SUMO Comments

CHANKO

Subject: Re: Chanko Nabe
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 11:01:07 +0000
From: abe@accesscom.com
To: sumo@brooks.statgen.ncsu.edu

Chanko means "foods prepared and eaten by rikishi" and chanko nabe is "nabe-style foods prepared and eaten by rikishi". So there are countless varietyies of Chanko Nabe. Each time, the ingredients are different. Chanko-ban (Assigned cook of the day) go out and buy any fresh and season ingredients for chanko, and prepare for chanko and/or chanko-nabe.

Sukiyaki could be chanko-nabe, yose-nabe could be chanko-nabe, and so on. When you go to Hokkaido, you use the stuff from Hokkaido, and when you are in Kyushu, you use the good stuff from Kyushu.

In sumo heya setting, there are no recipe for chanko-nabe. More experienced chanko-ban will season the taste and younger ones will learn by watching how older ones seasoning, and by eating chanko-nabe. There are no rule. If it does not taste good, chanko-ban would be treated rather harshly in and out of dohyo. Naturally, they learn how to cook very effectively.

Sadogatake-beya's chanko-nabe is kind of unique with Kimchee, Korean spicy pickled vegitable.

-(self claimed) "Toshiyori" Masumiriki

Subject: Re: Chanko Nabe
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 13:35:31 +0000
From: abe@accesscom.com
To: sumo@brooks.statgen.ncsu.edu

Curry rice, sushi, sashimi, salad, steak, noodle, potstickers, whatever, could be "chanko". But "chanko-babe" is something you eat while you cook in a pot.

-Toshiyori Masumiriki

GYOJI

Subject: Re: [Sumo INFO] A list of the gyoji (referees)
Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 12:33:23 -0700
From: abe@sentius.com
To: sumo@brooks.statgen.ncsu.edu

I don't have any reference information at my office. So, these are based on my memory.

Hareesh Kesavan wrote:

Hareesh= It seems like they all have the name "Kimura" or "Skikimori"... I guess this is not a name, but a title?

These are basically "schools" similar to the schools in flower arrangementand tea ceremony, for example. But now Kimura and Shikimori are not that distinguishable, except the way they hold gumbai or fans.

Hareesh= Is the "Hatsu-dohyo" date the first time they ever refereed a match in "professional" sumo, or does this also include their time in university leagues?

No professional gyoji had any college level shimpan experience. They start at the very bottom of the professional gyoji rank at Maezumo and Juryo.

Hareesh= How does someone become a gyoji? (I'm amazed at how young some of them are... here's one who started at the tender age of 9 years old?) --> TATEGYOJI Kimura Shonosuke 1936.03.26 Kochi Nishonoseki 1945.11

Those were right after the end of WWII. In old days, they were, in a sense, adopted by older gyoji and started early. There used to be gyoji-beya only for gyoji and headed by Kimura Shonosuke as oyakata. Even now, some older sumo fans and commentators call Tate Gyoji and former Tate Gyoji "oyakata".

There are two sumo heya named after gyoji names. One is Kimura Sehei, usually called Kise-beya, and the other is Shikimori Hidegoro (?) usually called Shikihide-beya. These are the remains of old days when gyoji were allowed to train rikishi in addition to gyoji.

Hareesh= Can a former rikishi become a gyoji?

There are no rule preventing them from being gyoji, but in reality, sincethey need to go through from the bottom with teenagers, I don't think any of them wanting to be gyoji after rikishi.

Hareesh= Is there a system of "promoting" gyoji to higher divisions, or is it just seniority? How about demotions? (I noticed some very experienced gyoji working in lower divisions?) --> Sandanme Shikimori Kandayu 1936.01.02 Kagoshima Izutsu 1953.05

The promotion is based on the formal evaluation process by Kyokai. It's based on their skills on and off dohyo, including office management

and bookkeeping, announcing, sumo caligraphy and document processing, in addition to better judgement on dohyo.

Hareesh= How many matches will a gyoji referee each day? If there is a match between rikishi of different divisions, does the higher or lower division always supply the gyoji, or could it be either?

In general, lower rank gyoji manage more matches and higher rank gyoji manage less. Tate Gyoji, I believe, manage only one match a day. In the list, Makuuchi was right below Tate Gyoji, but in reality, there is a rank "Sanyaku-kaku Gyoji" between Tate Gyoji and Makuuchi-kaku Gyoji.

Hareesh= How are the gyoji afiliated to the heya? Is there a rule to forbid a gyoji from refereeing a match including a rikishi from a their heya? Is there a rule to stop two gyoji from the same heya from working in the same division?

Gyoji afiliated to heya based on "connections". In some cases, the applicants liked their oyakata, and in some cases, the someone the applicants' parent knows are closely related to the someone closely related to the heya, etc.There are no rule to prevent gyoji to manage a match involving the rikishifrom the same heya he belongs to, or gyoji from same heya working in the same division.

Hareesh= Are the gyoji full voting members of the Kyokai (oyakata?) when they retire? Particularly, do they have a say on the ranking and promotion committees?

None. Besides, their retirement age at 65 is the retirement age of Kyokai itself. So, when they retired from gyoji, they need to leave from Kyokai.

-Toshiyori Masumiriki

Hareesh= Sorry for all the questions... Any partial answers gladly accepted. I just realized how little I know about our unnoticed friends, the gyoji! Blame Bandey for getting me started. :)

Hareesh.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hareesh Kesavan: hkesavan@stanford.edu

My hovercraft is full of eels.

MAWASHI

Subject: Re: Colors of Mawashi
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:40:32 -0700
From: abe@sentius.com
To: sumo@brooks.statgen.ncsu.edu

Color has no particular and significant meaning.

According to the official Sumo regulations, only variation of colors for mawashi are black, dark blue and dark purple, but Sumo Kyokai has not practiced any significant control activities, so far. It seems that white is the only color (or non-color) they don't allow to be used for mawashi. The closest one was when Musoyama wore silver colored mawashi a while ago.

The strings hanging in front of mawashi are (appropriately) called "Sagari" or "hanging stuff". It needed to be an odd numbers, though rikishi is supposed to separate them in two directions, left and right during shikiri. The color of sagari needs to match the color of mawashi. They are only used for (more or less) official match, and rikishi don't use sagari for practice. Glue is used to keep them hard.

-Toshiyori Masumiriki

YOBIDASHI

Subject: Re: (Q) Yobidashi-what?
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 1997 08:40:45 +0000
From: Masumi Abe
To: sumo@brooks.statgen.ncsu.edu

Yobodashi is the callers and sweepers who aren't allowed to be on the dohyo during the match. Only time they use their voices on the dohyo is when they call the shikona of the two rikishi of the next bout, and the side (East or West) they belong.

The people you mentioned are called "gyoji" and they are the referees. There are two kinds of callings they use during the bouts. When the two rikishi are actively pursuing the match, they call "nokotta, nokotta....". This means the match is not over yet. And when the two rikishi are not active and seem waiting something to happen, they call "hakki yoi" or sometimes sound like "hakke yoi". There are two major and different interpretation of these words, but the overwelming majority of sumo scholar believe that "hakki yoi" was originally "hakki yoyo" and means "push the energy level up". The minority interpretation is that "hakke yoi" means "you have a good luck".

-Masumiriki

YUMITORI Subject: Re: Back on track :-)
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 02:49:26 +0000
From: abe@accesscom.com
To: sumo@brooks.statgen.ncsu.edu

Scott wrote:

Scott= Who picks the rikishi for the Yumitori-shiki? and who usually performs it? i.e what ranking of the rikishi?

Speaking of food anybody had Chanko Nabe lately?

Later,

Scott Light
lightsms@texas.net

Scott:

This is a very good question. At the moment, I don't have any "official" answer.

But I could give you a hint.

Traditionally, a Makushita rikishi from a heya which most dominant yokozuna belongs to, performed yumitori. The reason is that the yumitori is supposed to be done by the winner of the last match, and the Makushita rikishi's performance of yumitori is because he is doing it in the place of the winner of the last match, or representing the winner.

Makushita rikishi are not allowed to wear Oicho hair style or kesho-mawashi in usual situation, but they are allowed to wear Oicho when they play sumo against juryo rikishi or when they perform yumitori for the winner of last match of the day. Since makushita rikishi could not participate Juryo dohyo-iri, even if he is about to be involved in a match against Juryo rikishi, the only time Makushita rikishi could wear kesho-mawashi is for yumitori.

From these facts, I guess Sumo Kyokai (probably Shimpan-bu) asks the shisho who has the best yokozuna, and both Oyakata and Yokozuna decide who will perform yumitori, and probably from yokozuna's tsukebito.

In past, there were a few sekitori yumitori rikishi. One of the highest ranked yumitori rikishi was Maegashira Ohtayama, who owns and operate a chanko restaurant named after his shikona, near Ikuta (?) station in Kawasaki (?). When I visited his restaurant about three years ago, I enjoyed his Takasago-beya style chanko which is miso-based.

One of many sumo artifacts he displays in his restaurant is yumitori bow. It is very impressive one.

-Masumiriki