🌐 Location: Sendai, Miyagi
Today’s event… well, honestly, it’s not today’s event. It took place on the 12th. But anyway, day 15th event took place at Sendai, Miyagi prefecture. Sendai has been one of the places hit most severely in the 2011 Tohoku disaster, and sever years later, it’s still seeking revival. Accordingly, two Yokozuna with their entourages reported in to perform a ceremonial dohyo-iri for the revival of Sendai:
If you’re wondering about the absence of Hakuho, just remember that in 2011 he did the rounds as lone Yokozuna to perform dohyo-iri all over Tohoku, including Sendai. The other Yokozuna get to be in the spotlight this time.
The event also included some solemn sumo jinku:
Back in the venue, Hakuho continued his off-dohyo workout routine. Though who knows what he was exercising here:
If you think that looks silly, that’s one Hakuho record easily broken by Kakuryu, who seems to be really creative when it comes to looking silly:
Other than that, most practice was sane. Takakeisho was doing butsukari with Daieisho:
And Takayasu was doing san-ban with Yutakayama:
Goeido also had gave butsukari, but was still off the torikumi. Apparently, he has an ear infection. Takekaze, by the way, is back in the bouts.
Just before the Juryo torikumi, a drum exhibition took place:
Here is another duty performed by gyoji: the announcer in the venue is always a gyoji. In this case, Kimura Ryosuke:
Here accompanied by Chiyootori, who seems never to let go of that portable mini-fan.
It’s the announcer’s duty to explain what is going on on the dohyo – who is coming up for sanban or butsukari, what performance is about to take place and what it means. He gives the audience the kimarite at the end of each bout, reads out the names of kensho sponsors, and also gives general guidelines such as what to do in case of earthquake.
Dohyo-iri time is goof time. Chiyomaru decided to make sure all the photos taken by the sumo ladies were decent:
Tamawashi and Chiyomaru bullied poor Shodai so badly he ran away:
土俵入り前のわちゃわちゃが可愛い😍❤️#仙台巡業#正代#千代丸#玉鷲
とそれを見守る#勢 pic.twitter.com/FrNRsFVrjn— むっちゃン☆ (@kapibara3mokyu) August 12, 2018
Tamawashi didn’t settle just with that. He also pestered Ikioi:
…and bothered Kagayaki:
I guess somebody forgot his Ritalin today?
Alas, I do not have any torikumi videos. I can inform you that Aminishiki, who is very popular in Sendai, won his bout vs. Takanoiwa:
Apparently, Chiyomaru lost to Arawashi, while Mitakeumi beat Takayasu. And honestly, I don’t know who won, but Endo seems to be really enjoying his bouts:
Now, in our Enho corner, I wanted to give you yet another solo dreamy prince photo. Or maybe one of him doing his shiko. But I have been informed that there are still a few people not trained enough to recognize Yago on the spot. So I give you Enho – accompanied by Yago:
Easily recognizable by having his center of gravity in his jaw.
And so as not to diminish Enho, here is a little clip from Instagram, which shows you why people love the little prince to bits. He recognizes the lady fan who is filming this from a previous occasion, and turns to greet her. She: “Hey, you remember me?”, He: “Yes, I remember”. She “Oh… thank you!!!” 😍
That guy waiting for Enho there is Kyokusoten, who has also fallen under the spell of the little pixie prince. Just today I saw a tweet in which he refers to him as “Uchi no Enho” (“My Enho”). 💕
I’m picturing the sponsors falling over each other and themselves to get Enho’s face on their products when (we all hope, I reckon,) he makes top division.
and until more people than you and I Herouth can recognise the delightful Yago then he simply needs to make more appearances (with our without Enho) in these posts ;-) I think his time will come when the Jungyo reaches my old home of Hokkaido – with both Yago and Kyokutaisei and probably Ichiyamamoto – all will be homegrown heroes in the spotlight ;-)
Regarding Yago, I bet we just get used to putting the name to the chin, sorry I meant putting the name to the face, when he will change his shikona to something ending in “-kaze”. And btw way “風” the kanji for “kaze” can mean “wind” and looks a bit like an angry little man sheltering from the wind inside his tent.
and that is probably how the kanji for kaze came about! u just may not be far off! mmmm… Yagokaze? or Tombokaze? esp. in light of the following “known as the “victory insect”, or kachimushi, because of its hunting prowess and also because it is known to never retreat. Dragonflies are agile and fast fliers and can even hover, but never fly backwards.” am looking forward to this evolution!
Looking at the kanji for Yago, “矢” and “後”, one way of reading them would be “arrow bottom” which explains (I think) why an alternative is “dragonfly nymph”. Dragonfly larvae do look as if they have a quiver full of arrows sticking out of their rear end. My kanji visualisation for today is “矢” for “ya” or “arrow”= little man with a bow, drawing an arrow from his quiver. Only another 70 or so to go and I’ll qualify for second grade.
Am liking your thinking!!!
Bear in mind that the “dragonfly nymph” yago is spelled differently. By the rules of modern Japanese it’s written in Katakana, but the kanji is 水蠆.
The Japanese language has a very limited number of sounds that can be used, and therefore has a huge number of homophones. For example koi 恋 (romantic love) and koi 鯉 (a kind of fish), never mind 来い (come!), and 濃い (thick, dark).
水蠆 literally “water scorpion”, a pretty good description.
Isn’t there a kind of Japanese poem made up of a long string of homophones? Or is that in Chinese?
As embarrassing it is to admit… I’m one of those people (3 out of 10 according to a reliable source) who still has difficultly properly identifying Yago from a crowd. There’s just a lot of #FakeYago s going around.
*(7 out of 10)
Love it! Thank you!