of his feet.
On rare occasions the referee or judges may award the win to the wrestler who touched the ground first; this happens if both wrestlers touch the ground at nearly the same time and it is decided that the wrestler who touched the ground second had no chance of winning as, due to the superior sumo of his opponent, he was already in an irrecoverable position. The losing wrestler is referred to as being "shini-tai" ("dead body") in this case.
There are also a number of other rarely used rules that can be used to determine the winner. For example a wrestler using an illegal technique (or kinjite) automatically loses, as does one whose mawashi (or belt) becomes completely undone. A wrestler failing to turn up for his bout (including through a prior injury) also automatically loses (fusenpai). After the winner is declared, an off-stage gyoji (or referee) determines the kimarite (or winning technique) used in the bout, which is then announced to the audience.
Matches often last only a few seconds, as usually one wrestler is quickly ousted from the circle or thrown to the ground. However, they can occasionally last for several minutes. Each match is preceded by an elaborate ceremonial ritual. The wrestlers themselves are renowned for their great girth, as body mass is often a winning factor in sumo, though with skill, smaller wrestlers can topple far larger opponents.
Organization
Professional sumo is organized by the Japan Sumo Association. The members of the association, called oyakata, are all former wrestlers, and are the only people entitled to train new wrestlers. All practising wrestlers are members of a training stable (heya) run by one of the oyakata, who is the stablemaster for the wrestlers under him. Currently there are 54 training stables for about 700 wrestlers.[5]
Sumo wrestling has a strict hierarchy based on sporting merit. The wrestlers are ranked according to a system that dates back hundreds of years, to the Edo period. Wrestlers are promoted or demoted according to their previous performance, and a carefully prepared banzuke listing the full hierarchy is published two weeks prior to each sumo tournament.
Karate
Karate (空手) literally means "empty hand," and it originated on the island of Okinawa. It is a fusion of pre-existing Okinawan martial arts, called "te", and Chinese martial arts, so is strictly speaking not a Japanese martial art, but rather it is an art that has been adopted and developed by the Japanese. Indeed, the word "karate" was originally a generic term for Chinese martial arts, and written with homophonic ideograms meaning "China hand", rather than "empty hand". It is also sometimes called "the way of the empty hand" (空手道, karatedō).
History
Karate's route to Japan began with Gichin Funakoshi (船越 義珍 Funakoshi Gichin, 1868–1957), who is called the father of modern karate, and is the founder of Shotokan karate. Although some Okinawan karate practitioners were already living and teaching in Japan, Funakoshi gave public demonstrations of karate in Japan at a physical education exhibition sponsored by the ministry of education 1917, and again in 1922. As a result, Karate training was subsequently incorporated into Japan's public school system. It was also at this time that the white uniforms and the kyū/dan ranking system (both originally implemented by judo's founder, Kano Jigoro) were adopted.
Characteristics
Karate practice is primarily characterized by linear punching and kicking techniques executed from a stable, fixed stance. Many styles of karate practiced today incorporate the forms (kata) originally developed by Funakoshi and his teachers, and many different weapons originally used as farm implements by the peasants of Okinawa, such as the sai, sickle (kama), and quarterstaff (bō). Many modern karate practitioners also participate in full, light, and no-contact competitions.
Aikido
Aikido (合気道, aikidō) is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as "the Way of unifying (with) life energy" or as "the Way of harmonious spirit." Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury.
History
Aikido derives mainly from the martial art of Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu, but began to diverge from it in the late 1920s, partly due to Ueshiba's involvement with the Ōmoto-kyō religion. Ueshiba's early students' documents bear the term aiki-jūjutsu. Many of Ueshiba's senior students have different approaches to aikido, depending on when they studied with him. Today aikido is found all over the world in a number of styles, with broad ranges of interpretation and emphasis. However, they all share techniques learned from Ueshiba and most have concern for the well-being of the attacker. This attitude has been at the core of criticisms of aikido and related arts.
Characteristics
Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. This requires very little physical energy, as the aikidōka (aikido practitioner) "leads" the attacker's momentum using entering and turning movements. The techniques are completed with various throws or joint locks. Aikido can be categorized under the general umbrella of grappling arts.
Judo
Judo (柔道, jūdō), meaning "gentle way," is a modern Japanese martial art (gendai budō) and combat sport, that originated in Japan in the late nineteenth century. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an opponent to submit by joint locking the elbow or by executing a choke. Strikes and thrusts (by hands and feet) — as well as weapons defenses — are a part of judo, but only in pre-arranged forms (kata) and are not allowed in judo competition or free practice (randori).
Ultimately, the philosophy and subsequent pedagogy developed for judo became the model for almost all modern Japanese martial arts that developed from "traditional" schools (koryū). Practitioners of judo are called jūdōka.
History
Although a fully featured martial art, judo has also developed as a sport.
The first time judo was seen in the Olympics was at the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, where about 200 judo students gave a demonstration. Judo became an Olympic sport for men in the 1964 Games in Tokyo. With the persistence of Rusty Kanokogi, an American, and many others, judo became an Olympic sport for women as well in 1988. It is often stated that the men's judo event in 1964 was a demonstration event, but according to the International Judo Federation (IJF) and International Olympic Committee, Judo was in fact an official sport in the 1964 games. Dutchman Anton Geesink won the first Olympic gold medal in the open division of Judo by defeating Akio Kaminaga of Japan. Judo then lost the image of being "Japanese only" and went on to become one of the most widely practiced sports in the world. The women's event was a demonstration event in 1988, and became an official medal event 4 years later. Men and women compete separately, although they often train together. Judo has been a Paralympic sport (for the visually impaired) since 1988. Judo is also one of the sports at the Special Olympics.
Characteristics
While judo includes a variety of rolls, falls, throws, hold downs, chokes, joint-locks, and strikes, the primary focus is on throwing (投げ技, nage-waza), and groundwork (ne-waza). Throws are divided in two groups of techniques: standing techniques (tachi-waza), and sacrifice techniques (捨身技, sutemi-waza). Standing techniques are further divided into hand techniques (手技, te-waza), hip techniques (腰技, koshi-waza), and foot and leg techniques (足技, ashi-waza). Sacrifice techniques are divided into those in which the thrower falls directly backwards (真捨身技, ma-sutemi-waza), and those in which he falls onto his side (橫捨身技, yoko-sutemi-waza).
The ground fighting techniques are divided into attacks against the joints or joint locks (関節技, kansetsu-waza), strangleholds or choke holds (絞技, shime-waza), and holding or pinning techniques (押込技, osaekomi-waza).
Golf
The sport of golf was introduced to Japan around the beginning of the 20th century and the first golf course, The Kobe Golf Club, was was built on Mount Rokko in 1903 by the Englishman Arthur Hasketh Groom. Golf experienced a boom in popularity after Japan defeated the US in the 1957 World Cup and has been a very popular sport since then.
Traditionally, golf was seen as largely the domain of the rich and privileged and during the height of the bubble economy, golf memberships and playing fees were extremely expensive. However, over the last 10 years, there has been an upheaval in the industry with a number of courses being bought over by foreign companies and the sport is now much more affordable and open than it used to be.
Japan Golf Tour
The Japan Golf Tour is a prominent golf tour. It was founded in 1973 and as of 2006 it offers the third highest annual prize fund out of the regular (that is not for seniors) men's professional tours after the PGA Tour and the European Tour. However since the early 1990s, the growth in prize money has not kept pace with that on the two larger tours. Official events on the Japan Golf Tour count for World Golf Ranking points, and success on the tour can also qualify members to play in the majors.
Most of the leading players on the tour are Japanese, but players from many other countries also participate. The tour is currently run by the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO), which was established in 1999. The JGTO also organises a developmental tour called the Japan Challenge Tour.
The Japan Open Golf Championship (日本オープンゴルフ選手権競技, Nihon ōpun gorufu senshu kenkyōgi) is Japan's national open golf championship. As of 2008, it is one of the five richest tournaments on the Japan Golf Tour, with a prize fund of ¥200 million. It is also the tour's designated "Premier event" for the purposes of the Official World Golf Rankings, with a minimum winner's points allocation of 32 points.
Playing/Watching Sports
Baseball
There are plenty of amateur leagues and pick-up games to get involved in, wherever you may be in Japan. National games are broadcast on TV, and you can also head to your local stadium to catch a glimpse of the real action. Along with the national teams, there are also a large number of high school and college teams that generate their own brand of fandom. The high school baseball finals are particularly popular, and are broadcast nationwide.
Soccer
Once again, you can find plenty of amateur leagues and pick-up games to get involved in, wherever you may be in Japan. Watch one of the many televised games or go to your local stadium.
Sumo
Tokyo is definitely the place to be for the most sumo exposure. There are six Grand Sumo tournaments (or honbasho) each year: three at the Sumo Hall (or Ryōgoku Kokugikan) in Ryōgoku, Tokyo (January, May, and September), and one each in Osaka (March), Nagoya (July) and Fukuoka (November). Each tournament begins on a Sunday and runs for 15 days, ending also on a Sunday. Each wrestler in the top two divisions (sekitori) has one match per day, while the lower ranked rikishi compete in seven bouts, approximately one every two days.
Karate
Aikido
Judo
Golf
There are over 2,600 golf courses in Japan and even more driving ranges where people can practice. Green fees range from anything between ¥4,000 and ¥40,000 and and an hours practice at a driving range costs about ¥2,000 on average.
- Golf courses of Japan (Directory) | http://www.golf-in-japan.com/courseguide.php
See also
Some content adapted from Wikipedia.org.
