The yobidashi and supporting crew are hard at work rebuilding the dohyo at the center of the Kokugikan. Each tournament the fighting platform is built or re-built, and made ready to host 15 days of competition. The dohyo and all of the elements that are incorporated into it are built by hand each time, and each tournament the dohyo will be slightly different.
Below is a video from the NSK’s twitter feed, showing a group of yobidashi tamping down fighting surface. Hatsu is only a few days away!
＜土俵築＞大タコ、大突き棒、タタキとなどの道具で表面を固めていきます。#sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/7Di1kiVwEX
— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) January 9, 2019
and a bonus video – consider this the “dohyo dance”
＜土俵築＞呼出が一列になり土俵の土を足で踏み固める様子。#sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/52NEtNayzh
— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) January 9, 2019
The Hatsu basho starts this weekend, we can hardly wait!
Very strange. Is there no NHK World Japan preview for the Jan tournament? The show is not on the schedule. The 1st day last hour is live though.
I was looking at that too — are they counting the year-end report as the preview, I wonder? I mean, it was lovely, but we will always want more.
My favorite dohyou building video, albeit in a heya and not in the Kokugikan.
This is excellent and now I can’t stop thinking about how one would clean one’s footwear after that work. I am such a trivial fan some days :-) .
Hatsu Basho needs to hurry up, it has felt like absolutely ages since I last saw sumo!
After attending Nagoya and Aki last year, I am also sad to not have any plans to head to a basho any time soon :'(( hopefully that can be changed