Among the young sumo wrestlers lifting weights in the ring, 10-year-old Kyuta Kumagai stands out.
At 85kg, Kyuta is twice the size of the other children his age and is so dominant that he wrestles, and beats, boys five or six years older.
Last year, he was crowned the under-10 world champion, beating out competition from as far afield as the UK and Ukraine.
Photo: Reuters
His training regime, devised by his father Taisuke, is relentless.
He trains six days per week, either at his local sumo club or lifting weights. He also swims and runs sprints to build up the flexibility and explosive quickness needed for sumo wrestling.
Kyuta has been on the program since his father entered him in a tournament while still in kindergarten.
“I didn’t teach him anything. He could do various things naturally,” said Taisuke, a former amateur sumo. “There is a talent for sumo and he has that talent. He won the tournament. I thought he might have something special.”
A shy boy of few words, Kyuta’s motivations are simple: “It is fun to beat people older than me.”
When it became apparent that the boy had talent, Taisuke moved the family to the Fukugawa area of Tokyo, which is famous for producing sumo wrestlers.
It has an abundance of clubs and Nominosukune Shrine, where the god of sumo is said to reside, meaning that there is a lot of local support for the Kumagais.
Father and son use a local temple for intense one-on-one training. The sessions tend to finish with the pair wrestling up and down the carpet in front of the main shrine.
Taisuke pushes Kyuta so hard that the child is often left breathless and crying, but he believes that it is the only way to get the best out of his son.
“I think he is managing to make time for himself and I think he has time to play with his friends,” Taisuke said. “I don’t think it is too much pressure.”
The training is expensive and requires a huge commitment from the entire family, including his mother Makiko.
“I don’t do gambling [at a casino]. Instead, I’m betting everything on this,” Taisuke said.
Key to any sumo’s success is their diet and on an average day, Kyuta consumes 2,700 to 4,000 calories, including more than 1 liter of milk and copious amounts of protein — steak is his favorite.
Over a bowl of chanko nabe, a speciality sumo broth, Taisuke said that Kyuta needs to put on another 20kg by the time he enters middle school in two years.
If he does that, the hope is that he would be taken in by a high-profile sumo stable — Taisuke said that there has been interest.
His current coach, former professional wrestler Shinichi Taira, thinks that Kyuta has what it takes.
“At the moment, he has great talent,” Taira said.
Kyuta wants to reach the level of yokozuna — the highest ranking in the sport, but he said that the regime can be brutal.
“Sumo training is something you don’t describe with words like ‘enjoy,’” Kyuta said. “When it became tough … I have thought about [quitting] sometimes.”
For now though, the grind toward the top continues.
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