🌐 Location: Takamori, Aso District, Kumamoto
😛 Goofometer: ◽️◽️◽️◽️◽️
We have a short one today, as few fans blessed us with photographs or videos from this town by Mount Aso in Kumamoto.
There are two sekitori from Kumamoto prefecture, so they starred today, and will be celebrated in the next two days as well. I give you Sadanoumi, in a Myogiryu Paisley yukata, and Shodai, in a dragonfly motif.
You’ll note that everybody was wearing yukata for their handshake this time. The temperature was 0ºC in the morning, and I guess the strict oyakata felt a little guilty going around in their own warm Uniqlo padded vests and having the rikishi freeze. You may also notice that they are not wearing any obi – my guess is that they have their mawashi on under the yukata.
Inside the main hall, though, the rikishi are in their mawashi, and keep warm by doing exercise. Here is Asanoyama doing his suri-ashi:
What does “suri-ashi” mean? Listen to the sound track. It means “sliding feet”. The feet are supposed to slide along the ground when you do suri-ashi, rather than be lifted.
Chiyomanu, on the other hand, was doing… what is he doing?
He was doing this repeatedly. It must be practice! Practice for… er… some father-son day in the distant future, where there will be sack racing?
On the dohyo, Nishikigi was giving butsukari to Onosho:
Easy. Abi giving butsukari to Endo:
Note that if the submissive is too successful and gives the dominant no opportunity to roll him, the dominant will sometimes signal for an itten – in which the submissive symbolically hits his chest, and is then rolled immediately. An itten is also how a butsukari session ends – and sometimes there may be more than one to finish the session (especially in kawaigari sessions).
Tochinoshin offers his chest to Daieisho:
Here is some moshi-ai:
Is that Endo again? Not sure. Meisei beats him, and Abi as well – and Abi is definitely practicing yotsu again.
Tochinoshin takes up Chiyotairyu:
Time to go away and take a relaxing bath. Coming back – in his own van – is the dai-Yokozuna, already in full regalia. And Mongolian though he is, the cold is getting to him, too:
So Kasugaryu wraps him up with his yukata. It’s good to be the king!
I do not have any bouts or even bout photos from this day’s event, but here is a video of the san-yaku soroi-bumi (“kore yori sanyaku”):
What this video tells us is that, for the first time in this Jungyo, Hakuho is participating in the bouts!
Indeed, according to the press, this was the first bout he had since leaving the Aki Jungyo and having his surgery. He beats Takayasu by yori-kiri, to much applause.
And today’s pin-up boy is:
One of the spectators asked him to hold her boy in his arms (dakko – the Japanese believe that if a rikishi holds your child he or she will grow up strong and healthy). After letting him down, he keeps patting the child’s head and talking to him. The kid seems to be interested in his sagari!
I’m seriously digging Shodai’s dragonfly-themed yukata!
Glad to hear Hakuho’s back on the dohyo. I will add the sliding walk to my early morning shiko routine: sumo version of buns of steel!
that’s my little dragonfly – King Dakko – king of the kids ;-)
For tachiai readers who don’t follow the sumo discussions on reddit, John Gunning joined a few days ago and he’s going to do a 1 hour question and answer session next week! It looks like it might take place 10am JST time on Wed the 19th, so that will be 8pm Tues night for East coast USA. Here’s how it came to be: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sumo/comments/a5c7k8/john_gunning_is_real/
It seems that even before the… ugh, sorry, not going with the dom/sub terminology even if it may be more culturally accurate — it seems that even before the trainer receives the charge he pushes off with his front foot to break the traction of his back foot with the ground. Nishikigi, Abi, and Tochinoshin all did it that way.