Australian girl gets sumo training in Japan
A news video about Samantha-Jane Stacey, a teenager from Australia who is receiving sumo training at a high school in Tottori Prefecture:
Since arriving in Tottori, the bubbly teenager has battled the language barrier, a tough new training regime and a quest to find Australian-esque cooked chicken sushi.
Now able to communicate in basic Japanese, Stacey is a hit with her peers, who are helping her learn the language by explaining in English but insisting she respond in Japanese.
Being Australian, Stacey struggled at first with the concept of not being able to talk freely with her seniors at the school’s sumo club, given the fact that where Stacey comes from you can talk to anyone.
The teenager has learned to reign in her Australian tendencies and adopt a Japanese sense of respect toward those older than her, including her training partner, 17-year-old Yuka Ueda.
Back on the Gold Coast where Stacey grew up, she trained for five to six days a week for 2-3 hours a day.
Now she completes a grueling seven-day-a-week training regime which sees her doing 4 to 5 hours a day after school.
“It’s just a different behavior, it’s very strict, a lot more disciplined,” Stacey told Kyodo News during her recent trip to Australia.
Three coaches train the group of two girls and 20-25 boys, however, the girls are not allowed to wrestle the boys.
Stacey said the ramped up training has left her feeling much fitter.
“In Australia we’d do 30-50 shiko during a training session and now I’m doing 500-600 during a training session,” she said.
The shiko exercise sees a sumo crouch, raise a leg and stamp it down and is thought to pacify evil spirits and cleanse the ground.
Stacey said she is enjoying living in a country so starkly different to the laid-back Aussie culture, adding that she does not miss the closed-minded intolerance of some Australians.
According to Gold Coast, Samatha-Jane dreams of the day when sumo wrestling becomes an Olympic sport and she can compete on behalf of her country. Past attempts to obtain Olympic status have not achieved much because professional sumo does not allow female wrestlers and considers bans all women from entering the sacred wrestling ring.
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