A couple of years ago, there was a great learning application called Naro. One of the courses they offered was about sumo, featuring Konishiki. Unfortunately, Naro is not around anymore and as a part of the liquidation, I acquired the sumo footage. Basically, they sat down with Konishiki for a series of interviews over three days. The interviews are peppered with explanations and anecdotes about the life and his experience. They had a series of topical “Arcs” which they followed through the interviews, much of which didn’t make it into the final videos.

Also as a part of the interviews, they include some live action demonstrations featuring former wrestlers…including former Tooyama. You might recognize Tooyama from one of the John Wick movies. I recognize Tooyama as the guy who threw me onto my butt at Sumo + Sushi.

Anyway, my grand plans involved creating these great super-cuts on various topics, like “Shikona,” “Oshi-zumo vs Yotsu-zumo” and “Being Ozeki” or “Becoming Ozeki.” I have used a couple of the pictures and videos in drips and drabs already in some random posts, when they were relevant. My lower division coverage, for example, I use a picture from that session.

Well, this editing process is taking a long time. Too long. It’s time to get some of this out to you all, so here is the first installment: “Arrival in Japan.” I’ll still work on the topical super-cuts, but let’s just get some of this raw footage out. In these videos, Konishiki speaks casually and off-the-cuff about his life in the Sumo Association. It’s quite interesting to hear his perspective looking back on how things were 40 years ago and it gives a lot of context.

Sometimes he touches on issues which are rather sensitive topics in the sport, like bullying and abuse. In this video, around the 16-minute mark the Naro team ask him about why he stayed. He quickly and quite frankly talks about how leaving wasn’t an option. They took his passport away. Well, that definitely got my attention. That’s one of the signs we’re trained to look for in Human Trafficking.

More of these videos will follow. I’m eager to get these out, even if it’s not going to be quite the polished product that I had hoped. As always, I’m interested to hear what you all think. More to come.