Sports & Pastimes

Japan is a sporty nation, but not in the way one might think. Martial arts and board games have gripped the nation far more than activities that involve scoring with a ball.

Sports

Horse Racing

The most popular sport for animal lovers and gamblers alike. A jockey and their horse race around a circular track for a number of laps until the first one to reach the finish line wins 1st, and so on.

Baseball

Brought over from America, the sport was found to be very popular in Japan to the point of rivaling its popularity in its land of origin.

Martial Arts

Martial arts in Japan are the most popular athletic activities in the nation. Those who learn martial arts are not only learning to harness one's physical prowess, but to also cultivate a greater personal growth as a warrior and philosopher. Places where these arts are practiced are called dojos, and they are typically headed by the oldest son of the previous sensei, who will refine and pass down their specific art. Some dojos are highly prestigious and exclusive, with hundreds or even thousands of years of tradition. Unarmed martial arts originated from periods of time where average people were not allowed to own weapons and had to learn to defend themselves in alternate ways. Weapon based arts are typically descended from warrior clans

Sumo

A form of wrestling where one wrestler tries to force the other out of a marked ring. Sumo wrestlers will make sumo their lives. Will live in a strict regimented way in sumo communities, and will incorporate @shin practices like shimenawa and shide belts, and purification salt into their practice.

Jujutsu

Focused around manipulating the forces your opponent brings upon you to work against them, using mostly grapples, holds, and trying to bring your opponents to the ground.

Kyudo and Yabusame

Kyudo is the art of archery with a long bow (yumi). Yabusame is the art of horse mounted archery. Both of these practices originated from the samurai class.

Kendo

Kendo is a sword based martial art, centered primarily around the katana. Different kendo schools will teach different styles and techniques and sword lengths

Board Games

Go

A game of strategy played between two people. Black and white stones are placed alternately on a board in an attempt to capture the other player's stones by surrounding them. The game ends when the board is filled with stones, or the possibilities for gaining territory are exhausted

Mahjong

A 4 player game with 144 total tiles and 13 tiles per hand. Players draw tiles until they get a number of potentially winning hands.

Shogi

A traditional chess-like game played between two people. As in chess, pieces may be captured, but unlike in chess those pieces may be used by the captor. The game ends with checkmate of an opponent's king

Karuta

A card game in which 100 waka(a type of poetry in classical Japanese literature) poems are written on two sets of 100 cards: one set is yomifuda (reading cards), which have the complete poem on them, and the other is torifuda ("grabbing cards"), which each correspond to a yomifuda and have only the last few lines of the corresponding poem on them