Flagellating a moribund solid-hoofed, herbivorous quadruped mammal

[Iwagakki 0]

Apparently this horse isn't totally dead, so let's beat it some more, huh?

What the heck is up with this "rage against the henka" business? Is it really such a mortal sin? Henka has always been a part of sumo, and it always will be. Every rikishi in recent memory, even St. Takanohana committed a henka. (sheesh, "committed"...sounds like I'm accusing him of something, even)

Taikai henka's Kaio, and everyone mumbles that it "just ain't fittin..." I think it's perfectly "fittin". Bull. It's just on move in the world of sumo, and it's a perfectly legitimate and legal one. If someone is susceptible to it, and doesn't prepare for it, then isn't that a fault of the guy who fell for it more than the guy who pulled it?

As far as Kotonowaka, I vaguely remember that he's been known to pull the same trick out of his sleeve on occasion. It all comes around.

I still think that we all have some imagined ideal about what this all means. Perhaps we have all watched to many samurai movies, and bought into the whole "face" idea and all that jazz. Maybe we all think that the Japanese world is like some tea-ceremony, and some Karate Kid bullshit about honor and inner peace and all that happy zen bullshit. Wake up, that is the invention of some marketing firm. Japan isn't all about the "Art of War," and bushido, and all that crap. That is the archaic, (and patently inachievable) belief system of just one small segment of Japanese society that existed in the fairly distant past. There were still a majority of people, even back in that "gilded age" that were farmers, merchants, artists and "others", and while they had standards of behavior and pride, it was certainly nothing like the Hollywood version we all apparently define Japan by.

A lot has happened in the country since the "Last Samurai"

Which reminds me. The Tom Cruise movie speaks for Japan today about as much as "Dances with Wolves" speaks for my own people. Very romantic, a lovely story, full of pride and honor, and life and death struggle, and all that happy crap. Also completely a work of utter fiction, drawn on the most sensationalistic aspects of an outsiders observation.

Get over yourselves. How anyone so far removed from the reality can keep on with this Holier than God moaning about how unmanly henka is, and cry out against the disgrace, and shout how a mortal sin against sumo itself has been committed, is beyond me.

I respect every one of the men who stand on the Dohyo. I wish I could stand there and henka Chiyotaikai right out of his mawashi. I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Anyway. They are the ones there in the moment. They are the ones that dedicate virtually their entire lives to this thing called sumo. They are the ones who train day after day, year after year, just so they can stand there and test themselves. They are the ones who have bled, and suffered, and won and lost on the field of battle.

It is those men, who have the right to decide whether a Henka is the right thing to do at the moment that it happens. Chiyotaikai has earned the absolute right to do Sumo the way he sees fit at this very moment. Shunketsu has earned the right to Henka, or not. He's no less a warrior because of it, and he's no less a man because of it. He's the one who has bled and cried for sumo, as much as Kotonowaka is.

Get over the henka. Your definition of what sumo is supposed to be is nothing. The only man who decides what sumo is supposed to be, is the one who stands in the ring.

And if he looks into the eyes of his opponent, breaths the same air as his opponent, and feels the same heartbeat as his opponent, then his opponent becomes him, and he can henka if that is the right thing to do at that moment.

Edited November 27, 2005 by Iwagakki

[Shomishuu 0]

Thanks Iwagakki! I'm over the henka...very liberating, actually.

[Asojima 2,873]

Get over the henka.

(Sign of approval) (Sign of approval) (Sign of approval) (Sign of approval)

[YukataNinja 0]

(Neener, neener...)

[Guest Absax]

100% agree

[Dale 0]

I don't mean to stir up yet more controversy, but shouldn't that be "quadruped"? :)

Dale

[Kashunowaka 300]

Now that Asanowaka has retired, I think they should rewrite the rules not to allow henka anymore, since no one did it as well as him.

(Henka!!!)

Just kidding. Very well written, Iwagakki.

[Kintamayama 44,646]

Why can't I write like that, $%^E##%!!!

This post should be pinned.

[Otokonoyama 2,735]

As the recently departed Mr. Miyagi said in Karate Kid 2 (the first of the inferior sequels), "...best way to avoid punch is not be there...".

Same goes for reckless rikishi...

Edited November 26, 2005 by Otokonoyama

[Kashunowaka 300]

As the recently departed Mr. Miyagi said in Karate Kid 2 (the first of the inferior sequels), "...best way to avoid punch is not be there...".

Wax on, wax off.

[sumofan 6]

Well, technically speaking, 'The Art of War' originates in China.

but i agree with you. the goal of a fight is to win.

imagine 2 rikishi doing henka at the same time...

[Dale 0]

imagine 2 rikishi doing henka at the same time...

No dohyo below us- above us only sky.

Imagine all the rikishi, henka-ing all the time...

You may say I'm a dreamer.

But I'm not the only one.

I hope someday, you'll join us.

And the world, will henka as one...

Dale and Yoko

[Xris 2]

the goal of a fight is to win.

imagine 2 rikishi doing henka at the same time...

Happens often and ... one miss. They just go on fighting. It just makes longer fights (Sign of approval)

[Randomitsuki 2,812]

the goal of a fight is to win.

imagine 2 rikishi doing henka at the same time...

Happens often and ... one miss. They just go on fighting. It just makes longer fights (Sign of approval)

Just look at today's bout Roho vs. Wakatoba. Both were clearly shifting to their left side.

[aderechelsea 124]

or a recent Tokitsuumi-Asasekiryu (not sure about that) matchup.

both jumped to the side and then grabbed their opponents mawashi resulting in a spin and an eventual fall ...

(damn i cannot remember the exact bout ... it was surely Tokitsuumi in it ....)

hmmmm

[Shomishuu 0]

Just look at today's bout Roho vs. Wakatoba. Both were clearly shifting to their left side.

It was Roho vs. Kasugao...and I agree...they'll both get my vote when I get around to posting it on SFM, about a half hour from now.

[slt 8]

I don't mean to stir up yet more controversy, but shouldn't that be "quadruped"? :)

Dale

Definitely "quadruped" (Blushing...)

I think someone should email this thread to the guys at Sumotalk.

The biggest problem with the henka is that it has a name... When I first watched sumo, without reading all the commentaries I've gotten used to now, it never hit me that there was anything to complain about.

[Yaezakura 0]

I think someone should email this thread to the guys at Sumotalk.

You're not kidding. Wow, do those guys go on and on about the evils of henka... (Yawning...) (Showing respect...)

And Iwagakki, I totally agree with you. The only thing I dislike about henka is that it can make the match end too quickly if it works. But I'm not going to label someone evil or dishonorable or whatever just because I wanted to watch a long exciting match, and he has the NERVE to win quickly. There's no morality related to henka; it is just a technique that most rikishi use at some point, and that doesn't guarantee a win anyway.

[Iwagakki 0]

I don't mean to stir up yet more controversy, but shouldn't that be "quadruped"? :)

Dale

(Showing respect...) in the words of the famous orator, Homer J. Simpson:

Doh!!!Stupid quadrupeds....!

[Iwagakki 0]

Not to drag up an old topic, but I thought I would just point out my new signature, and direct your attention to this....

"This brings us to the second "brainiac from the planet Smartron 5" who, in a sort of clumsy quasi-poetic attempt at Deep Thought, made the claim (I think, the writing was rather murky) that there is honor in anything a rikishi does on the dohyo because he is on the dohyo (what?) After some hamhanded pan-Asian attempt at sociological insight (somehow the totemic Chinese tome The Art of War, apparently written by Tom Cruise, became a misguided Western fixation on exotic Japaneseness, huh?) he wrote that the only one who can decide what sumo is supposed to be is the wrestler himself. Is that so? That will assuredly come as a surprise to the sumo kyokai, who are constantly issuing statements about the content and quality of wrestler's sumo, and who can and often do refuse a promotion to a higher rank based on their interpretation of the rikishi's sumo (see Konishiki being denied Yokozuna). And also to Chiyotaikai, who not only apologized for his henka of Kaio, but called it, in one interpretation, "gutless". Some fandweebs who can't write a grocery list gushed all over this rant, but in the end it was all bluster but no muster. To be fair, I give it a B+ for passion but a D- for in reasoning. Nice try."

So, get thee over thine ob-stackles, seek thee thine oracles, but don't ever, EVUH challenge the experts here at Sumotalk. Unless you fancy being buggered for the world to see.

I feel so...so...so...buggered...

(Lifting weights...)

I guess I've been handed my ass, huh?

[Kasugaran 0]

Well, I still think it's a mortal sin.... Right up there with theft and murder, but not anything like gluttony... mmmmmm gluttony!

[Shibouyama 1]

For what it's worth...

A certain (Censored) at Sumotalk says everyone here at Sumoforum are mere "fangeeks", while those at Sumotalk are "experts". I'm not quite sure what qualifies them as experts, but the writing of two of Sumotalk's commentators is generally way too angry, caustic, and mean-spirited to enjoy reading. Consequently, I rarely, if ever, read their commentaries anymore.

I find the commentary here, on both sides of the henka debate, to be calmer and more respectful.

Thanks to all the forum members.

(Applauding...)

[Guest masamune2005]

Not to drag up an old topic, but I thought I would just point out my new signature, and direct your attention to this....

"This brings us to the second "brainiac from the planet Smartron 5" who, in a sort of clumsy quasi-poetic attempt at Deep Thought, made the claim (I think, the writing was rather murky) that there is honor in anything a rikishi does on the dohyo because he is on the dohyo (what?) After some hamhanded pan-Asian attempt at sociological insight (somehow the totemic Chinese tome The Art of War, apparently written by Tom Cruise, became a misguided Western fixation on exotic Japaneseness, huh?) he wrote that the only one who can decide what sumo is supposed to be is the wrestler himself. Is that so? That will assuredly come as a surprise to the sumo kyokai, who are constantly issuing statements about the content and quality of wrestler's sumo, and who can and often do refuse a promotion to a higher rank based on their interpretation of the rikishi's sumo (see Konishiki being denied Yokozuna). And also to Chiyotaikai, who not only apologized for his henka of Kaio, but called it, in one interpretation, "gutless". Some fandweebs who can't write a grocery list gushed all over this rant, but in the end it was all bluster but no muster. To be fair, I give it a B+ for passion but a D- for in reasoning. Nice try."

So, get thee over thine ob-stackles, seek thee thine oracles, but don't ever, EVUH challenge the experts here at Sumotalk. Unless you fancy being buggered for the world to see.

I feel so...so...so...buggered...

(Applauding...)

I guess I've been handed my ass, huh?

i wouldnt worry about it too much...the 'experts' at sumotalk also compared a henka to a beanball:

"A big league pitcher can throw at someone's head, but he's an asshole if he does."

if an MLB pitcher deliberately throws a ball at a batters head, he could seriously injure the batter, even end his career. he would be kicked out the game and probably suspended because IT IS DANGEROUS AND AGAINST THE RULES. a repeat offended could eventually be banned from the league...

yeah, thats just like a henka. (On the banzuke...)

if they had anything worth saying, they would sign-up and post their rebuttle here where it can be debated within a community. instead, they wrote on their own private site, side-stepping any criticism. i think that's the internet equivalent of a henka...

[Tatsuma Keiru 0]

Not wanting to become a "fangeek", I reluctantly join the fray... (Neener, neener...)

(somehow the totemic Chinese tome The Art of War, apparently written by Tom Cruise, became a misguided Western fixation on exotic Japaneseness, huh?)

I as well wouldn't be worried about Clancy, I'm not even very sure he actually read you post very well, as he restates one part of your argument (more or less) in an attempt to belittle you.

But anyhoo... I do like reading Sumotalk.com, because it is caustic and opinionated just like I am, and make sure to do so everyday on Honbasho. That said however, Clancy's articles are just flavor, no filling. A humorous way to read the day's results, but almost all the information he presents can be easily garnered from watching the videos on Banzuke.com (or NHK 1 if you are a lucky bastard like me (On the banzuke...)) Personally I thought it was too bad that he took time away from talking about Senshuraku, spending it instead flaming strangers.

But of course everyone's argument is fueled purely on personal opinion. (Applauding...)

I mean come on, this isn't Algebra we're talking about.

[Asashosakari 18,968]

"That will assuredly come as a surprise to the sumo kyokai, who are constantly issuing statements about the content and quality of wrestler's sumo, and who can and often do refuse a promotion to a higher rank based on their interpretation of the rikishi's sumo (see Konishiki being denied Yokozuna)."

I see the clear-headed analysis for which Sumotalk is so renowned is in full effect here.

a) One single case from nearly 15 years ago is evidence of the Kyokai "often refus(ing) a promotion ... based on their interpretation of the rikishi's sumo"? Arguing from anecdotal evidence is already a fallacy, but this doesn't even rise to the status of "anecdotal" since it has nothing to do with today's situation.

b) Not to mention that everyone and their brother has tried to explain for the last 15 years that Konishiki suffered as much (and most likely more than anything else) from the failed Futahaguro experiment. Konishiki could have executed Mainoumi sumo for all anyone knows, and 13-2Y, 12-3, 13-2Y still wouldn't have been good enough for promotion to Yokozuna in the late 1980s / early 1990s climate. Takanohana didn't get promoted with better numbers a few years later (twice!), nor did Asahifuji a few years earlier (also twice, though in more complicated scenarios) and I haven't heard anybody claim it was because of their sumo.

Sumotalk.com - passing off debunked myths and half-truths as fact since 1998. (Or whatever it's been.)

Edit: By the way, I find it incredibly ironic that a self-proclaimed "expert" would fall for the Kyokai's public smoke-and-mirrors about sumo quality. Sure, those statements frequently make it into interviews, but try coming up with one, just one, reasonably contemporary example where sumo quality was actually the clear, main reason for denying somebody's Ozeki or Yokozuna promotion. Please, I beg you.

Edited November 28, 2005 by Asashosakari