The day starts very early at a sumo stable. The new apprentices begin practicing from before daybreak, and the other wrestlers show up in ascending order of their official rank. It is after 8 AM by the time the stable's highest-ranked rikishi appear. At the practice, burly wrestlers weighing perhaps 150 kilograms slam into each other with full force - quite a sight to behold. Watching this in a room filled with the shouting of the oyakata (stable master) and the hard breathing of wrestlers can be an exhausting experience. The intense training continues until around 11 AM. Training is a part of the wrestlers' work, so visitors are asked to watch quietly and to only take flash photos with the stable master's permission.

A late breakfast follows morning practice. The rikishi eat chanko, the staple fare of sumo stables, which is a stew of such ingredients as meat, fish, and vegetables. It is the job of new apprentices to prepare the food. Do not expect to be offered some, as visitors are never invited to dine together unless they are family members, relatives, or close acquaintances of the wrestlers. But if you want to try chanko, there are plenty of restaurants around Ryogoku that specialize in it. Many are run by former rikishi, so the chanko they serve is real.