Smoking rikishi

[Kotoviki 16]

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This discussion started in another thread depicting a photo of Harumafuji upon his return to Tokyo before Hatsu 2011.

I hope that he will also gambarize to quit smoking now that he has a baby!!! Good for her and good for him! Edited January 2, 2011 by Randomitsuki

[Pippooshu 1]

Congratulations to him. This his better than a yusho!

[Takanorappa 96]

I hope that he will also gambarize to quit smoking now that he has a baby!!!

Judging by the two packs in his hand in the above photo, I'm guessing that won't happen soon.

Edited December 30, 2010 by Takanorappa

[Mikiro 0]

I hope that he will also gambarize to quit smoking now that he has a baby!!! Good for her and good for him!

Quitting smoking is way overrated, if we are going to be concerned about rikishi health maybe we should be encouraging them to quit drinking alcohol. It seems to me the biggest health problem in Sumo is diabetes and I am willing to bet consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol over the years of a career is a really bad idea and really aids in developing diabetes.

[Kuroyama 715]

Quitting smoking is way overrated, if we are going to be concerned about rikishi health maybe we should be encouraging them to quit drinking alcohol. It seems to me the biggest health problem in Sumo is diabetes and I am willing to bet consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol over the years of a career is a really bad idea and really aids in developing diabetes.

As someone for whom both his father and godfather lost magnificent basso singing voices to smoking -- godfather with cigars, father with cigarettes -- and who lost his godfather to intestinal cancer, probably due to the juices from all the cigars he smoked and chewed on even after his vocal cords were cut out, I have to disagree on "overrated". (My godfather's voice, at least, was professional quality: he once sang with the Don Cossacks.) There's much to be said for living past oyakata retirement age.

As far as diabetes goes, it's the weight overall as much as alcohol per se, I would think. I wouldn't worry about it except for those who fail to drop the weight after they cease to be active wrestlers.

[kotoeikoku 0]

Quitting smoking is way overrated, if we are going to be concerned about rikishi health maybe we should be encouraging them to quit drinking alcohol. It seems to me the biggest health problem in Sumo is diabetes and I am willing to bet consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol over the years of a career is a really bad idea and really aids in developing diabetes.

As someone for whom both his father and godfather lost magnificent basso singing voices to smoking -- godfather with cigars, father with cigarettes -- and who lost his godfather to intestinal cancer, probably due to the juices from all the cigars he smoked and chewed on even after his vocal cords were cut out, I have to disagree on "overrated". (My godfather's voice, at least, was professional quality: he once sang with the Don Cossacks.) There's much to be said for living past oyakata retirement age.

As far as diabetes goes, it's the weight overall as much as alcohol per se, I would think. I wouldn't worry about it except for those who fail to drop the weight after they cease to be active wrestlers.

And there is also the performance issue. At the top level of any sport, the difference between competitors becomes a matter of fine edges (except perhaps with Hakuho). If giving up smoking can improve his health, and therefore his sumo, by even a very small degree, it could have a highly beneficial effect on his results.

Comparisons with cigarettes aside, I do wonder how much the drinking culture impacts on performance. Didn't I read here about Baruto going out and getting soused with Hakuho during a hon-basho? It strikes me as a great way of screwing up your opponent: take them out, force them to drink, raging hangover, kick their ass. The true secret of Hakuho's dominance?

[Kotoviki 16]

I hope that he will also gambarize to quit smoking now that he has a baby!!! Good for her and good for him!

Quitting smoking is way overrated, if we are going to be concerned about rikishi health maybe we should be encouraging them to quit drinking alcohol. It seems to me the biggest health problem in Sumo is diabetes and I am willing to bet consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol over the years of a career is a really bad idea and really aids in developing diabetes.

I know many rikishi who smoke & while I feel "athletes" shouldn't smoke I do understand that a sumo match is not so trying as running a marathon or other sports where it may affect you more... I also have a lower division friend who tried to quit twice and his sumo performance went down. He did much better smoking then recently decided to quit and again is falling down the banzuke.. I do not agree smoking is good for any of them but I also feel many of them drink too much as well. Though not all of them! For instance Kaisei always drinks coke never beer when we go out. Maybe as a sekitori with the others he may be drinking now but he always tells me he isn't interested in it. His brother told me he loves coke, not alcohol!

However, my reason for wanting Harumafuji to quit is for his baby daughter's sake!!! Second hand smoke is very dangerous especially for children who have no way to leave the room and get away from it!

I recently had surgery and I learned something very interesting, my plastic surgeon (for those who don't know from facebook, I had breast reduction surgery) refuses to do surgery on smokers. Smokers do not heal well and often have very ugly scars. It is something to do with the oxygen or something. As a plastic surgeon you want your work to look good! He doesn't want it to look like he did bad work if it is smoking that hindered the healing! He also told me to stay away from smoking as much as possible (guess I won't be going out with Baruto too much this basho..) for at least two or three months while the crucial healing is going on. I certainly like the way I'm healing after 3 weeks so I don't want to screw that up!!

[Kotoviki 16]

Quitting smoking is way overrated, if we are going to be concerned about rikishi health maybe we should be encouraging them to quit drinking alcohol. It seems to me the biggest health problem in Sumo is diabetes and I am willing to bet consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol over the years of a career is a really bad idea and really aids in developing diabetes.

As someone for whom both his father and godfather lost magnificent basso singing voices to smoking -- godfather with cigars, father with cigarettes -- and who lost his godfather to intestinal cancer, probably due to the juices from all the cigars he smoked and chewed on even after his vocal cords were cut out, I have to disagree on "overrated". (My godfather's voice, at least, was professional quality: he once sang with the Don Cossacks.) There's much to be said for living past oyakata retirement age.

As far as diabetes goes, it's the weight overall as much as alcohol per se, I would think. I wouldn't worry about it except for those who fail to drop the weight after they cease to be active wrestlers.

And there is also the performance issue. At the top level of any sport, the difference between competitors becomes a matter of fine edges (except perhaps with Hakuho). If giving up smoking can improve his health, and therefore his sumo, by even a very small degree, it could have a highly beneficial effect on his results.

Comparisons with cigarettes aside, I do wonder how much the drinking culture impacts on performance. Didn't I read here about Baruto going out and getting soused with Hakuho during a hon-basho? It strikes me as a great way of screwing up your opponent: take them out, force them to drink, raging hangover, kick their ass. The true secret of Hakuho's dominance?

Osaka last year Baruto and Harumafuji went out drinking to celebrate Onoe oyakata's birthday and got drunk.. well at least one of them got drunk.. the one who isn't as strong for alcohol and the next day Baruto won. I think this could be strategy for some of the boys or coincidence?!

[Asashosakari 19,216]

And there is also the performance issue. At the top level of any sport, the difference between competitors becomes a matter of fine edges (except perhaps with Hakuho). If giving up smoking can improve his health, and therefore his sumo, by even a very small degree, it could have a highly beneficial effect on his results.

That's pretty much the way I view it, too. Giving up drinking may well have a larger long-term health effect, but for "day-to-day performance" issues I suspect that quitting smoking would be more important. Unless we're talking about a rikishi who's a secret alcoholic, I suppose...

[Sashohitowa 6]

However, my reason for wanting Harumafuji to quit is for his baby daughter's sake!!! Second hand smoke is very dangerous especially for children who have no way to leave the room and get away from it!

If someone is a smoker, it's not necessary that he smokes at home -- especially with a baby in the house. There is a difference between being a smoker and being plain stupid.

[Kotoviki 16]

However, my reason for wanting Harumafuji to quit is for his baby daughter's sake!!! Second hand smoke is very dangerous especially for children who have no way to leave the room and get away from it!

If someone is a smoker, it's not necessary that he smokes at home -- especially with a baby in the house. There is a difference between being a smoker and being plain stupid.

very true but unfortunately every single parent I know (especially the ones of the elementary kids I teach) smoke at home, in the car... their kids clothes stink of cigarettes! Maybe in Japan the 2nd hand smoke danger isn't known.....?

[Asojima 2,873]

Mods. Suggest the smoking discussion be split off to a new topic.

[yorikiried by fate 2,016]

However, my reason for wanting Harumafuji to quit is for his baby daughter's sake!!! Second hand smoke is very dangerous especially for children who have no way to leave the room and get away from it!

If someone is a smoker, it's not necessary that he smokes at home -- especially with a baby in the house. There is a difference between being a smoker and being plain stupid.

Seconded.

Nobody who wants to live smokes in my boys face. Not even me.

[EizoShita 0]

For diabetics coke is much worse than alcohol or smoking. All sweet drinks should be completely out of menu, they are worse than any cakes or candies or whatever. Only glucose injection is worse.

So, Kaisei is not very bright guy.

[wanderer 159]

For diabetics coke is much worse than alcohol or smoking. All sweet drinks should be completely out of menu, they are worse than any cakes or candies or whatever. Only glucose injection is worse.

So, Kaisei is not very bright guy.

Needless to mention Asashoryu incident, rikishi drinking alcohol publicly and bragging about it publicly look very odd as they are very visible professional athletes. What impressions the youngsters and their parents have about it? Even Hakuho boasts about having a heavy drinking night after winning or losing. I don't know any other sport where athletes can declare their hang over publicly.

[Kotoviki 16]

Well, I don't think anyone can tell the rikishi they can only drink water & green tea.. I mean beer, sake, coke, even fruit juice aren't good for diabetics... of course not all rikishi are diabetics... and I can say with certainty that Kaisei is one who isn't. We always talk about his medical exams.

Realistically none of them should drink or smoke or eat sweets and drink soft drinks.. but who will stop them?

Incidentally Taganoura oyakata doesn't let the boys who are in jonidan and jonokuchi eat sweets. I thought it was all the heya because when I met Daniel in his early days he mentioned the oyakata doesn't allow sweets but later on he told me "now I can eat sweets.."

Anyway, everything should be done in moderation, alcohol, soda, sweets...

Even when Chiyotaikai found out he had diabetes he continued to eat sweets... as does my own mother it isn't limited only to rikishi.

[Finn 0]

Have a happy new year, all of you!

It seems to me, that the war against the smoking is something as the wars about the warming of climat,

for the peace in 60ty's, against the eating and so on. I'm sure you're not forget that all the participants of

two WW did smoke and all the professional wrestlers before I WW (except estonian Lurich) did that, too.

And one of the best decathlonists, Edik H

Edited January 3, 2011 by Finn

[Gusoyama 99]

Anecdotal evidence can not trump scientific fact. Smoking is bad for you. Tobacco is one of the worst drugs you can put into your system. This is not opinion, but fact backed by hundreds of studies over dozens of years containing millions of data.

[sekitori 492]

For diabetics coke is much worse than alcohol or smoking. All sweet drinks should be completely out of menu, they are worse than any cakes or candies or whatever.

Even artificially sweetened diet sodas are not recommended for diabetics. They have been shown to increase appetite in some people, causing them to eat carbohydrates and actually cause a gain in weight, meaning an increase in body fat. The leading artificial sweetener, aspartame, also can produce some ill effects.

On the other hand. someone like Kaisei, who I assume is not diabetic, can probably drink diet cola, preferably de-caffeinated, in moderation with no difficulties. Notice the word "moderation". It has been said that drinking a reasonable amount (no more than a can or two) of diet soda a day will probably be okay for most non-diabetic people. For someone as large as Kaisei, twice as much should be safe, but excessive use could lead to problems. Ideally, water is a much healthier substitute. But who wants to socialize drinking a glass of water? (Holiday feeling...)

I wonder what percentage of rikishis avoid the use of alcoholic beverages. I would guess that it's very low.

Edited January 3, 2011 by sekitori

[Kuroyama 715]

Have a happy new year, all of you!

It seems to me, that the war against the smoking is something as the wars about the warming of climat,

for the peace in 60ty's, against the eating and so on. I'm sure you're not forget that all the participants of

two WW did smoke and all the professional wrestlers before I WW (except estonian Lurich) did that, too.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. The climate *is* warming -- according to the overwhelming consensus of climatologists. The controversy comes from voices outside that discipline who don't want to think it's happening, and don't want to alter their comfortable lifestyles in any way as a consequence. And is advocating peace a bad thing? And is it not a fact that people of industrialized countries tend to overeat? (In America certainly, but I think our bad habit is spreading.) What does courage in battle (where the risks of smoking would have been truly negligible compared to everything else) have to do with healthy choices in civilian life?

There are always -- ALWAYS -- individuals who can do clearly unhealthy things and suffer no apparent ill effect. That does not mean that most people can. Epidemiology is often an uncertain science, but what it has to say about the effects of smoking is very clear and as certain as anything gets in this world, and it's been well-understood for at least 50 years now. If politics has had any effect on what the science has to say, it's been to *delay* sensible tobacco health policy, which is only now becoming common.

Please note that any single person is a sample size of one, with individual strengths, weaknesses, and talents. You therefore cannot compare any one person directly against another. That's why epidemiology works with data on large numbers of people across whole populations, where individual traits average out. When looking at, for instance, a great decathloner, he'd doubtless have been exceptional no matter what he was doing between attempts. Whether he *would have been* even more exceptional had he not been poisoning himself is a question that has no sure answer, even if it's reasonable to guess "yes". But a guess is a guess.

I know of no studies on the subject of nicotine's effect on sports performance, but as it *is* a stimulant it would be unsurprising if it didn't have a positive one which partially offsets the cardiovascular harm tobacco is known to cause, at least in younger athletes where cumulative harm is relatively small.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Kuroyama

[Kotoviki 16]

Just to throw another wrench into the discussion of whether or not soda or beer are good for diabetics...

What about all the rice they eat, that is too much carbohydrates for diabetics... just saying...

[Sashohitowa 6]

I think what Finn was having in mind was the fact that sometimes some topics escalate up to a status of a "Holy war" (beyond the level of reasonability).

I do not agree, however, that this is the case with the smoking, as it is very clear that all the governments in the world are taking actions against the smokers, so the healthy-life enthusiasts has not much to complain about.

Sometimes the pro and anti-tobacco measures discussions become quite hot, and it is usually the non-smokers calling for total ban. For me this goes too far, because I firmly believe that anybady shod be free to do whatever he/she pleases, until he/she bothers somebody else. I think that the current rules are strict enough to protect the non-smokers from smoke basically everywhere in public places. So let's leave them at least the possibility to smoke on their balconys (On the banzuke...)

And if we hide behind the banner of "health for their own good", then we shouldalso consider banning coffee, hard alcohol and most of the fast food. Ah, yes, and chocolate (Holiday feeling...))

(I am an ex-smoker, and nobody is nastier than me when I feel smoke around me, but I would never demand from my friends not to smoke even in their privacy. they have their own heads)

[shumitto 418]

Anecdotal evidence can not trump scientific fact. Smoking is bad for you. Tobacco is one of the worst drugs you can put into your system. This is not opinion, but fact backed by hundreds of studies over dozens of years containing millions of data.

Tobacco does have some benefits, too. And I am not talking about the immeadiate benefits like relaxing and stuff. It is linked, based on data and much research as well, to making the body less vulnerable to Parkinson's disease and some types of cancer. I don't smoke and would start for a handful of pros against many cons but it is not only bad.

[EizoShita 0]

Just to throw another wrench into the discussion of whether or not soda or beer are good for diabetics...

What about all the rice they eat, that is too much carbohydrates for diabetics... just saying...

There are slow and fast carbohydrates. Sugars are fast, especially in watersolution.

Not only quantity matters. Time is also important.

Soda and Coke are worse than beer for 2 reasons:

- more carbohydrates

- carbohydrates are sugars

[wanderer 159]

I am a smoker myself, who totally accepts current policies of banning smoking in public places. I understand the facts that smoking is harmful. At the same time, I smoke privately, and take issues of not offending non-smokers to a great length.

Harumafuji being smoker does not bother me a bit. But Harumafuji smoking publicly, showing up with two packs in his hand bothers me. Similarly, rikishi boasting about their drunken night bothers me too.

Are these saying to youngsters that yeah, rikishi life is such that you smoke and drink a lot. Or, to their parents: yep, send your son to us, we will make them happy this way?