[sumo] Harumafuji at Dewanoumi today

[Doreen Simmons]

First, an admission; having been at a Dewa ichimon rengo-geiko at 
Kasugano yesterday (somewhat to the surprise of Dewanoumi who regards 
me, quite reasonably,  as his own supporter), this morning I was 
turning my steps toward Tokitsukaze, with Michinoku as a fallback,  but 
as this took me past Dewanoumi and there was Aran outside (again!) I 
decided to mend my bridges and  take my usual route into Dewa. There 
were quite a number of people -- mainly elderly men, plus reporters I 
knew by sight, one large movie camera on a stand, and a young Japanese 
woman tucked away in the rear corner (never did find out who she was or 
who she was interested in).

This was half-past eight and the makushita were still hard at it, with 
the sekitori at the side warming up. Apart from the Kasugano contingent 
(Tochiozan, Tochinoshin, veteran Tochinonada), I was pleasantly 
surprised to see Asofuji, elder brother of Aminishiki; don't recall 
ever seeing him there before. There was also a Mongolian I couldn't at 
first identify from close up -- but soon decided it must be Asasekiryu, 
the unsung hero who probably eased Asashoryu's entry into professional 
sumo, having entered the heya a year earlier. Twnety minutes later, a 
foreign man and a Japanese woman came in, clearly by appointment, and 
were shown into the room at the side, where the man set up a small 
movie camera on a tripod. He proved to be from Agence France Presse, 
the French agency, and had permission to film Harumafuji and afterwards 
interview him back at Isenoumi-beya. I didn't know this till afterwards 
-- or indeed why he was there. I was still half-expecting Asashoryu -- 
but no, at 9:18 in walked Harumafuji, someone else I'd never seen 
there. He went through his warming-up exercises methodically.

Meanwhile the sekitori, regardless of whether they were Juryo or 
Makuuchi, had a very active session of keiko. Finally at 9:32 
Harumafuji (until recently Ama)  threw salt in all directions into the 
ring and stepped in for his own session. He took on each man for a 
number of bouts -- an abbreviated form of sanban-geiko. This means that 
if the opponent has lost he can try again immediately to try to correct 
what he did wrong, or to try a different technique to see if it works 
better. Futen'o, who was already in the ring,  had five successive 
bouts and lost them all. I don't want to post the whole thing, but 
Harumafuji had 20 bouts, and won many with quick and strong sumo, but 
at other times the tables were turned. With Aran he had some problems; 
Aran sort of beat him four times out of eight, but with iffy sumo. 
Total number of bouts or the morning:Tochiozan 23, four losing bouts 
against the ozeki;  Futen'o 21, lost six to the Ozeki; Aran 21, see 
above; Tochinoshin 15, lost one to the ozeki; Asasekiryu 15, didn't try 
the ozeki; Tochinonada 13lost one to the ozeki; Asofuji 9, didn't 
attempt the ozeki.

During the butsukari-geiko at the end Harumafuji gave Aran a thorough 
lesson, telling him where to aim when pushing against him and trying to 
push him across the ring. It was pretty clear that the ozeki here was 
definitely the master. All the butsukari was pretty thorough -- not 
perfunctory as it sometimes is.

And that, dear friends, is where I leave you for today. I leave the AFP 
interview of Tochinoshin and Aran on the heya steps (that's somebody 
else's interview and I look forward to viewing it eventually) and later 
was interviewed myself at home. Meanwhile I have to press on with 
preparations for my own commentary this coming Sunday -- once again 
Queen of Shonichi -- nice to get it over quickly but, with Golden Week 
intervening, an awful rush to update my materials, which are all on my 
office computer.

FWIW,

Doreen Simmons
  jz8d-smmn at asahi-net.or.jp