[sumo] Musashimaru article

[Barbara Ann Klein]

Here's a nice little piece about Musashimaru Oyakata from the Honolulu
Advertiser. P.S. Saigo Takamori was considered the last samurai upon whom
the movie of the same name was loosely based.

BRTK
 
Link:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070213/SPORTS
/702130333/1032
 
Hawai'i sumo champion still a big hit 
	
Hawai'i's 6-foot-3, 500-pound Musashimaru dwarfs 5-foot, 94-pound Lyubov
Denisova, the 2006 Honolulu Marathon winner.
	
Even now, more than two years into his retirement from the ring, Fiamalu
Penitani said he sometimes has to remind himself that when young sumotori
shout "oyakata" he is the sumo elder they are addressing.

He is the one they are bowing to and who they come to offer a ladle of water
in a show of traditional training room deference.

"At first, I didn't pay attention because I didn't think they were talking
to me," said the former Wai'anae High football player. "It doesn't seem like
I'm that that old."

At age 36 the time has, indeed, gone fast for the man who competed for 18
years under the ring name Musashimaru and is back home this week helping to
promote the 2007 Grand Sumo Tournament in Hawai'i June 9 to 10 at Blaisdell
Center Arena.

Musashimaru was the last in a 40-year line of more then two dozen sumotori
from Hawai'i to compete in Japan's national sport when he retired in 2004.
>From a raw aspirant fresh out of high school he achieved one of the fastest
climbs up the sumo rankings, eventually becoming the 67th yokozuna and
winner of 12 Emperor's Cups in the centuries-old sport.

Now he coaches at the Musashigawa stable in Tokyo, where he once apprenticed
and lived in communal space. He helps direct predawn practices, showing
young sumotori the time-honored, bruising fundamentals of the sport. He
lives within walking distance of the stable in a low-rise Nippori
neighborhood where he is treated as a deity, passersby bowing in his
presence. His is one of the sport's most recognized faces in part thanks to
something of a resemblance with the revered historic figure Saigo Takamori
(1827-'77).

Yet even as Musashimaru helps prepare wannabe champions - some just out of
junior high school - for their futures, his own is in the back of his mind.
He said he hasn't made a commitment yet on whether he will stay in the only
profession he has ever known, though decision day is approaching.

As a former grand champion, Musashimaru was given a five-year dispensation
at ring retirement, allowing him to stay in the sport and draw an elder's
salary. But when 2009 rolls around he will either have to purchase stock in
the ruling Japan Sumo Association, where the stock would allow him to remain
until the mandatory retirement age of 65, or he must leave the sport.

The stock - when available - can be expensive, as much as "$2 million"
according to Musashimaru. And while he has saved well, Musashimaru said he
will talk to the stable and its booster club about support.

Whether he remains in the sport or moves on, Musashimaru said sumo has
allowed him to grow in ways beyond his imposing 6-foot-3, and nearly
500-pound frame. It gave him an opportunity to "make my own way" and showed
the way. Without the demands of sumo and its discipline, Musashimaru said,
"I don't know where I'd be. Probably a bad boy."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis at honoluluadvertiser.com.