Inclusive sumo wrestling club offers free outdoor practices to community members
Photo by Hargun Kambo.
Hugo Mansfield, a B.C. sumo wrestler who goes by the name “Tigerman,” recently moved to Victoria and enrolled at UVic. He wanted to join a sumo wrestling club, so he started one.
In Vancouver, Mansfield ran the Sumo Tigers club, which he brought with him to Victoria. Though Mansfield did not know enough students to meet the membership requirements for the UVSS to ratify his club, Sumo Tigers still meets for free outdoor practices at Willows Beach every Saturday. They will soon be moving indoors to Hood Rich Jiu Jitsu.
Mansfield told the Martlet he started his sumo journey after attending a Japanese cultural festival, where he signed up for a sumo tournament, and felt confident he could beat the other competitors. “I lost in like two seconds,” Mansfield said.
After that, he became motivated to win the event next year. Though he did not win that next year, he did get hooked on the sport. Mansfield told the Martlet he then went on to win the Powell Street Festival sumo tournament in August, which he described as the largest tournament in B.C.
Mansfield told the Martlet that practices are open to all body types and genders. “People often think you have to be … really large, and that if they go, everybody there is going to be massive and beat them up,” Mansfield said. “That’s not true. We’re all really friendly, and all body types are represented.”
According to Mansfield, the perception that you have to be large to participate in sumo wrestling comes from Japan, where there are no weight limits, whereas the rest of the world uses weight classes. “You can be any size and compete against people your own size.”
Mansfield told the Martlet that there are no requirements to participate. He encourages people to just show up in athletic clothes they don’t mind getting dirty, and bring a smile.
“If you can walk, you can do sumo. And if you can’t walk, you can come hang out,” Mansfield said.
Mansfield said sumo wrestling is a healthy way to get in touch with your aggression, and learn to handle others’ aggression.
“If you’ve never done martial arts before, sumo is, in my opinion, the most fun one,” Mansfield said. “You get the maximal kind of experience of somebody coming at you hard, and you get to really push as hard as you can, and then it’s over really quickly, and you can take a break.”
“It [has] this perfect rule set that allows you to just … go to combat with your whole mind and [body] without really hurting each other,” Mansfield said. “Most matches just end with a push out [of the ring].”
Mansfield told the Martlet that sumo has benefits for other sports training, believing it can improve both coordination and general athleticism. As a coach, Mansfield said he warms clients up to sparring through games that simulate aspects of sparring. According to Mansfield, the scariest part of sumo is the tachiai — the initial charge at the start of a match — but once you get used to that, sumo stops being scary. “I really dedicate myself to looking at somebody, seeing where they could improve …, and helping them improve at it,” Mansfield said.
Mansfield initially sought new Victoria members through Reddit, and said he was shocked by the attention Sumo Tigers has received.
“Thank you Victoria, for being so instantly supportive of [Sumo Tigers]. It was a shockingly positive reaction. And thank you to everybody who has come out to practice.”
