Hello Tachiai readers. Hohisashiburi! Today, not many of the big names of the lower divisions were in play – there’s going to be a big burst of them tomorrow – but still, I collected several bouts for you, including three loose themes:
🌐 Location: Hachinohe, Aomori
August 16 saw the rikishi reach Aomori. There are no less than 18 active rikishi from Aomori – six of them from Isegahama beya. Why? Because Isegahama oyakata is from Aomori. Aminishiki, Takarafuji and Homarefuji hail from Aomori. Unfortunately, Takarafuji is kyujo this jungyo. So only Aminishiki and Homarefuji represented the heya in this day’s event.
Aminishiki wished to have his photograph taken with his son in his home prefecture. He couldn’t do dohyo-iri with him (I have seen no babies or toddlers in this Jungyo’s dohyo-iri). But he did get that photo taken:
Note the matching kesho-mawashi.
In the event itself, Aminishiki and Homarefuji chose to kill two birds with one stone, and practice together to the cheers of the local crowd:
The Isegahama men were not the only ones celebrated this day. There were also the Sasayama brothers, Daiseido and his older brother, who maintains his original surname:
Of course, the most prominent Aomori-born rikishi is Onosho, currently the only Makuuchi wrestler from that prefecture. Takayasu, who does san-ban with him almost every day, gave him butsukari today instead:
＜夏巡業@八戸市＞髙安と阿武咲のぶつかり稽古。次は１８日に帯広市で巡業が行われます。https://t.co/c1UXpx8lDP #sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/7LWqSLdQp6
— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) August 16, 2018
This meant that the Ozeki had to look elsewhere for his san-ban. And Mitakeumi was his partner of choice:
＜夏巡業@八戸市＞髙安と御嶽海の稽古。#sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/uMB5bLARPa
— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) August 16, 2018
In non-Aomori news, Hakuho kept messing with his tsukebito. That rubber band. Somebody aught to take it away from him.
白鵬、弟子をかわいがり事件。
(トレーニング中にわざとゴムを手から離して、弟子にパチン！こういう先輩いたいたw)#大相撲 #地方巡業 #八戸場所 #白鵬 #応援してる pic.twitter.com/sW20lYUwob— えりんご★LINEスタンプ作成中 (@eringopanda) August 16, 2018
Of course, the Yokozuna also performed his dohyo-iri with the rest of the Yokozuna.
Nice wolf-themed kesho-mawashi. The writing at the bottom says “Hakuho’s Hokkaido Support Group”. The Yokozuna doesn’t have just one support group, it appears.
Here is a video with the events of the day and lots of bouts:
You may notice the spectators shouting “keppare” to Onosho. “Keppare” is the Aomori version of the word “Gambare” used in central Japan. The word is used generally in Tohoku and also in Hokkaido. So instead of gambarizing, the northern folk kepparize. :-)
All the local boys win… (Nishikigi seems to be considered local due to being from Tohoku). Daiseido’s brother, Sasayama, also won his bout vs. Kyokusoten earlier.
While the Jungyo is taking place, the rikishi who are not in the Jungyo are either in their Tokyo heya practicing, or going around doing various training camps. Isegahama beya had its traditional training camp at Aomori (mostly) – together with Tatsunami beya. The day after the Aomori Jungyo event was a rest day for the Jungyo, and this coincided with Isegahama’s conclusion of aforesaid training camp. They had a pep rally to celebrate that conclusion and cheer on their rikishi – and conveniently, the Isegahama sekitori and tsukebito were still at Aomori and could join their heya for the day:
And with this little side trip away from the Jungyo, I conclude today’s report. And there is absolutely no Enho today. Nor Tobizaru, nor Arawashi. The ladies of Aomori simply refused to share the pretty faces of the sumo world with the rest of us.
All I can give you is Hoshoryu, who – for some reason – participated in the Isegahama event:
(Yeah, it was a joint training camp, but it doesn’t seem to be a joint rally)
🌐 Location: Nanyo, Yamagata
The Jungyo continues to make its way north, and stopped this time at cloudy Nanyo.
Like the Nobori in the above picture, the rikishi were all over town – not just inside the venue. Onosho was appointed Chief of Police for the day:
Ikioi went to a local charitable facility to cheer the residents. No pics – modest guy, I guess.
August 11th is a public holiday called “Mountain day” – “Yama no hi”. And some rikishi were showing appreciation for mountains, or rather, for slopes:
This quickly turned into this:
Note that in Japanese, practice outdoors is called “mountain practice” (yama-geiko). But this looks suspiciously more like fun than like practice.
Inside the venue, two Yokozuna who missed the previous day’s keiko reported for duty today:
Kisenosato apparently hurt his heel a couple of days ago. Yesterday he was excused from all activities and didn’t show up in the venue at all. Today he was doing some basics around the dohyo, and his dohyo-iri. No torikumi. He says the heel is improving.
Hakuho gave a more detailed report of his injury. Apparently no cartilage was found found out of place in his knee, only some soft tissue “lump” which he’ll be treating with medication. He has already begun, and will have to take it easy for a few days. He says it’s like “having a bomb”, which I guess means he wants to be very careful about returning to activity. In addition, he also received some treatment for his other knee, where he had an old injury.
He returned to his routine so far, which included light off-dohyo practice:
<夏巡業@南陽市>土俵下で稽古。白鵬。#sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/thg8XUaN9q
— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) August 11, 2018
And also a rope-tying demonstration and dohyo-iri. Again, no torikumi. The only Yokozuna participating in the bouts was Kakuryu.
The star of the day was Hakuyozan, the Makushita yusho winner who is about to return to Juryo. He hails from Yamagata. This made him the chosen victim partner for Goeido for some butsukari:
Yes, Goeido seems to be back as well. I didn’t see any explanation of the nature of his absence.
Hakuyozan also became very sought after for fansa:
白鷹山大人気 pic.twitter.com/zl8B8jtqu2
— 1歩グミカンパニー (@kazu47r_as_k) August 11, 2018
And the reason you see him wearing an oicho-mage in this video is because he had a Juryo torikumi as well, facing Homarefuji:
Here is another moshi-ai photo for you. Takakeisho is going all out to be chosen:
Chiyomaru’s torikumi with Myogiryu. Apparently, Chiyomaru belly-bumps the veteran over the tawara. It’s called a yori-kiri, but only because the name hara-kiri is already taken:
But fear not, I shall not leave you with just stills of bouts. Here is a video which includes:
By the way, those makeshift kensho flags are another one of the duties of gyoji in the Jungyo:
To wrap things up, here is Enho, this time with guest stars Terutsuyoshi and Chiyonoo:
🌐 Location: Katsuyama, Fukui
Today, the sumo nobori flags were flapping in the wind in Katsuyama city.
Those of you with sharp eyes (and Kanji skills) will note some flags that one doesn’t normally see in honbasho. For example, a flag for Kimura Ginjuro – the gyoji, and a flag for… Naruto beya, which is certainly not participating in the Jungyo due to having as yet no sekitori whatsoever.
The rikishi practiced. Not only on the dohyo, but all over the venue. Take a look at Ryuden lifting weights. Well, the sort of weights that are available in abundance in the Jungyo:
The towel, by the way, is a point of courtesy. Keeps your sweat away from your partner.
Ishiura was busy… nail gazing? I thought that was reserved only for yokozuna.
So… maybe this is not actually a practice photo. It seems there is a line forming (that’s Homarefuji behind him), which probably means they are waiting to greet one of the Yokozuna.
But here is some actual practice. Wakatakakage seems to be doing an off-dohyo reverse butsukari for Mitakeumi. Just a reminder – a butsukari practice is when a low-ranking rikishi has to push a high-ranking one again and again until he dies, or at least feels as if he did. A reverse butsukari is when a high ranking rikishi feels he needs the exercise, but only has someone ranked lower than himself available to push. It’s basically the same thing, but since the high ranking one calls the shots, it’s usually a lot less like a torture and a lot more like an actual practice.
Mitakeumi later switched to the dohyo and gave straight butsukari to youngsters, much like yesterday:
And yes, that’s Kisenosato on the dohyo. This is the first time in this Jungyo a Yokozuna practiced on-dohyo, and that it should be Kisenosato only tells you how badly banged up the other Yokozuna are.
Kisenosato was giving butsukari as well – first to Nakazono, a low ranker (I’m not sure, but I think he is one of his tsukebito):
Then he switched to Takanosho:
And you can see a bit of this action here:
横綱稀勢の里のぶつかり稽古💥
からだが動いてて大丈夫そう💨 pic.twitter.com/tzf5gRsHXz— かず (@6SUMO_) July 31, 2018
The Yokozuna doesn’t have to do anything, really. Just be heavy.
In addition to practicing, the various sekitori also did a lot of fansa. This included, for example, Shohozan volunteering as a photographer:
And also Tamawashi signing autographs and having his photo taken with fans. Which for some reason, Kaisei was doing everything in his capability to prevent:
ここで暫くファンサービスに応じてました！
絶好のチャンスにあと一歩が踏み出せず、ただのパパラッチしてた私((T_T))
てかほんと仲良し😃🍒😃 pic.twitter.com/5p0925tzhp— mai (@mai93027278) July 30, 2018
Relax, Kaisei! I’m sure Tamawashi has no intention of applying a kotenage to any of the fans!
Between the practice and the torikumi, the tokoyama re-arranged the hairdos for the rikishi:
Just before the Juryo dohyo-iri, the Shokkiri took place. Surprise – we have reverted back to the Shokkiri team from Takadagawa beya, rather than the Kasugano pair from yesterday. And just to show you that each pair has unique features in their act, they went and got what looks suspiciously like an Acme-branded hammer:
Moving on to the Torikumi, it seems that Enho is the regular fill-in in Juryo. That makes sense, but why not just let the guy wear his shimekomi, and be done with it?
Short stop here for beginners: Low ranking rikishi practice and compete in the same black cotton mawashi. When they compete, they insert loose sagari (those cords hanging down from it) into it. Sekitori, on the other hand, practice in a white cotton mawashi which is folded at the front like a roll of toilet paper. When they compete, however, they wear a silk mawashi in the color of their choice, with matching, stiffened sagari. This silk mawashi is called “shimekomi”.
So in the picture above Tobizaru is the sekitori wearing his off-white shimekomi and you can see the stiff sagari protruding to his sides. Enho is a Makushita fill-in, so he wears his black cotton mawashi and you can see his loose sagari hanging down his hips.
Enho has a shimekomi stored somewhere in his heya, from the Haru basho this year, in which he participated as a sekitori. Since he is going to be a sekitori again next basho, he will be putting it back into use.
So let’s move on.
Actually, again, there is not much information about the day’s torikumi, other than the fact that Kagayaki has beaten Ikioi by yori-kiri. And this was only mentioned because Ikioi was doing the duties of “local boy” today, on the premise that his… grandmother hails from a nearby town. 😀
But there is a video of the musubi-no-ichiban:
結びの一番、稀勢の里対鶴竜戦❗️
稀勢の里が鶴竜に力強い相撲で勝った‼️✨✨✨ pic.twitter.com/DOJBVDk0vF— かず (@6SUMO_) July 31, 2018
At this point I’m really getting worried about Kakuryu. Three wins in a row for Kisenosato against the man who won two yusho in a row only a couple of months back? What the heck is going on with Kakuryu’s foot? He looks like he is doing laundry with it, not sumo.
That’s it for today, and since, for some unknown reason, the sumo ladies did not take any Enho photos other than that one against Tobizaru, I’ll have to settle for Arawashi instead:
