Jungyo

Odaiba Basho 8/23-8/24

Andy Japanese Language ,

As we’ve covered in recent articles, it’s pretty hard to get tickets to a sumo tournament. This has been made even tougher, obviously, with the promotion of Kisenosato and the rise of several native Japanese wrestlers after a long period of flagging interest within Japan itself. This will have ticket prices for the six annual hon-basho (main tournaments) at very high prices, available mostly through middlemen. So, those of us sumo fans who cannot shell out much for a tournament, there is hope in the form of the promotional tours (Jungyo).

Odaiba Tournament Promotion

お台場で初の巡業を８月開催「大相撲ＯＤＡＩＢＡ場所」

One such tour was just announced. As the headline reads, August will see the first Odaiba Basho! Odaiba is a big development built from re-claimed land in Tokyo bay that contains a large convention center, mall and restaurants and is scheduled to host several events during the 2020 Olymipic games. There’s a light rail line, the Yorikamome, that takes people out there and it’s accessible by car via Rainbow Bridge. I’ve watched summer fireworks over Rainbow Bridge which is pretty spectacular. Those fireworks are a major reason to brave the heat and go to Japan in the summer. I will keep a lookout for scheduling to find out when those will be this summer.

８月

August: Just to reinforce our temporal lesson from a few days ago, this means August but if you add (間) and make it 8月間, then it means something lasted 8 months or it took 8 months to do something.

初の巡業…開催

“First Tour…will be held”: So much of this headline is at a basic level of sumo Japanese. You should recognize “hatsu” from “hatsubasho,” the first tournament of each year held in January. You should also recognize Jungyo. The only real new vocabulary in this entire headline is “kaisai” (開催). Many headlines don’t put the full form of the verb, especially verbs like “suru.” But here we would imply the passive form of the verb, “kaisai sareru,” or will be held.

「大相撲ＯＤＡＩＢＡ場所」

“ODAIBA Sumo Basho”: Often, Odaiba is written out like this in the roman alphabet because it’s a tourist center. They want tourists to go there, especially for the many conventions. The kanji was what started off the headline (お台場). With the hiragana de, we get “At Odaiba.”

General tickets go on sale June 4. The specific venue for the sumo tournament is supposed to hold 4500 people. There’s mention of a priority lottery on April 23, so I will research for more details.

Kisenosato’s Left Shoulder / Arm Injury

Bruce H injury, Kisenosato (稀勢の里)

Kise-Arm

Recovery Time: 1 Month

One of the biggest elements to the grand story of the Haru basho was Yokozuna Kisenosato’s unlikely and, to some, unbelievable win following a significant injury on day 13 in his match against Yokozuna Harumafuji. Harumafuji has a couple of very fierce match templates. One of them is to pack overwhelming force into a huge tachiai, blasting his opponent at least off balance and possibly clean off the dohyo.

Harumafuji has been nursing injuries himself for the past year, and decided “Atomic Tachiai” would be his approach to Kisenosato. It worked, and in a tragic misfortune, Kisenosato fell badly and damaged his left upper body. The sumo press, his coach, his stable and everyone were very tight lipped about the nature of his injury, and the severity. Speculation was amplified by the silence, and there was serious talk of his withdrawing from the basho. However he found the tenacity to appear for his day 14 match against Yokozuna Kakuryu. It was clear that he had no strength, and was in a great deal of pain.

Now word comes that Kisenosato will require at least one month to recover from damage to the muscles in his left upper arm and chest. It should be noted that reports still don’t discuss the nature or extent of his injury, only that he will be recovering for month, and will not participate in the spring sumo PR tour know as Jungyo.

The Osaka tournament champion was quoted as saying: “I’m not really in any pain now, so I think I should be able to join the tour (Jungyo) as soon as my doctor allows it”. His stable master was also quoted as saying “It’s important for him to rest now. The Yokozuna (Kisenosato) wants to go on the tour, but his injury must be completely healed. I won’t give permission without an exam to confirm it”.

January Basho – Just Around The Corner

Bruce H Natsubasho 2017 ,

dec-random-jungyo

While the winter Jungyo works to wrap up this week, sumo fans in Okinawa prepare for a special mini tournament in the next few days in Ginowan. It’s sort of a Jungyo stop with a bunch of fun extras added.

Better yet – can you believe that we are less than two weeks away from the January Basho banzuke being release the day after Christmas? Sumo-Santa will deliver this year, boys and girls. With all of the action in Kyushu, the banzuke for Hatsu will be quite the shuffle.

As always, Tachiai will be ramping up coverage as we begin anticipating the action in Tokyo starting Sunday January 8th. That’s a bit more than 3 weeks away.

Where Has Sumo Gone? – Jungyo! (巡業)

Bruce H Uncategorized

For international Sumo fans, it’s a long wait between the end of the Nagoya basho and the September basho in Tokyo. but in the 2 months between tournaments, for those in Japan, Sumo goes on tour! Referred to as Jungyo (巡業 – Literally, to “make the rounds”), each day  consists of exhibition matches, training sessions demonstrating how Sumotori work out, and sessions where local children square off against Rikishi for fun and entertainment.

The schedule includes a slapstick Sumo bout called “Shokkiri” (しょっきり), which seems to be straight out of the 3 Stooges in places.

These tours in between tournaments helps raise public awareness of Sumo and build the audience for the sport.  It appears to be working, as the popularity of Sumo has risen in Japan during the past few years.