Today’s event was supposed to have been day 10, but of the three events in Shizuoka prefecture, the one at Izu – which was the place where the typhoon made its landfall – has been cancelled. Around noon October 13th, the rikishi finally left Yamanashi prefecture and headed around Mt. Fuji, down to Shizuoka, in big buses. There have been no safety issues for the rikishi and their support staff from the weather.
🌐 Location: Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture
Shizuoka prefecture does not have a sekitori home boy. They were, however, thrilled to have the very fresh home boy, who is from Yaizu itself, Yoshii.
With only three tournaments as a ranked rikishi, this Sandanme man is still sporting a zanbara, but the town is very proud of him.
Let’s move around and see what everybody is up to. Here is Wakatakamoto, the big Onami brother. Despite being still far from attaining sekitori status, he is hanging out with the ones who did:
But just having a laugh with Ichiyamamoto and Kaisho will not get him into a white mawashi, now, would it? So recently he has been getting some personal coaching from Ikioi, observed by his future stablemaster, Sokokurai:
Ikioi then demonstrates the proper way to do suri-ashi. Sokokurai then prompts Wakatakamoto to follow suit:
At this rate, big brother is going to have mighty leg muscles!
He is not the only black mawashi rikishi practicing with sekitori. Kyokusoten grapples with Daishoho, watched by Daieisho (warming up) and Tsurugisho (stretching):
Looks like Kyokusoten’s technique is really improving lately. Will he finally make sekitori in 2020?
But that very professional scene soon turns into… this…
Somebody call in the Compliance Committee!
Tochiozan is doing some suri-ashi below the dohyo:
Shodai multitasks: stretching and clipping his nails.
I know there were some readers outraged at this in the past, but please notice that all clippings fall onto his personal towel.
Hakuho also stretches:
Goeido does his usual rubber band exercises. I wonder why his tsukebito is apprehensive. Goeido has not been known to let go of the band and hit his tsukebito, which is Hakuho’s favorite prank.
Enho is practicing with Shohozan. And despite the shortness of this video, it’s top entertainment:
Up on the dohyo, Tochinoshin, as usual, does his combo butsukari-moshiai with the Juryo and Makuuchi rank-and-filers:
I believe one of his partners for this has been Kaisho, which means he very sandy. Yago is helping him wiping it off:
Very kind of him!
While Aoiyama and Okinoumi settle down for their moshi-ai bout, the other rikishi waiting for the next shouting match are having a bit of a laugh:
So here is the NSK’s keiko video, which includes various kinds of practice today:
Today’s shokkiri combo is Ebisumaru and Onojo. Shobushi, who was yesterday’s star, is taking a break.
Ebisumaru is not just a comedian, though. He is also very diligent about his exercise:
But it’s time for Juryo bouts! Well, actually, let’s start with a Sandanme bout – local boy Yoshii faces Teraoumi:
Now we can move to Juryo. Once again, Ichiyamamoto demonstrates his air-drumming skills. Only this time, he does it on the back of Midorifuji.
Yes, Midorifuji is one of the special guests in this Jungyo event, being a Shizuoka native. As such, he gets to do a Juryo bout today, and wears a fine oicho-mage. And gets drummed by Ichiyamamoto. His bout, however, is with Asagyokusei:
I’m sure he wishes he could win that easily in honbasho…
When Kizakiumi finishes his bout, he tries to return to the shitakubeya. But Kiribayama informs him “You cannot pass!”.
Eventually Kiribayama decides he is not a Balrog and lets him through.
In the Makuuchi dohyo-iri, it seems Daieisho is still angry with Tamawashi for his part in yesterday’s gang-up. Tamawashi tries to raise his hand for a wave, but Daieisho yanks it back:
In the dohyo-iri on the other side, Goeido seems to be pretty amused (for Goeido, anyway). Can you guess why?
Tsurugisho is behind him. And he shouldn’t be. Ozeki are the last ones to mount the dohyo for dohyo-iri. Tsurugisho was late, and somehow couldn’t slip into the line at his correct position.
This is to be followed by Yokozuna dohyo-iri. And of course, Ishiura is still absent, and Terutsuyoshi is absolutely thrilled at having Enho all to himself:
Enho, on the other hand, seems to have a “Please, Ishiura, come back quickly” face.
And that’s it – I do not have Makuuchi bouts today, sorry. Your pin-up for the day is local boy Midorifuji!
my favourite pixie made pinup! yaaay
and that’s my Yago – always helpful and polite :-)
Good to see Ebisumaru practising his DDP Yoga!
Man…the nails…I saw a dude doing that on the train one time. Saw another plucking out his (sparse) facial hair. Ugh…
This (American?) aversion to this stuff kind of amuses me. Nail clippings. They seem a lot more hygienic and harmless to spread around (though basically one shouldn’t litter) than chip crumbs. And yet people have no “yuck factor” with somebody eating a bag of chips on the train, but do with nail clipping.
In DC, eating on the train is dame. I do find it highly disrespectful to leave crap behind…wrappers, crumbs, pieces of your body…ewwwwww…
Thank you for always providing great summaries–I really appreciate the hard work by Tachiai staff to help the English speaking community stay up to date with everything sumo! In future, could you please try to provide photo sources? There are some folks from the Japanese twitter community who are not pleased that their photos have been used without permission and/or that there isn’t at least credit back to the source (videos are directly linked/sourced but photos are not). They also say they don’t know how to directly contact anyone at the Tachiai website; I didn’t see a way, either, which is why I’m leaving this comment. The folks I’ve heard from are the people who took/posted the photos (the ones that aren’t from the Kyokai’s twitter; but, as best practice, I think even those photos should be sourced). I don’t intend to sound discourteous towards Tachiai, or self-righteous, and I’m not saying you must source the photos used. In no way do I intend to threaten the integrity of the Tachiai website. This isn’t a matter of people craving higher visibility for likes and retweets.This is an issue (digital content & copyrights) I’ve been trying to help people with in the Japanese online community for a long time, as they (especially artists and photographers) are very outspoken about their works being used without permission (although that is oftentimes for commercial purposes, which is obviously not the case here). However, many of these people know that there is no legal action to be taken so they refrain from or are too shy to confront anyone, or they struggle with a language barrier. And, too often, these people will cease from sharing their works and/or remove them entirely from the internet. I try to help both parties, however, therefore it’s also part of my ‘job’ per se to inform people of the option to watermark their work! Some people are too lazy to do this, but they view the people using the photos as lazy by not crediting! So, sometimes it’s a no-win for anyone. But, a lot of the time, people are happy just by seeing an attempt at crediting. And, on the other side, your readers might discover a new person to follow or more photos/news of their favorite rikishi. In this age of digital sharing and the issue of who has rights, it’s not my job to police people, just to deliver a message (I apologize it’s a very long message). It would be a shame if these folks stop sharing their photos because they feel no one is listening to them. Thank you for reading this and for your attention regarding this matter. Please let me know if you would like to discuss this matter in further detail.
No need to apologize. I apologize. Tweet me directly (@tachiai_blog) and I will remove pictures. My DMs are open. I will talk to all contributors to make sure we’re on the same page and will state the policy in a post this weekend. Thank you!
It’s relieving to see the rikishi in these lighthearted moods despite the troubles. I am honestly impressed that Enho seems so chipper, I can only imagine the pressure of possibly becoming Hakuho’s highest ranking student ever on top of being so popular already. Or maybe they’re all just happy they don’t have to train in the middle of a typhoon? Seems likely. I would appreciate if Shodai chose to clip his nails in a more private place, though.