The Rare Kimarite: Moves That Almost Never Happen

The other article on this subject covered the five techniques that decide two thirds of all bouts. This one is about the far end of the same list — where five officially recognised moves have not happened once in more than 190,000 bouts, and an entire category barely exists.

Winning Moves  ·  6 min read

All the counts here come from the ranking the Japan Sumo Association publishes, covering 190,450 bouts between January 2013 and July 2026. The same source as the five most common — read from the bottom instead of the top.

The zeroes

Five techniques are on the official list of eighty-two and were recorded no times at all across those bouts:

Two more were recorded exactly once: 櫓投げ (yaguranage) and つかみ投げ (tsukaminage). One appearance each, in more than thirteen years.

A whole category that barely exists

Notice how many of the zeroes come from the same group. Sumo sorts its techniques into families, and one of them is 反り手 (sorite) — moves where a wrestler bends backwards and drops his opponent over him.

There are six of these. Across 190,450 bouts they were used 48 times between them — and three of the six account for none of that.

So a family of officially named, officially defined techniques covers roughly one bout in every four thousand.

The ones you might actually see

Between the very common and the never, there is a band of techniques that appear a handful of times a year. These are the ones worth knowing about, because you might genuinely witness one.

Roughly one or two a year each, across the whole sport. If you follow sumo for a few years, you will probably see one of these announced — and the reaction in the building will tell you before the commentary does.

Why the tail is so thin

The straightforward answer is the right one: these are simply hard techniques.

They are not rare because of anything about the format or the schedule. They are rare because doing them requires more skill, or a more specific opening, than most wrestlers can produce against opposition of this standard — and the harder the technique, the further down the list it sits.

That is worth saying plainly, because it is easy to look for a more interesting explanation than there is.

What to watch for

Listen to the hall rather than the commentary.

When something unusual is announced, the reaction arrives before the translation does — and it is different from the reaction to a good ordinary bout. If a building full of people who watch sumo every day suddenly makes a noise, look up: you have just seen something from the bottom of the list.