This weekend there were a couple of news items to update you on. Terutsuyoshi held his retirement ceremony at Kokugikan on Sunday. This event featured an eight-man round robin between non-sekitori from the extended Isegahama-beya. Unfortunately, I am not able to embed this Tweet like I I usually am for other tweets (probably for some silly billionaire-instigated reason) but “Mika_midori0830” shared video of each bout. Satorufuji claimed the yusho against Shinhakuho in the final.
Along with the usual jinku, Terutsuyoshi’s event had performances from singers, a shamisen duo, and even Chinese acrobats. Among those in line to cut his top-knot, Chiyotairyu came and gave him a great big hug while words from Meisei gave him a great big smile. Interviewed by Sakai Ichiro, Terutsuyoshi said that he had told Miyagino-oyakata that he wasn’t going to cry. But Miyagino told him that as people take their turns cutting his hair, he would have flashbacks and be overcome by the emotions. And Terutsuyoshi felt that was true.
Freshly shorn Terutsuyoshi thanked his guests for their support. The new coif sure suits the man, doesn’t it?
Sumo Stateside
Meanwhile, several former rikishi are sporting mawashi in the United States. Out in California a band of wrestlers from the professional and amateur sumo worlds are participating in “All Star Sumo“. The pair of events are headlined by Ichinojo and Hiroki, a former Juryo-ranked rikishi who played Enō’s giant nemesis in the Netflix hit, “Sanctuary”. We hear news from Bradley (crazysocktv) that Hiroki won last night’s tournament and proposed to his girlfriend. Congratulations, Hiroki! Next weekend they will be in San Francisco.
Lastly, you all have heard me for a while now about Konishiki’s Sumo and Sushi events. They wrap up their NYC tour and head down here to DC next weekend. I wanted to share with you all the experience had by the good chaps of the New York Sumo Club. They rolled up at the NYC event with their own mawashi! Oscar Dolan leads the club and he hopped up there with Rolan Vargas and Daniel Douglas.
I really hope the Instagram embed will stay up for a while. The video of their bouts with the Sumo and Sushi rikishi is below. What was not in this video…but hopefully might have been captured by others at the show or by a Sumo and Sushi film crew, were some pointers given to them by Konishiki himself as he critiqued their shiko, suriashi, and butsukari.
I think the hands-on approach they got there is a key thing that we need more of here. It’s why I’m always excited to see Gagamaru at the events in Texas and our amateur wrestlers suiting up and participating in keiko with the universities and even with some of the pro stables when y’all are in Japan. Trying to guess at what is going on and replicate it here is one thing. Actually getting tips is quite the other. I mean having Konishiki tell Meccha and Otani, “oh, move him this way or that way.” That’s one hell of an experience.
If these go to the next level, beyond introducing people to sumo as spectators, and instead actually advancing sumo in practice, that’s incredibly cool. And that is what gets me more and more excited about these events. More of these professionally hosted events are important because it will draw in even more people. There are those folks (lots of those folks) who remain on the sidelines and who are hesitant to get involved when it’s a few friends in a backyard or even a rented hall with an impromptu dohyo. But those folks might actually get the confidence and have the assurance that it is (relatively) safe AND fun.
I mean, it is a combat sport but not everyone is ready to face an Abi-like barrage of tsuppari or get thrown on Day 1 or Day 10 or Day 110. Landing on whatever dohyo they had set up at the Sumo and Sushi event was a hell of a lot better than when I fell off the ladder in the backyard and landed on that rock. It was a bit of a shock to find myself tumbling through the air. When I landed, I got up, checked myself to make sure I was intact, and then I felt like the baby dinosaur from that 90s sitcom Dinosaurs. “AGAIN!” And when guys like Konishiki set up a safe environment and show you like they did for the NY Sumo Club, “No, no, no. Do it this way,” it starts to move that needle a bit more…in my humble opinion. I mean, let’s face it. There are very few sports or physical activities out there that promise to be as body-positive as sumo. But no one wants to be left, like Takayasu, to crawl himself over to the big wheel chair.
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