We have a short one today, as few fans blessed us with photographs or videos from this town by Mount Aso in Kumamoto.
There are two sekitori from Kumamoto prefecture, so they starred today, and will be celebrated in the next two days as well. I give you Sadanoumi, in a Myogiryu Paisley yukata, and Shodai, in a dragonfly motif.
You’ll note that everybody was wearing yukata for their handshake this time. The temperature was 0ºC in the morning, and I guess the strict oyakata felt a little guilty going around in their own warm Uniqlo padded vests and having the rikishi freeze. You may also notice that they are not wearing any obi – my guess is that they have their mawashi on under the yukata.
Inside the main hall, though, the rikishi are in their mawashi, and keep warm by doing exercise. Here is Asanoyama doing his suri-ashi:
What does “suri-ashi” mean? Listen to the sound track. It means “sliding feet”. The feet are supposed to slide along the ground when you do suri-ashi, rather than be lifted.
Chiyomanu, on the other hand, was doing… what is he doing?
Note that if the submissive is too successful and gives the dominant no opportunity to roll him, the dominant will sometimes signal for an itten – in which the submissive symbolically hits his chest, and is then rolled immediately. An itten is also how a butsukari session ends – and sometimes there may be more than one to finish the session (especially in kawaigari sessions).
Time to go away and take a relaxing bath. Coming back – in his own van – is the dai-Yokozuna, already in full regalia. And Mongolian though he is, the cold is getting to him, too:
So Kasugaryu wraps him up with his yukata. It’s good to be the king!
I do not have any bouts or even bout photos from this day’s event, but here is a video of the san-yaku soroi-bumi (“kore yori sanyaku”):
What this video tells us is that, for the first time in this Jungyo, Hakuho is participating in the bouts!
Indeed, according to the press, this was the first bout he had since leaving the Aki Jungyo and having his surgery. He beats Takayasu by yori-kiri, to much applause.
And today’s pin-up boy is:
One of the spectators asked him to hold her boy in his arms (dakko – the Japanese believe that if a rikishi holds your child he or she will grow up strong and healthy). After letting him down, he keeps patting the child’s head and talking to him. The kid seems to be interested in his sagari!
Nobeoka is a small town in Miyazaki. But it boasts a sekitori! Today was Kotoeko day. Most of the nobori you see in the photo bear the name “Kotoeko”, with a few “Yoshikaze” (he is from the neighboring Oita prefecture).
So naturally the crowds gathered around a rather overwhelmed Kotoeko:
Inside the venue, Hakuho was doing some teppo. And you know what happens when there is no teppo pole in site:
He is very active, and seems to have the upper hand, until Shodai just pulls him down. Meisei seems pretty frustrated at all that hard work going nowhere.
The same Shodai who frustrated Meisei earlier now takes his turn to be frustrated. Shodai has this problem in bouts with high-rankers. He is just not quite up to that level, and I think that frustrates him because he feels he should have been there by now.
Today’s lucky target of kawaigari is Asanoyama. I do not have footage of the kawaigari itself – but here is how Asanoyama looks at the end of it:
He takes a sip of water and a couple of breaths – and back he goes to the dohyo. Rest after a kawaigari? Not unless you passed out.
Fast-forward, and everybody gets cleaned and put on their best clothing. The top echelon get their picture taken in front of the venue:
Hakuho’s guest – the elderly man in the kimono – is Kimura Shonosuke the 35th, who retired in 2011 (and at the time, Hakuho invited him to sit in the yusho parade car). He is also a resident of Nobeoka.
Back inside, and we have the Makuuchi dohyo-iri. And unsurprisingly, Shodai is being pushed around:
Looks like Takakeisho also got the Mitakeumi treatment. Mitakeumi is careful, though. Next basho they will be trading places. You don’t get on the bad side of someone who has a reasonable chance to be Ozeki in a couple of basho.
Endo is the king of Jungyo yaocho. He takes care to entertain the spectators, but never fails to lose to the local man.
Note Kotoeko’s tearful parents thanking everybody for coming to see their son. The Jungyo passed through this city 10 years ago, and at the time Kotoeko was just in Sandanme. So this time, returning as a sekitori was a big deal for both himself and his parents.
This is it. I’ll just pause to notice that Kotoeko’s heya mate, Kotoyuki, has been missing from the torikumi for the past couple of days. Yoshikaze is still not putting on his mawashi, and Hakuho still not doing torikumi.
So off we go to Kumamoto!
But didn’t I tell you that Hakuho chose to be in the back seat of the bus? What are they doing there, you may ask?
Well, there’s more than one bus. There are around 270 participants in an average Jungyo. And these Juryo guys are unlikely to be in the same bus as the boss.
So…. who shall we pick as our pin-up rikishi of the day? I couldn’t find a trace of Tobizaru. So how about his brother? Hidenoumi, your turn to shine!
OK, so maybe his little brother is a little prettier.
We have only a short report today, and less goofy than the usual. But those who are new here are going to learn about kawaigari. Learning is a good thing, isn’t it?
So, let’s start in the morning. The first activity of the day is handshakes with the fans. Yoshikaze participates.
But notice that he does it in a yukata, which is rather unusual. Most of the rikishi do the handshakes in their practice mawashi. This tells us that not only is Yoshikaze off the torikumi, he is also not doing any keiko. One has to wonder what ails him, or rather, what is it that ails him enough not to do keiko, but still not enough to excuse himself from part or all of the Jungyo.
On the sidelines, we have Okinoumi doing some push-ups:
Finally, the Yokozuna gets on the dohyo. This is significant, as up till now he didn’t do any on-dohyo activity. Well, technically he did some stretches and shiko at the corner of the dohyo, but that’s not something he really needs a dohyo for.
The Yokozuna – all of them – tend to scale their activity up through the Jungyo. There are different degrees of intensity. Doing basics is ground level. Then you have butsukari geiko (where you are the dominant), which is slightly higher (you have to use your feet and you get smashed in the chest). Then there is doing your own butsukari, and doing bouts with low and high ranking rikishi.
The Yokozuna is not yet on the torikumi list – the Musubi is between the two participating Ozeki – but he did start giving butsukari today. The pushing partner was Takakeisho.
Butsukari is a drill in which one side – usually higher-ranked – offers his chest, and the other side has to push him, again and again, all the way to the edge of the dohyo. If you succeed, you do a squat, and continue until the high-ranker decides you’ve had enough. If you fail, the dominant throws you on the floor, or he may choose to get you to walk around in what I call a “monkey walk” – it’s not exactly the same as suri-ashi, and the dominant usually has his hand on your neck to bend you down.
That’s the basics. But then there is kawaigari. Now, you wouldn’t know it from the NSK video above, but this was actually a kawaigari session.
A kawaigari session is butsukari with extra testosterone. On the dominant’s part, that is. It’s a show of dominance, and a serious challenge for the submissive. You get shouted at. And kicked. And your hair may be pulled, or your ass slapped. And all you can do is go “yes, sir”, “yes, sir”, and keep up. At some point you get exhausted. But you have to get up and keep going. You are not supposed to waste the time of the high-ranking rikishi who is giving you his precious attention.
This is a well known ritual in the sumo world. And watching it is not easy for newcomers. Though the original version is worse – it includes spits and hard beating with a bamboo stick. I’m told this still goes on today – though not in public. The public version is not really hazardous to one’s health.
Hakuho loves kawaigari. Having been a Yokozuna so long, nobody can give him one. But he can sure give it to others, they can’t refuse, and it’s considered an honor – while it makes it very clear who’s boss, which is exactly how the Yokozuna likes it. And so, you won a Yusho, young man? Get some “TLC” (that’s what “kawaigari” means) from the Yokozuna. Here is the extended version:
Hakuho is an excellent performer. He makes sure all of the spectators get a good view – standing at different edges of the dohyo each time. He gets more laughs than the shokkiri team – but also signals to the audience when to applaud the exhausted Komusubi. He kicks and growls – and makes sure that Takakeisho’s mawashi knot doesn’t come undone.
But this performance caused quite a stir with one faction of sumo fans – the so-called “Takanohana cultists” (not all Takanohana fans belong to this category). They – or rather, some of them, because I don’t believe anybody who has been a sumo fan for any serious length of time would be – were outraged by Hakuho’s “hideous” treatment of Takakeisho. “That man does not deserve to be a Yokozuna!”. “Why did the NSK censor all the kicking and hair pulling?”. “I really hope Takakeisho makes it through this Jungyo uninjured”. “Hakuho makes sure no young talent can rise in the sumo world”. Some even searched the Internet and found evidence that Harumafuji used to do the same! Those awful Mongolians!
That, my friends, is called “cherry picking”. Because the practice is quite widespread, and no, it’s not restricted to awful Mongolians. Here we have some kawaigari Goeido gave Hokutofuji in 2016.
I think Goeido has never been in Mongolia. Here is one Takayasu gave a youngster from his heya a few years back in a public training:
OK. Lesson over. Now, unlike those cultists, you’ll know a kawaigari when you see one.
I do not have much from the latter part of the day. I do have these two serious, stern-faced sekitori doing their dohyo-iri:
Who are we kidding? You think Abi can stay serious for more than two seconds?
Hey, concentrate on the dohyo-iri, Daddy-Long-Legs.
To wrap up, here is a pixie:
Enho is giving butsukari to one of the low-rankers. Thing is, Hakuho is on the dohyo, and seems to be saying something to his wee uchi-deshi, which gives Enho an expression which is completely incompatible with butsukari or sekitori dominance in general. 🤗
At this point in the Jungyo journey, all hell breaks loose as hitherto fairly unknown Sandanme rikishi Takataisho fails to arrive in the morning, and when his friends convince him to come, the chaperones notice, start questioning him, and… Takanoiwa exits the world of sumo, stage left.
Maybe that is the reason why social media coverage of this day is limited. Or maybe the fact that Yukuhashi is a fairly small town, but today’s event coverage will mostly be in photos rather than videos.
So, rikishi practice along the walls. Here is Ichinojo making a rubber strap wish it has never been born:
On day 3, we had ryuden princess-lifting Shobushi. Now the portable weight is utilized by Kagayaki – who prefers piggyback.
“Relax, will you? I’m just a 193cm tall rikishi, not the Tokyo Skytree!”
Well, riding piggyback on the back of one of the tallest rikishi seems to give Shobushi a serious fear of heights.
The previous day, we learned that Asakayama oyakata only accepts greetings from rikishi after they do some squatting with his favorite sack of salt. But apparently, some rikishi get a free pass:
“I’m sure I had a bag of salt here somewhere” “I’m going to regard that as a joke… oyakata”
Gee, I wonder why that is.
Another person who exchanged greetings with the brass was Gokushindo.
If you’re wondering why Gokushindo would be all chummy with Izutsu oyakata, it’s probably to do with the fact that he was a longtime tsukebito of Kakuryu’s.
By the way, Izutsu is the only oyakata who sits in a chair in Jungyo. My guess is that this has to do with that hip he fractured after Hakuho dame-oshied Yoshikaze on top of him in 2016.
Speaking of Gokushindo, he, Nishikigi and Wakatakakage were all checking the torikumi plan for the day in peace and harmony…
…when all of a sudden Abi burst onto the scene.
Hey guys! Wassup? Whatcha’ll looking at? I wanna see!
Abi merely laid his dainty bear paws hands on Nishikigi’s back, and Gokushindo suddenly found himself splat against the wall.
Meanwhile, in the shitakubeya:
Kyonosato: “There is no possible way you can make me look more ridiculous after that silly ‘Wiggle the Wattle’ routine yesterday”
Narutaki: “Hold my beer”
“No, I mean literally, hold my beer. Now, you were saying?”
Hakuho keeps practicing below the dohyo. A middle-aged man in the crowd calls out “Hakuho, Gambare!…”
The Yokozuna turns around and shoots a smile at him. And that’s how you become a fansa-kami-sama (“God of fan service”).
As the sekitori get ready for their bouts, Enho seems to be deeply cogitating:
“So, this proves that f is differentiable at every point in this domain, so to calculate ∇f, let’s first do the partial derivative w.r.t. x₁. Good, now…”
In the previous report, I received complaints about the dearth of Abi. So, here you go. One high shiko coming up:
This preceded Abi’s bout with Nishikigi, a bout from which I only have this tantalizing photo:
From which we can draw two conclusions
Kimura Konosuke is diligent even in Jungyo events.
Abi is trying up Yotsu again.
Another tantalizing glimpse of a bout:
Tochinoshin is doing the Tochinoshin. Man, this is the musubi-no-ichiban. That’s a full sized bear Ozeki you have there, not a five-year-old playing Upsy-daisy!
So, let’s say our goodbyes to Yukuhashi. Our pinup rikishi is, once again, Wakatakakage:
Because even when he covers his freezing nipples, he manages to look totally cool.
