Taira Sakamoto throws down her opponents and gender norms
Malia Kabwe, Staff Writer
Sports are the soul of Samo’s school spirit. Samo’s wrestling team has made many achievements in recent years on account of many of its talented members, including Taira Sakamoto (’23). Within combative and aggressive sports like wrestling, stereotypes are perpetuated that girls can not compete on the same level that boys do. Sakamoto, however, has been a member of the boys’ varsity team for three years and has proved this wrong time and time again.
In 2010, when Sakamoto was four, her family immigrated to the U.S. from Japan because of a promising job opportunity for her father. Sakamoto’s brothers attended Culver City Middle School after the move while she attended El Marino Language School, but used Samo’s wrestling room on days when it was available for students out of the district to use. After practicing at Samo every Tuesday and Thursday, the wrestling coach asked her siblings, Riata and Chikara Sakamoto, to join the Samo wrestling team.
Since the Sakamoto family was passionate about wrestling and Culver City High School did not have a wrestling program, they took up the offer and transferred districts. With the family having transferred to SMMUSD, Sakamoto attended John Adams Middle School and joined Samo’s wrestling team when she entered high school.
Sakamoto has been practicing martial arts for most of her life. When she was younger and living in Japan, her parents signed her up for judo lessons and she ended up sticking with it; she has been doing judo for about ten years now. In Sakamoto’s freshman year, she went to the California State Championships for wrestling. Sakamoto then placed fifth out of the top 32 state competitors.
Although there are more girls on the wrestling team than in previous years, Sakamoto is still the only girl on varsity. Practices are not separated by gender which means she practices with both boys and girls.
“It doesn’t really make much of a difference anymore. Because there aren’t that many girls on the team I have to practice with boys. It can also be good because practicing with boys my weight can make it easier for me when competing against girls,” Sakamoto said.
Sakamoto expressed that the hardest part about the training is making weight. This means that wrestlers must be within the limits for their weight group. Doing so requires Sakamoto to put her diet and workout regime into high consideration. She sometimes has to work out in heavy clothes or cut out water to make weight before competitions. Tournament weigh-ins, however, allow the participants two hours to recover before wrestling.
She practices every day after school for roughly three hours. This amount of activity can be tough, but Sakamoto has a good support system on the team. This year, injured wrestling team member, Maggie Ineno (’22), has been a great motivator for her.
“This year even after [Maggie] tore her ACL, she stayed and helped me push through the season. She just balances me out when I start to feel burnt out,” Sakamoto said.
Overall, athletes like Sakamoto show that although a sport may be labeled “aggressive”, that does not mean that girls cannot compete in it at a high level. For now, Sakamoto is unsure about continuing wrestling in college, as she has noticed that most schools with quality wrestling programs are not as good academically and vice versa. Still, she definitely plans to continue competing in both judo and wrestling throughout the rest of high school. At this time, her main goal is to have a full girls line up while she is still in high school. While the sport is gradually growing in popularity amongst young girls, Sakamoto still hopes to see more on the team during her senior year and give others the same positive experiences that she has had over time.
“Wrestling has been such a huge focus in my life the past few years. It has taught me to balance academics and social life, it’s also made me a stronger person in general,” Sakamoto said.
Taira Sakamoto (’23) is currently the only girl on Samo’s boys varsity wrestling team.