The Mawashi: Sumo

A widely-seen variation on the fundoshi is the thicker, layered wrestling belt wrapped around the hips of Sumo wrestlers, which alternately goes by the names mawashi or shimekomi. The mawashi also sees much use during festivals, in a slimmer version than the 6-layered one worn by rikishi (professional sumo wrestlers). I'm planning some future posts of various Japanese traditional events and activities that display this other version.

I found the linked blog post here very helpful in understanding the mawashi, with directions for tying it as well as an explanation of the various parts.

The Mawashi!

Best known as the garb of sumo, the mawashi is a thickly padded variation on the fundoshi -- basically a 4-layer fundoshi -- that is not only to clothe and protect the wrestlers, the mawashi itself is a big part of sumo wrestling!  Some variation of the mawashi is also often worn during Japanese festivals, either in place of fundoshi or as one of dozens of different hybrids bewteen the two types of loincloth. 

From wikipedia:

In sumo, a mawashi (Japanese: 廻し) is the belt that the rikishi (or sumo wrestler) wears during training or in competition.  For top- (sekitori-) ranked professional rikishi, it is made of silk and comes in a variety of colors. It is approximately 30 feet (9.1 m) in length when unwrapped, about two feet wide and weighs between eight and eleven pounds. It is wrapped several times around the rikishi and fastened in the back by a large knot.