🌐 Location: Gyoda, Saitama prefecture
Today the Jungyo lands in Saitama. The prefecture boasts one of the finest high-school sumo departments at Saitamasakae high, and accordingly, also boasts many rikishi who call it home. In fact, two top-notch sekitori are in the home-boy position today: Abi and Hokutofuji.
And while Abi has a long line for photos and handshakes inside, Hokutofuji distributes safety pamphlets and shakes hands outside the venue:
Inside the venue, Ichinojo is practicing his shot put. The one tiny thing missing is the shot, of course:
In the “Everybody loves Enho” series, today it’s Kagayaki’s turn to play:
Finally, a video has turned up which will show us what it is that Kakuryu is doing with that strange combination of rubber tube and a towel. I’m sure it will make perfect sense once we watch it:
Errr…. no. It still looks absolutely ridiculous.
The other Yokozuna is getting his morning greetings while Goeido is smearing someone on the dohyo.
It occurs to me that by the time the good mornings are over, the spittoon at the corner of the dohyo is probably full to the brim. Poor yobidashi.
The kawaigari session there doesn’t seem to be related to this short one Goeido is having with Takanosho:
Takayasu is in a mentoring mood this Jungyo. A couple of days ago he tutored Onosho. Today he is giving a proper class to his army of tsukebito. And we finally get to see what the mystery move he was teaching Onosho was:
Why, he is teaching them how to dance like Cossacks!
If you’re wondering, normal sekitori only get to bring one tsukebito to Jungyo. But Ozeki may bring five, and Yokozuna, eight.
This is Tatsunami oyakata:
Aside from being a good-looking fella, he has also been in charge of preparing some of the events – interacting with the sponsors and the like.
Tatsunami oyakata runs a modest heya up in Ibaraki, far away from the sumo hub at Ryogoku. And in that modest heya, he has acquired a gem not long ago. Namely, this guy:
This is, of course, Asashoryu’s nephew, Hoshoryu. Tatsunami oyakata knows quite well this one has a huge potential, and he is doing everything he can to get the boy the best environment in which to develop. That includes apprenticing him to his only sekitori, Meisei, and sending him off to practice at Miyagino and at Isegahama, outside his own ichimon.
I’m pretty sure the plan when setting him as Meisei’s tsukebito was for Hoshoryu to do the Jungyo as early as possible and hobnob with sekitori as much as possible. But the problem is that the NSK introduced a new rule recently, that minors are not to join the Jungyo unless invited by the sponsors. And Hoshoryu is not 20 yet.
So Tatsunami somehow brought him along with him to this event. Not sure exactly what the pretext was, but bottom line, Hoshoryu got to participate in his first Jungyo today. This included all sorts of good stuff like a butsukari session with Tochinoshin. “Wow, Ozeki are that heavy” commented the youngster.
Now, Hoshoryu was only 4-3 last basho, but that doesn’t mean anybody should dismiss him as too weak for the top of Makushita. Take a look at this practice – apparently with Takanofuji (former Takayoshitoshi):
Oh, did he just beat a sekitori? But you may notice Tochinoshin watching him from the side lines. He told him his wrestling style invites his opponent in, and is also dangerous for his knees. “Be careful not to be injured!” admonished the still-Ozeki, who knows what he’s talking about.
Hoshoryu also got workout advice from Kotoshogiku:
Jumping ahead a little, here is his bout with Ichiyamamoto:
Whoa.
Here are some practice bouts. First, Shodai-Shohozan:
Hehehe… the guys really swamp Shodai there in an attempt to get his nod.
Ichinojo-Ryuden, Endo-Takarafuji, Aoiyama-Takayasu:
Practice time over, let’s move on to the afternoon part. Today the Makushita bouts were in the form of “kessho-gonin-nuki”. This means five rikishi on the West face five rikishi on the East. Each takes his turn, and if he wins, he stays on the dohyo with the next opponent from the opposite side. The winner is the first who beats all five opponents. I don’t have the bouts themselves, except the one we have seen with Hoshoryu above. But I do have the gonin-soroi-bumi. That is, the five wrestlers on each side go up on the dohyo and perform synchronized shiko, similar to the san-yaku-soroi-bumi we see at the end of events just before the last three bouts:
Next was the Juryo dohyo-iri. And of course we get an Enho sandwich:
In the dohyo-iri itself, Akiseyama completely breaks the Japanese stand-in-line etiquette.
And Chiyomaru also looks like he is getting ahead of his turn.
The Juryo members change and wait for their bouts, and Chiyomaru decides to tickle Daishomaru in the ass a bit with one of his sagari rods.
I think Chiyomaru may think again before he tries a prank on Daishomaru next time, as he finds himself slammed against the wall.
It’s time for the Makuuchi dohyo-iri. And just a reminder, the one who announces what’s going on is always a gyoji.
In this case, a rather casually seated Shikimori Kinosuke, from Sadogatake beya.
While the Makuuchi rikishi show off their kesho-mawashi, the Yokozuna’s tsukebito work hard at making him pretty for his own dohyo-iri:
Shame on you if you don’t know which Yokozuna that is…
OK, with all dohyo-iri done, it’s time for… what, you thought it’s time for bouts? As far as the Makuuchi rikishi are concerned, it’s time for playing games and goofing around, that’s what it is.
You know sumo wrestlers love sumo when they opt to do sumo to pass the time before they do sumo:
On the other side, four rikishi play rock-papers-scissors. Daieisho is mightily relieved when he wins it. It’s probably another one of the “lose and you get… pain” games that rikishi love so well:
Looks like a group version of atchi-muite-hoi, but I can’t imagine what the rules are when there are three fingers pointing.
Ichinojo checks the order of matches but the fans call from behind. The big man seems to be a bit bewildered by all the attention. Look, there’s even some grandpa aiming a phone at him from the second floor:
That’s what happens when you win too many bouts in honbasho, dear boulder.
Of course we can’t do without our favorite pair of clowns, Nishikigi and Shodai. This time they find a back room in this sports facility, and strain a poor vaulting box that never thought it would have to take that much weight:
The goofy mood spreads all the way to the top, as Takayasu gives Tochinoshin a hearty massage:
Takayasu is generally in a good mood today:
This seems to be post-bout, so he must have beaten Kakuryu in their daily match.
The only match I have today is an “off the list” – an extra bout between local boy Abi and Meisei. Why Meisei? I guess the sponsors wanted a duel of pretty shiko:
I think Meisei didn’t get the memo about letting the local boy win, though.
And I leave you with today’s pin-up rikishi, Kiribayama:
Thanks, Herouth. It’s good to see Abi practicing on the mawashi grip. I hope he continues.
Yes agreed!
(Though given that Abi is the local boy, there are disappointingly few photos of him here…)
There’s headphones hidden beneath that towel, and Kakuryu’s just listening to some awesome music.
The wording of “jumping ahead a little” after a picture of Kotoshogiku giving advice was a cute touch. His signature hug-and-chug is perhaps the most vigorous possible form of jumping ahead a little bit at a time.
Good to see Tochinoshin smiling again, he hasn’t done that enough the last few months.
I know it looks funny, but Kakuryu’s exercise is a way of strengthening his neck. It’s very similar to advice I got from a trainer on how to strengthen my neck when I played rugby. It’s a group of muscles that very few people think about.
Diashomaru always seems like one of the smaller guys until you put him next to Enho. I love seeing that kind of fire coming from Ichinojo.