🌐 Location: Tsu, Mie prefecture
The Jungyo doubles back to Mie prefecture where it began. This time to the beautiful city named Tsu. And I was very excited to receive a treasure of photos and videos from this event courtesy of Simon Davies and Blanca Bolea, who got up at 4:55 in Hasunuma and took no less 4 trains and a local bus to get to Tsu. Simon says it was worth it.
There were also many Japanese Twitter users who posted about this particular event, so this may turn out to be quite a long post. Brace yourselves, here we go!
As usual, the event starts with handshakes with the fans. Nishikigi decides he is a great admirer of Kagayaki and Shohozan and stands in line to shake their hands:
Shohozan enjoys the novel idea and also joins the Kagayaki fan club:
Sekitori were stretching around the perimeter of the main hall. Here we have the Mongolian corner:
At some point Sokokurai also joined them. At another corner, sad Yutakayama is sad:
But not to worry! As soon as Yoshoyama is there, Yutakayama’s mood improves:
Yoshoyama, serving in this Jungyo as Yutakayama’s tsukebito, as he has turned 20 recently, is one of the younger generation of Mongolians. When he joined at the end of 2017, his strength scores were impressive so there were high expectations of him, but he wasn’t too brilliant since then. He does have only one make-koshi so far. He is certainly not up to the level of youngsters like Hoshoryu or Roga, but only time will tell whether he will get stuck, like Kyokusoten, in the eternal tsukebito position, or eventually be added to the count of Tokitsukaze’s sekitori.
Speaking of Kyokusoten, in previous Jungyo he was serving as tsukebito for his brother-in-law, Tamawashi. This time he was called in as part of Kakuryu’s team:
I hope he makes good use of the Kakuryu sumo academy.
Back to the practicing rikishi along the walls and the hana-michi, let’s compare Takakeisho’s weight lifting:
To Ryuden’s:
Takakeisho says he has lost muscle tone as a result of his Ozeki promotion, fulfilling obligations, so he is working on his lower body in this Jungyo. But if you ask me, Ryuden is doing it more correctly – he is lifting with his legs, while Takakeisho is mostly just bending and straightening his back.
Ryuden was also doing… this thing:
…which looks more like his tsukebito is molesting him in slow motion. I guess it’s supposed to be the same as Kakuryu’s towel-and-rubber exercise from yesterday? What muscle group is this meant to target? Not sure.
At least Kyokushuho’s exercise makes sense:
Ishiura was doing his ballet exercises at the barre:
OK, not really. He is merely reaching out for the shikishi some fan is handing him to autograph.
Enho is looking a bit lost. He is doing his fansa duties, but still not participating in any real sumo.
Maybe all this idleness is what causes Mitoryu to ask for his hand in marriage:
OK, I’m guessing not really, but once again, everybody wants a piece of Enho. I even saw Takagenji pawing him.
Speaking of idling, here are the graduates of Kinki university, not exercising, or stretching, or anything.
Arawashi is not idle. He hugs a sack of salt:
Maybe he is trying to protect it from Terutsuyoshi. Speaking of whom, the sassy pixie is demonstrating some kinjite to Tamawashi:
Yeah, eye poking is definitely a kinjite.
Yokozuna in the house!
And thus everybody comes to greet him, as is appropriate:
Hakuho is much more attentive than usual. There is, of course, a similar line to greet Kakuryu:
He waits patiently for all the greetings and honors to complete, then quickly walks over to get some instructions from the Jungyo master, Kasugano oyakata.
We have seen these yokozuna greeting lines in the past, but did you know that Ozeki also receive similar honors?
So now that Hakuho is here, he starts exercising. And as is usual for him, if he sees a camera, he stares directly at it:
He was also stretching and doing suri-ashi
But Simon thought y’all would be interested in the fact that he is also doing upper body exercises:
Tochinoshin is looking mighty pleased:
Well, he has good reason to. It seems his practice bouts are getting better and better. Here is one:
Simon reports this was the third win in a row. Here is another one, vs. Asanoyama:
And one vs. Mitakeumi:
Of course, Tochinoshin is not the only one exercising. Here we have Takanosho vs. the two Onami brothers, Wakatakakage and Wakamotoharu.
Ryuden-Myogiryu, Ryuden-Shohozan, Shohozan-Tamawashi:
Ryuden-Meisei:
Asanoyama-Mitakeumi:
Tamawashi-Hokutofuji:
Tamawashi nearly falls of the dohyo there, but Tomokaze saves him just in time.
Exercise time over. We turn to official bouts. And… I did tell you this one is going to be long, didn’t I? This Twitter user had lots and lots of bouts from the lower divisions. I’m not going to include all, only ones I thought would be interesting:
First, I mentioned Yoshoyama above. So if you’re curious about his sumo, here he is against Shosei from Sakaigawa beya:
This is not the last tsuri-dashi of the day.
Here is Hokutoshu vs. Daishoryu. This bout shows us why it’s so important for rikishi to maintain their flexibility:
This one, between Sakaekaze and Tochimitsuru is pretty strange.
It looks like Tochimitsuru is desparately trying to avoid contact.
This next one is between Asakura, Shodai’s tsukebito, and pretty-boy Toshonishiki, whom I introduced as one of our pin-up boys, and who also appeared in yesterday’s maiko photo. So, what kind of sumo does Toshonishiki do?
Um… apparently, Takanoyama style.
Asakura, by the way, will have his shikona changed to Hakuomaru in the next banzuke.
Time for Juryo dohyo-iri… and as we have already noted, Sokokurai has taken the duties of Juryo nipple tweaker this Jungyo:
Don’t! 
I said don’t! 
A wall, that’s the solution.
Since we are back in Mie prefecture, the main star of the day is Shimanoumi. And he certainly has a large crowd of supporters:
(Both c/o Simon&Blanca)
Shimanoumi went againts Chiyomaru today.
Chiyomaru did try to pull something at the edge, but you see Shimanoumi’s hand? That’s called “kaina-kaeshi”. When you have an arm inside, you can turn it round so the palm faces outwards and the little finger is upwards. This serves to unlock ottsuke or weaken mawashi holds. Shimanoumi wins (this bout is in the summary video at the end).
OK then, Makuuchi dohyo-iri. And if you think that nipple tweaking has been relegated to Sokokurai, think again. Chichiwashi and Nishikigi are ganging up on Meisei:
So… let’s take a look at some bouts. First, Simon reports to us that Abi is definitely working on his mawashi skills:
That’s Onosho he is disposing of there. Also, that Nishikigi is genki:
Other than that, today seems to be wedgie day. There is this minor one from the recovering Tochinoshin vs. the little Ozeki that could (but not this time):
Video of this bout:
Then, there is this one, Tomokaze vs. Kotoeko:
But the wedgie yusho definitely goes to aoiyama.
Shohozan is heading straight to the fertility clinic after this one.
The Musubi-no-ichiban, thankfully, included no wedgies:
Kakuryu still not winning.
So here is a summary video from Mie news. Points of note:
- Interview with the mayor of Shima (Shimanoumi’s home town) and with Shimanoumi’s mom.
- Hakuho does his dohyo-iri without the supporter on his injured arm.
- Kaisei vs. Hokutofuji
- Tochinoshin vs. Takakeisho, close up. Note Tochinoshin is not wearing his leg brace.
- Aoiyama vs. Shohozan
And we finish with our default pin-up boy:
So many thanks to Simon and Blanca for their awesome contribution!
I know I’m skipping ahead a day on you here, but boy am I happy that Ichinojo’s back is better and that he’s joined the jungyo! I’m really hoping he can ride the wave of momentum out of Haru and on to greater things (though nothing is a certiantly when it comes to the Boulder.)
Massive, wonderful and welcome – thank you for another installment on the Jungyo field report. My hearty thanks to Simon Davies and Blanca Bolea!
I genuinely thought that Gōeidō received a greetings queue mostly because of being the birthday boy… Interesting :o
Because of that, I thought he’d be the main focus of (almost) everyone, yet such a pleasant surprise here (and I’m saying so as a Gōeidō fan, tho it’s kinda sad that you didn’t post a pic of him with a birthday cake). Big kudos to Simon & Bianca for their contribution! :D
I didn’t actually see such a pic. Now that you mentioned it, I went to see Azechi’s Twitter feed (he is Hakuho’s personal reporter/photographer/cameraman), and there was a cake pic there. Apparently, this was exclusive to rikishi and media, so no fan pics. I’m guessing he prefers to keep his birthdays private? I know I always ask my employers not to make it a public matter.
Very entertaining and informative, as usual. Thanks so much, Herouth!
I note Takakeisho is still deploying one-two tsuppari — not his honbasho style at all…
Maybe that’s his “diversification”. I think he is more concerned about getting those leg muscles back and less about winning exhibition bouts. I note that there are fewer if any keiko bouts he participates in, as opposed to Tochinoshin.
Very encouraging picture of Abi