“Starting Sumo” Interview with Darius Campbell
List your Sumo experience, awards, accolades, etc.
First tournament was the 2018 U.S. Sumo Open where I made it to the quarter finials before losing to professional sumo wrestler Sergey Sokolovsky. Then proceeded to medal in several tournaments.
What made you start sumo?
I started following sumo after watching an anime called Rowdy Sumo Wrestler Matsutaro (のたり松太郎). It featured names I didn't know at the time such as Yokozuna, Ozeki, rikishi etc. So I started looking into sumo to better understand it. I quickly found a sumo channel on Youtube called Jason's All Sumo channel where I would watch my first live basho (2014 Natsu Basho) and immediately became hooked.
What advice do you have for new sumōtori in the USSF?
To anyone new to sumo I would just say don't be afraid to reach out, overall we have great and helpfully sumo community. Also don't be afraid to compete and come out to events even if you don't know anyone. I kinda jumped into the deep end by competing at the U.S. Sumo Open but it gave me a great deal of useful experience and allowed me to meet a ton of great people including some international wrestlers. So more or less just don't be afraid to get reach/get out there.
How did you find a place for your club to practice?
Originally my club simply trained in my backyard, later on we thorough one of own club mates (who happens to be a martial art instructor) told us about his gym. We are now even working on building small little sumo only facility that will feature a clay dohyō.
What does a typical practice look like at your club?
A typical practice at my club consists of:
basic stretches
25-50 Shiko
8 rounds of suriashi followed by 4 rounds of modified suriashi
2-4 rounds butsukari per person
kimarite demonstration with practice work on it
Matches with periodical video review and troubleshooting.
finally cool down stretches and matawari.
Typically 2 hour practice (bout heavy)
How did you find training partners and build a team?
I found my first training partner in a sumo Facebook group page. He was looking for someone in my general area and we linked up and started practicing. It then spread by word of mouth and additional Facebook/social media recruiting. I have seen that an active social media page is really the way to go here with club related content (such as videos, pictures, etc.)