How long has it been since you played Tug-O-War?

We packed up the family (and Carmen) and headed to Naha for the day to experience the much talked about Naha Tsunahiki. We all enjoy ourselves so much when we are out and enjoying the local culture and people that you almost forget why you are actually here. It is like a small mini-vacation every weekend packed full of memories that will last forever! This tradition of a local Tug-O-War is an ongoing "right" to bragging of the East and West side of the island. News on the local street is that historically when the East and West side needed to settle a dispute they would prepare a rope and the local "Strong Men" or "Leaders" would gather and decide to either fight it out of play a manly game of Tug-O-War. Now it has become a tradition that had moved out of the bounds a rational reason of a friendly game of backyard tug-o-war. The Naha Tsunahiki games are now listed in The Guinness Book of World Records and every year they attempt to break their own record as the most people involved in the tugging.

I have some pics and video I can share with you as we go along, come on! This is where we actually wandered onto a side road with the kids to take in some of the sites and were used as Japanese party favors for the drinking pole carriers and parade participants. They loved us, and we enjoyed them too. See, this is how it all starts... A Japanese party waiting to happen.
This is just one side of the road, the East side actually. The rope takes up about one city block in length and judging by the man standing next to it you can see had wide it is, it is said to be about 40 metric tons. They have an identical rope on the other side of the intersection that needs to be joined to make one full rope.This is done by everyone grabbing smaller ropes that branch off the large main rope and pushing forward all at once until the front of the ropes touch. This is a big effort to get thousands of people working together, especially when they don't all speak Japanese! Once the ropes are bound together by a large piece of wood slipped through the knots you are then directed to pull back to take the slack out of the rope and prepare for the actual "Tug". As you can imagine this took a little bit of time.

The East side rope-
These three had their piece of rope and pulled with all their might, I think they might be the reason our side won. I was a little nervous because I did not want one of them to fall and be trampled! Marissa had just about enough once she was choked by a rope and another participant.



What an awesome time! Tradition has it that once the war is over you should take some rope home with you for good luck throughout the next year. It was so funny to see EVERYONE with small or large pieces of rope all evening everywhere you went. Here is bit more about the Naka Tsunahiki that we went to,
http://jpgmag.com/stories/8290
(copy and paste, you know I have issues getting my link thing to work)