Originally Posted by
RichardInSF
I was one of the many folks who got to clip Musashimaru's hair at his retirement ceremony
OMG.... I'm not worthy. [prostrates self].
I was sorely tempted to buy a scalped ticket to watch that, but my mother was visiting at the time and she had no interest in seeing a "fat man get a haircut."
Originally Posted by
RichardInSF
It didn't seem any harder than any other floor.
The dohyo is not as hard as other floors that you may be used to walking on. But it's pretty darn hard (and rough) compared with the floors of other places where people throw each other around - judo and aikido dojos come to mind.
IIRC: When the sumo wrestlers visited London about 17 years ago, the rikishi complained that the Thames mud which was used to build the dohyo had dried significantly harder than the stuff they were used to in Japan. They were concerned that there might be more injuries because of that.
BTW: The dohyo is not constructed entirely from earth. The earth sits on a foundation of beer crates. And before someone asks whether the crates are Asahi, Sapporo, Suntory or Kirin - I don't know.