Orion

One thing that has been particularly noticeable for the last couple of years is the number of people who admit to being first-timers. This time I gave it my all; went out at 6:00 a.m. on Friday to get my seiriken for Saturday. This was by far the longest line of its kind I have ever seen: from the front gate of the Kokugikan (where the hardliners set up tents one week earlier) round the side and the back of the Kokugikan, past the closed entrance of the Edo Tokyo Museum, across a small road and in front of a totally unrelated building. The line started doing at 7:00, right on time. My turn arrived at 7:40, and my upstairs ticket was 268. I'd expected a much higher one so there was still hope. Saturday morning I went along just after 10:30 but they'd only got as far as #130, so I took a walk around the neighborhood and then went back to wait in the main hall. The numbers for the downstairs tickets skyrocketed -- it was clear a lot of people had given up and just gone home, as the upstairs seat number inched up ten at a time (still in the late 100s) while the downstairs numbers went into 300, 400, and just into 500. Finally just before 1:00 p.m. I got to the ticket counter. As I had rather expected the only kind of ticket I wanted was already sold out, so I tore up my seiriken and walked away. I had done this as a test: I put in the utmost effort I could manage, and it wasn't enough -- so I will now stop trying. Orion

A little bird told me that Tatsunami isn't very happy about serving as a judge. Orion

Did anybody notice that Henry Miller, Sentoryu, had his 46th birthday on the 16th of this month? Retired from sumo in 2004, according to my diary reminder. There's a man who always did his best, though luck was never in his side. Orion

There's nothing expensive about a few meters of cotton. The heya normally provides the first, and the boy's family often clubs together to buy a spare. Orion

Where do they even sell such things? Lion-do shop in Ryogoku 4-chome is famous for large sizes. Big shop on the corner, across the road from a large Mizuho Bank. Orion

And please let us know if you actually obtain entrance to asageiko without making a prior appointment in Japanese. Is this the person who is providing the maps at Ryogkoku station nishiguchi that I see clutched in the hands of so many would-be keiko watchers? The stables around where I live don't accept walk-in visitors at all, and sometimes, just looking down from my balcony occasionally, I see four or five lots per day being turned away and trudging on to the next place on the map. It was very noticeable that from last Sunday, when everybody went to the shukusha in and around Nagoya, no foreigners have been walking around Ryogoku -- so some correct information is being put out. But for the record, I'd really like to know if would-be visitors are having any better luck in the Nagoya area. Orion

As others have observed, jinku go back a long way, and some of the classics are still performed. These days there are amateur jinku-kai all over the country and they have an annual get-together near the Kokugikan, around February (last time I attended one it was in the theater of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, that great clog-shaped building right behind the Kokugikan). The best-known teacher is Kuninishiki, who got as far as makushita and, after quitting sumo, got a job as chief cook at a retirement home but kept up a sideline of teaching jinku clubs in the Tokyo area. Of course, active rikishi have always been encouraged to sing jinku as part of the entertainment at sumo events, especially retirement ceremonies, where the final one is a specially-written one in honor of the retiree, often sung by a yobidashi who specializes in this. Kuninishiki-san himself has built up such a reputation that when one of the teachers in the Sumo School at the rear of the Kokugikan came to retire (he had been teaching 'shigin', a form of Chinese declamation that was considered good for breath training), they appointed Mr. K. as this replacement, teaching jinku, thus achieving two aims, in singing on a long breath but also adding sumo content. Mr. K. and his Ryogoku branch of amateurs also have a regular spot singing in one of the restaurants between the station and the Kokugikan. It is one of my great pleasures to arrive home late at Ryogkoku station to meet three or four middle-aged men in parrot-colored kimono and be greeted enthusiastically by name! Hope the automatic spell-corrector hasn't left any really awful mistakes in this message. I've had to correct every mention of 'jinku' at least three times. At least it's better than one of my colleagues who recently tried to say she was taking a morning off with 'stomach-ache' and it turned into 'smokestack' -- I can usually guess what happened but that time I couldn't. Orion

The man in the suit on the right of the group is sewanin Yuho. Orion

If it's A heya, any heya, non specific, it's heya. If it's a certain heya, like Takasago, it's Takasago beya. However, some of the earliest foreign rikishi and oyakata say "beya" always -- because they are not language specialists, they just did sumo. FWIW. Orion

Thank you so much. These are a treasure. Orion

A gyoji has a much longer and safer career. Orion

You think the Kyokai people should be sitting on their hands while the owners of other big halls rake in the money? No way. This place was designed to be multi-purpose, and pro-wrestling is only one kind of event. In the early days I recall they had Kabuki, with Ennosuke flying down on a wire from the top Rear/West corner. And of course every February we have the annual Choir of 5,000 singing Beethoven's Ninth -- that was in the original plans as the final celebration of the opening of the 'then' New Kokugikan, back in 1985. You can easily find a picture -- the dohyo is sunk down and a plain floor comes over above it (where the orchestra sits). The choir occupies all the rear half of the ground floor and balcony, while on the spectators' side (front and sides) the masuseki are retracted as far as the arches with the clocks and green exit lights. Orion

Really amazing. Only a day or two ago I was reminiscing (privately) with Nishinoshima and a UK fan of the early days of the Oshima-beya six (the very first Mongolians in sumo, incase you didn't know), when every time any one of them stepped out into the street he was escorted by an anideshi -- to make quite sure there were no cultural problems. But oh boy! didn't Oshima oyakata get it right! Orion, recalling all of them walking around with regular hair .... Orion

Sumo school will take care of that. I wonder when he will start school? Unless I missed something, he hasn't started yet. Too right! Nobody who has posted so far seems to know that you have to get through maezumo _before_ being admitted to the Kyoshujo (sumo school) where they teach beginners everything. So all the teaching that the kid's got so far is from inside his stable. I was there on Tuesday watching his very first maezumo bout and he looked pretty good for a complete beginner. FWIW, Orion

oh my -- only a year ago or so, so hardly 'nostalgic'! . The N HK producers sent me a CD of the show but I never watched it, so this was the first time I saw the show (that was an awful seat that scrunched me up). A couple of months later I did a second show that included two location shots, of four places around Ryogoku that I felt made a much more complete picture. Thanx for the memories....

An injured, barely mobile rikishi (Endo) at 70-80 percent, who he seems to acknowledge is going to lose, is good enough for Oitekaze-Oyakata. (and who is making the decisions over there anyway? In 3 days it goes from Oitekaze making the decision to Endo telling him what he wants to do?) Meanwhile, Izutsu-Oyakata has a differing opinion when it comes to his own injured rikishi (Kakuryu) The difference between how a (former?) prospect is treated vs a Yokozuna? Is Izutsu-Oyakata more "enlightened' than Oitekaze-Oyakata when it comes to medical matters? Who knows. I just thought it was an interesting contrast. One very big difference is that a yokozuna can't be demoted. That takes off an awful lot of the pressure. Orion

The dohyo matsuri almost invariably starts a few minutes _before_ ten -- as soon as the Rijicho arrives the top brass files in and it starts. Orion

Not quite. He rocketed up the banzuke because he was bigger and more experienced that his opposition. But when he was in top makushita I escorted a Canadian husband-and-wife team of photographers to a keiko session and it was very clear that he had finally arrived at a level where he was meeting real opposition -- and not doing at all well. For the first time he was losing a lot more than he was winning, and I could see it in his face. Plus, of course, the relationship with the rather plain lady who had been assigned to help him with his Japanese. There were a number of factors at work there. For me the best thing about that day was the master (former Kotozakura who was one of the three yokozuna active when I first started watching live sumo) inviting us to chanko lunch and chatting with me throughout. The two photographers were, of course, very unhappy when Tenta quit shortly afterwards and all the film they had shot was largely valueless. Orion

As has been observed, those with good amateur experience like Mitakeumi train in their heya but are required to attend the post-training lessons. Way back I recall seeing Mainoumi just before 10:00 a.m. walking along six mornings a week to attend the classes. The Kyoshujo keiko sessions include basic sumo manners and techniques (not the same as amateur, for instance a completely different tachiai) and, after the March tournament when there are the most entrants, they may use two or even three practice rings that may feature different levels of skill. And in addition to the retired men assigned to teach in the school, stables with a number of new recruits are expected to send along one of their senior makushita men to assist with the training. So it's not at all a case of "one size fits all". Orion

I went into the sumo museum in the Kokugikan yesterday, and the new exhibition is on shikona. I got some surprises, too -- had no idea some of the shikona of relatively modern times go back to the Edo period. As usual the English 'translation' at the bottom of each sign is often hard to fathom even when you can read the Japanese and know what the English is supposed to mean. I wish I could ignore it, but there's a sort of hypnotic fascination about it. (I entirely agree with the observations on the pitfalls of trying to 'translate' shikona when there is often an oblique reference rather than a literal meaning.) Orion

But they are all labelled "Sumo Games" so I find it easy just to scroll past all of them. FWIW, Orion

As usual, it's decided by rank. Only the men at the very top can wear tabi on both feet (I think it's yokozuna and ozeki, but I don't have time to look up the long-ago interview in Tokitsukaze-beya where one of the two sekitori interviewees explained this to a visiting group of foreign journalists. Orion

I was wondering what you were referring too. I did not see your name associated with any of the articles. :-) I didn't have a lot of time; I did just one click, on the last of the series, and it turned up the final page. That was all I read, and apart from the line about an interview everything ascribed to DS could have been me. ;-) Orion

Check out this post. It has page scans of old Sumo World articles about Kototenta: http://www.sumoforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9495&hl=%2BJohn+%2BTenta+%2Bsumo+%2Bworld#entry86287 Thanks for this! There's a whole lot more detail than I recalled earlier in this thread -- including the fact that I'd interviewed him. :-/ Orion Oops! stupid of me -- I never think of David Shapiro as "DS" -- I should have remembered that I hardly ever took part in the Sumo World's Round Table. At least I'm not going soft in the head, just a bit absent-minded ... Orion

Check out this post. It has page scans of old Sumo World articles about Kototenta: http://www.sumoforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9495&hl=%2BJohn+%2BTenta+%2Bsumo+%2Bworld#entry86287 Thanks for this! There's a whole lot more detail than I recalled earlier in this thread -- including the fact that I'd interviewed him. :-/ Orion