Batman Begins

[Doc]

It's just a bunch of fat guys in diapers slapping each other and throwing handfulls of salt around :rolleyes:
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Actually, Sumo wrestling is most closely related to Aikido. It's more than slaps and salt. It's tactical throws, how to absorb crushing blows, how to absorb and redirect energies that your foe sends in your direction. Energies in this sense not being mystical forces or fireballs, get your head out of the arcades for a moment. When you go to slap somebody, there is a lot of energy in that person's arm. Forward momentum. An Aikido student will know how to absorb, and then redirect that energy back into it's originating source, usually with absurd results. Like say, little tiny old man or child capable of throwing a big giant brute 10 to 20 feet acrossed the room. Or, if violence isn't your thing, you can absorb these energies into your body and allow them to harmlessly disapate into nothing. This style of Aikido is known as absorbtion, or the Water Technique. It is a brutal art. You have 2x4s smashed over your face, you get strangled, beaten, kicked, boxed in the groin, and you learn to take each incoming blow and completely internalize it so it becomes harmless. It is a very different school of thought and action from deflective Aikido. With the absorbtion and redirection of energies, you can unleash a horrible can of whoopass on your foes, channeling their own attack and turning it back on them in ways they never imagined. I once saw a Sumo break a 4x4 wooden post by slapping it from about 3 inches away. To be able to channel the entire strength and force of his whole body in such a short span of space... And he blew this thing to splinters. Apply this same type of force to a human body and you would break every rib, shatter their spine, and the resulting shock waves would probably shatter their pelvis as well. From three inches away. Anybody not schooled to absorb these sorts of blows would be FUBARed.

Bruce Lee pushed these theories to their limits, and scrawny little thing he was, he could send people flying with a punch from one inch away, or shatter wooden planks.

It's sad that Sumo wrestling has become a form of public ridicule, just another pop culture joke. :(