Hana-zumo

Jungyo Newsreel – December 11th

Herouth Hana-zumo, Jungyo (巡業) , , , , , , , , ,

 

🌐 Location: Kitakyushu, Fukuoka

I hope you will forgive this newsreel for having less content than usual. Today the Tottori police finally handed Harumafuji’s case to the prosecution, and after a few days of having some actual Jungyo news, the press and the media once again focused on the scandal rather than on Sumo.

hakuho-communicating-with-god
O Lord, just let this end and let me do what I do best – Sumo

So, everything today has been picked from Twitter.

First, our sources inform us that there was a clay malfunction today! The dohyo in the Jungyo is made, it turns out, from beer crates, fixed in place, and covered with planks and clay. Somehow something moved, and the clay broke, and morning keiko had to be suspended for quite a while – with fans watching – to do the repairs:

dohyo-repairs

Don’t worry, the rikishi got plenty of workouts. Take this aerobics lesson:

Somebody there is visibly skipping leg day.

Also, weight lifting:

homare-mutsukaze
Homarefuji and Mutsukaze

Apparently, Homarefuji wants to join the Isegahama elite no-knees club, currently including Aminishiki, Terunofuji and Terutsuyoshi. So he opted for lifting Mutsukaze, who weighs above 140kg.

Mutsukaze is a member of the Jinku team, by the way. That, and those face hugging sideburns, make him much more worthy of the title “Sumo Elvis” than Chiyotairyu has ever been!

Once keiko resumed, our sources caught a glimpse of Onosho and Takakeisho in a moshi-age (winner invites next opponent) bout:

In the shitaku-beya, rikishi were taking naps. Take a look at these two:

ryuden-nishikigi-amakaze
Ryuden ❤️ Nishikigi

This photo was actually taken by Amakaze. Apparently, these two lovebirds stole his zabuton, his pillow and his favorite elephant  blanket, which Ryuden held hostage:

Sorry for the neck ache. That’s what happens when you let a rikishi use a camera (yeah, that’s actually Amakaze filming, and desperately shouting at Ryuden “Don’t spill it!”, “Wait, don’t, don’t!”).

To end the entertainment part of this slightly wacky newsreel, here is what Satonofuji looks like when he is not holding a bow:
satonofuji-without-bow

Now here are a few bouts.

Enho vs. Terao, who still tries tsuppari…

Takagenji vs. Osunaarashi:

Edit: The Musubi-no-ichiban finally materialized!

Hakuho 5 – Kakuryu 3. The tie is finally broken.

Tomorrow the Jungyo is on hiatus, and then everybody is going to Okinawa!

Jungyo Newsreel – December 10th

Herouth Hana-zumo, Jungyo (巡業) , , , , , , , , ,

🌐 Location: Kagoshima, Kagoshima

Today’s location was Kagoshima, where 4500 fans came to cheer for the rikishi, particularly the Kagoshima-born Chiyomaru and Daiamami. Daiamami, as a freshman, drew most of the attention. Accordingly, Kakuryu invited him to san-ban and butsukari.

kakuryu-butsukari-daiamami

The san-ban part consisted of 9 bouts, and as would be expected, Kakuryu won them all. This was followed by butsukari, but at this point Daiamami somehow came to admit that he “wasn’t doing enough keiko”.

The butsukari that followed turned out to be rather punishing for the local. Despite much support from the spectators, he hardly had any pushing power, and found himself rolling frequently:

Kakuryu was relentless, and after about 10 minutes, the session ended like this:

Daiamami did come to, and went through the thank-you ceremony at the end, albeit in a bit of a hazy state:

“This is all because you don’t do keiko”, scolded the Yokozuna after the keiko session was over. “I didn’t work you out that hard. You shouldn’t be exhausted by that much. You should do keiko every day.” Kasugano oyakata, who sat on the sidelines during the session, added his own voice to the scolding. “Both veterans and youngsters should go up the dohyo with vigor. It’s your job. There are fans watching.”

Kakuryu added: “The butsukari is not over. When we get to a warmer place, I’ll continue it”, hinting that when the Jungyo gets to its Okinawa leg he is going to be grilling Daiamami again.

By the way, did you notice Nishikigi hovering worried over Daiamami in the video above? This is typical of Nishikigi, who has earned the nickname “Mommy Nishikigi” for caring for rikishi during keiko, wiping sweat, etc.

OK, switching to the light side of the day’s event. First, Halt! Yokozuna aboard!

Enho works out in what seems to be a rather painful way:

Tobizaru, the Flying Monkey, tries to imitate him…

Er, no banana for you…

Isegahama beya took up the kiddie sumo as a team today:

isegahama-kiddies
Takarafuji, Terutsuyoshi, Aminishiki exchanging tykes

Where’s Homarefuji? Well, funny that you should ask!

Sumo with the older, more serious young sumo hopefuls was taken up by Kokonoe. Specifically, Chiyomaru, the other local.

Yep, that’s a big kid. But Chiyomaru is not Hikarugenji, either, if you catch my drift.

Here is the NHK coverage for the day, in which you’ll see Daiamami having recovered from the morning’s troubles, and beating Okinoumi in their torikumi.

You’ll also see Hakuho doing a baby dohyo-iri. This time we get to see the excited parents at the end. “He passed near us, and I asked if he’ll give the child a ‘dakko’. And he said a good-natured ‘yes’, so I quickly undressed her and handed her over” said mom.

More torikumi:

Takayasu vs. Goiedo

Takayasu complains about his lack of practice, but somehow ends up with the kensho-kin. Goeido having trouble with his ankle again?

Note Mitakeumi rising at the end to give the chikara-mizu on the opposite side. This means he has won his own torikumi (vs. Yoshikaze).

Musubi-no-ichiban:

Hakuho 4 – Kakuryu 3. Close call, there?

Again, note the applause Satonofuji gets when he arrives at the side of the dohyo. Very popular, that man.

satonofuji-popular
Also popular as a picture subject

 

Jungyo Newsreel – December 9th

Herouth Hana-zumo, Jungyo (巡業) , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

🌐 Location: Kumamoto, Kumamoto

Today an Ozeki and a Yokozuna started practicing in earnest. Takayasu, who has been practicing mostly with rikishi of Makushita and below, selected Nishikigi for san-ban practice, which consisted of five bouts, all won by Takayasu. He then followed that by naming Tochinoshin as his next opponent.

takayasu-with-tochinoshin

Now, this was a whole different power level, and the san-ban started with 3 consecutive losses for the Ozeki. He rallied and won 3 times, but then he started favoring his damaged leg, and lost the next three bouts.

“Not enough practice. It’s not real sumo yet”, commented the Ozeki. “My leg takes its time recovering, but if I do nothing at all, my entire body will lose its power. I have to work my body back into its normal condition.”

Yokozuna Kakuryu also chose this day to step up his practice, after doing mostly dohyo-side workouts. He – unsurprisingly – picked Shodai as his san-ban opponent. This consisted of 10 bouts, all of which the Yokozuna won.

kakuryu-butsukari-shodai

Kakuryu demonstrated various dashi-nage, yori and sukui-nage techniques in that series of bouts. However, this Jungyo event took place in Kumamoto, which is Shodai’s home territory, and Kakuryu seemed to consider his total dominance over the maegashira to be perhaps unsatisfactory for the fans. So he followed the san-ban with some butsukari.

When interviewed, the Yokozuna talked to the press about the state of his health. He said that favoring his injured foot has over-strained his back, and a few days before the Kyushu basho, after he went to sleep, he could not get up in the morning. “I was agonizing over the decision to go kyujo again”, he said.

He has consulted a specialist, and has taken special care of the affected area. “I have many injuries, but I do not want to give in to them. I want to overcome this. I will overcome this.”

Now let’s turn to the entertainment part of this event. As I told you, Shodai was the man of the day, and was supposed to be the center of attention in the kiddie sumo event. Only… Ikioi decided to steal his thunder.

You know how boring it is to wait in your kesho-mawashi until you are called up to the dohyo to do your dohyo-iri? Well, I don’t suppose any of the readers here has ever worn a kesho-mawashi, so you probably don’t know how boring it is. But Daieisho and Takakeisho found a way to pass the time.

This is called “Teoshi-zumo”. The rules are simple – you can only hit or touch the opponent’s hands. You lose if you move a foot.

Amakaze was in a specially sunny mood today as he waited for his torikumi. He helped the television crews with their work:

And offered “help” undressing:

So, speaking of torikumi, let’s start with a few at Makushita. But first, it appears that Enho and Tobizaru decided to have their own unofficial bout:

They then proceeded each to his own official one. Here is a – rather odd – bout between Terao and Enho:

It’s a bit hard to use tsuppari when your opponent is, like, a meter below you.

Then came the bout between Tobizaru and Akua:

Akua is a patient fellow.

Moving up to Makuuchi, we have the bout of the geriatrics, Aminishiki vs. Takekaze.

I keep fearing that one of Aminishiki’s limbs will simply come off and roll down the dohyo. But he somehow manages to keep them intact, with duct tape and spit.

You can see Shodai’s bout in this video from NHK (as well as some of Kakuryu’s san-ban mentioned above):

Onosho once again tries to win without his red mawashi? Tsk, tsk…

And I’m getting a bit tired of NHK opening every one of its reports of the Jungyo with “The Jungyo, which has been shaken by the Harumafuji incident, took place today at…”.

And the musubi-no-ichiban:

Hakuho 3 – Kakuryu 3

[cough, cough]

BTW, Takayasu is back on the torikumi, but Terunofuji [sigh] is no longer on it.

Finally, Osunaarashi shared this image of today’s shitakubeya (preparation room)… Lovely, but the rikishi were not allowed to use the pool. 😢

shitaku-beya

 

Jungyo Newsreel – December 8th

Herouth Hana-zumo, Jungyo (巡業) , , , , , , , , , , ,

🌐 Location: Miyazaki, Miyazaki

Today the Jungyo landed at Miyazaki city, where 3000 spectators thronged the entrances.

ichinojo-kiddies
Planet Ichinojo attracts two new satellites to its orbit

Hakuho participated in morning practice for the first time. On previous days, he settled for stretches and workouts below the dohyo. Today he named Shodai – ever popular with top-rankers – for sanban. This involved 8 bouts, all of which Hakuho won.

hakuho-shodai

These bouts involved various throws and force-outs. “I was testing my dohyo sense”, commented the Dai-Yokozuna to the press.

Today I have lots of bouts for you. But as a warm up, first enjoy Abi’s shiko, which is considered one of the best ones. Up and straight. Even Hakuho can’t do that…

OK, so let’s start with Gagamaru vs. Yago. Here is a loooooong nodowa. Oshidashi.

And here is Terutsuyoshi in a tsuri-dashi. Too bad he is going to drop to Makushita at Hatsu.

Amakaze invents a new style of gaburi-yori. More like kangaroo-yori.

Aminishiki vs. Kaisei. Aminishiki gets a lot of support, and gambarizes.

And the musubi-no-ichiban. Note how the crowd applauds as Satonofuji bows in from the hana-michi.

Hakuho 3 – Kakuryu 2.

So, speaking about Satonofuji, here is one of your last chances to see his yumi-tori shiki: