Dohyo-iri: The Ring-Entering Ceremony
Before the top-division bouts begin, a line of wrestlers files into the ring wearing heavy embroidered aprons, forms a circle, claps, and files out again. Nobody fights. It is the part of a broadcast a new viewer is most likely to skip, and the easiest to explain.
土俵入り (dohyo-iri) means, literally, "entering the ring". It is the formal presentation of the wrestlers before their bouts begin.
The important thing for a viewer is that there are two different ceremonies, and they are easy to confuse.
The first: the division files in
The wrestlers of a division come into the ring together, in order, and stand in a circle facing outward — toward the audience. They then perform a short set of movements together, in this order: clap the hands, raise the right hand, lift the front of the apron, and raise both arms.
Each man is wearing a 化粧まわし (kesho-mawashi) — the embroidered apron described in the article on the mawashi. This is not what they fight in. It is made to be looked at, and it is a serious object: around ten kilograms, and reported to cost upwards of a million yen.
Then they file out, change, and the bouts begin.
The second: the yokozuna, alone
After that, if there is a yokozuna competing, he performs a separate ceremony of his own.
He goes into the ring with two attendants and performs alone in the middle. And he is wearing the thing the rank is named after: the thick white rope worn around the waist, 横綱, from which the rank takes its name.
This is the only occasion on which you see it. It is not worn to fight in.
The movements include shiko — the leg stomp — performed slowly and deliberately, alone, in front of a full arena. It is the same movement the wrestlers do hundreds of times in morning training, presented as ceremony.
If you only ever watch one non-fighting part of a sumo broadcast, make it this one. It is short, it is the only time the rope is visible, and it is performed by a wrestler who cannot be demoted — only retire. (There can be more than one yokozuna at a time, and each performs his own.)
When the Emperor attends a tournament in person, a special form of the ceremony is performed. It is a rare thing to see, and if you happen to be watching on a day it occurs, the commentary will tell you.
What it is for
Two things at once, in the way most of this section turns out to work.
It presents the wrestlers. Before the bouts, the audience sees who is competing, in rank order, in their finest dress. That is a practical function, and it is the reason the aprons are made to be looked at.
It prepares the ring. Like the salt and like shiko, this is part of treating the dohyo as a place that is made ready rather than simply used.
The trap for new viewers
It is easy to assume the yokozuna's ceremony is just a grander version of the division's. It is not the same ceremony at all — different participants, different dress, and it happens only when a yokozuna is competing. If you never see it, that is why.
What to watch for
During the division's ceremony, watch the order. The wrestlers come in from the lowest rank upward, so the last man in is the highest-ranked one there. You are watching the banzuke walk into the room.
During the yokozuna's, watch the rope. Then remember, when he fights an hour later, that he is not wearing it — and that the only way he will ever take it off for good is by retiring.
The rank named after the rope, and what it costs to hold it.