Chris Gould reports from the home of sumo’s fastest rising star and sees a sumo legend revelling in the role of youthful stablemaster.

Shikoroyama-beya is the latest addition to the burgeoning heya community in Tokyo’s Kiyosumi district. Its newly-constructed bright red-bricked walls and shiny green doors can be found a mere two minutes from Kiyosumi-Shirakawa metro station, and about 100 metres from two prestigious heya associated with great yokozuna: Kitanoumi and Otake (formerly Taiho).

On consecutive mornings during the Hatsu 2007 basho, Shikoroyama-beya allowed two things to stand out. One was its tolerance towards visitors, especially my own gaijin breed. Although the main heya doors were locked at 7am, no advance reservation was needed to view asa-geiko. So long as a deshi heard your polite knocks or – in my case – spotted you nervously peeking around the wrong door, you were guaranteed to be invited in.

Shikoroyama’s second notable characteristic concerned something more tangible: weights. The heya’s weight-training quarters, situated on the first floor, were clearly visible from the roadside, the curtains proudly drawn back for the benefit of passers by. Upon entering the practice area, it was immediately clear that the obsession with weights had spread to the building’s ground floor too. Of the five heya that I visited, Shikoroyama was the only one that never tidied its weights away after keiko. They were there, nestling to the right of the main entrance from dawn ‘til dusk, forever in the minds of the deshi who were clearly expected to use them.

The perennial presence of such heavy metallic objects can be attributed to Shikoroyama Oyakata. In a past-life as the lightweight sekiwake Terao, he remained more reliant on weightlifting than most to survive in sumo’s top division. He is understandably keen that the recruits under his jurisdiction, and especially the lighter ones, embrace weight-training as actively as he did himself. By all accounts, his deshi have noted the message.

Shikoroyama appears healthy for a man of 43. His hair is thick and retains a natural dark colour, and he suffers not from the comic limp that besets several former sumotori of his generation. His rapid descent of the stairs and subsequent march to his zabuton is emblematic of the positive energy that comes with metamorphosing from clapped-out sumotori into relatively youthful oyakata. Revelling in his new lease of life, he obviously cares passionately about his troops and is yet to contract the mysterious disease that causes an oyakata to observe training sessions less intently during a tournament.

The deshi visibly appreciate, and fear, the amounts of attention forthcoming from their oyakata, and have consequently been instilled with a commendable work ethic. Whereas in some heya, several deshi can be observed standing around sharing accounts of their most memorable bouts until the oyakata’s sandals can be heard, the likeable Shikoroyama boys set down to serious business at the stroke of 7am, even in their oyakata’s absence.

Eight jonidan sumotori trained with a solitary sandanme on the first morning I attended, and they began by stretching the lower back, shoulders, arms and neck, each for the count of ten. The sumotori performed the stretches having partitioned themselves into three rows, with each row three-wrestlers deep. To underline their sense of togetherness and awareness, they established a formal system for administering the ten-count. The front-right deshi, the slender and pretty-faced Teraomaru, administered the first ten-count before handing over to the front-centre deshi. He, in turn, handed over to the front-left deshi, who was proceeded by the middle-left, middle-centre, middle-right etc.

The procedure was slickly executed, and over in less than a minute. It was followed by some light thigh and calf stretches, which led into the obligatory session of shiko stamping. This time, 20-year-old Teraomaru administered most of the count. After he reached ‘15,’ the shiko became dramatically less co-ordinated; the collective thud of feet on clay which accompanied earlier numbers giving way to a pitter-patter of soft thwacks. Teraomaru, aware that all was not well, checked over his shoulder to survey the problem. He found the two youngest sumotori – whose legs had begun to redden – stamping the odd numbers only, while some more experienced colleagues stamped on – or between – random numbers of their choosing. He said nothing, though, and led the various guises of shiko until the count of 30. A larger, slightly younger deshi then assumed control of the exercise, and took his colleagues to the 50th shiko stamp, a milestone that was greeted with deep panting from several quarters.

After the gale-force air-conditioning cooled them down, the sumotori spent a considerable amount of time on squats, in order to strengthen their thighs and hamstrings. The count emanated from the voice of a skinny, but well-toned, apprentice whose deep vocal chords belied the youthfulness of his face. Not even 16, he had doubtless joined the heya within the previous few weeks. Alongside him stood his best friend in sumo, a fellow 15-year-old, much rounder and with marshmellowy cheeks, but just as painfully inexperienced. His barely-broken voice was soothing in tone, in stark contrast to the deep, hoarse cough he occasionally emitted. The two novices bore absolutely no battle scars, and their naïve, uncertain faces appeared hopelessly unprepared to receive any. Their skin seemed so tender as to automatically demand wrapping up in cotton wool. I still wince at the thought of their getting hurt, perhaps during their inaugural matawari split. But, if they possess a mental toughness hidden by their vulnerable appearance, they will somehow evolve into the older wrestlers beside them, sporting moderately cute faces but also scarred legs, purple pelvic joints, bandaged toes and scaly feet.

Thirty squats later, the wrestlers decided to add some oshi (pushing) movements to their routine, and propelled their hands forward alternately in a thrusting motion upon every squat. Having slapped imaginary opponents into submission, hands were placed on heads for 30 further squats, before a push-up session was instigated. The skinny novice hurtled towards the dohyo surface and completed ten push-ups with less difficulty than most, but the bulkier novice had been given special dispensation to rest his hands against the raised platform on which I sat. He thus executed his push-ups at a 40° angle, but even from this less arduous position, struggled to manage five. His oyakata presumably cannot wait to introduce him to the dumb-bells.

Shortly afterwards, a door to my right was slid open with a screech, and the deshi were jolted into shouts of ‘good morning!’ Two tree-trunk-sized legs stomped onto the beige-vanished wooden floor, carrying the well-formed torso of the stable’s most senior wrestler into the dohyo area. The wrestler in question was Homasho, one of sumo’s rapidly rising stars and fresh from an amazing jun-yusho in the previous tournament. His rapid ascent to the eighth highest rank in sumo (maegashira 4W) had not only made sumo fans proud to hail him as ‘Terao’s deshi,’ but had also gained him an array of female admirers. [Indeed, he had already made it onto the cover of Hanako Dosukoi’s book, Kawaii (Cute) Ozumo]. The lively – yet highly forced – collective greeting, and his status as the only Shikoroyama sumotori permitted to wear a white training belt, highlighted how his importance in the stable had grown exponentially of late. He was now served by two tsukebito, one of whom eagerly scampered to the water bucket to fetch his superior a drink. As he did so, Homasho glided towards the far left of the room to quietly practice some light shiko while observing the exercises of sweatier colleagues.

Defensive sumo was the next object of learning, with the junior deshi practicing a circumnavigation of the ring while walking backwards. The exercise helps the sumotori construct an automatic sense of direction within the straw bales, and can produce some spectacular results in the heat of a tournament, with wrestlers skirting the tawara in reverse at incredible speed. It was notable that some wrestlers armed themselves with weights for the exercise. During this part of the session, two young women in their 20s entered the heya and began to view proceedings intently. Whether they were girlfriends of sumotori, daughters of koenkai members or devoted fans, I dared not ask. A short while afterwards, they were joined by a man of about thirty-five, who presumably found solace in reading a newspaper within sumo surroundings before beginning work.

While spectator numbers quadrupled, the reverse-movement exercise was consolidated by a partnership activity. Three pairs of sumotori took up positions at the tawara, facing each other. Wrestler A rested a hand on each of Wrestler B’s shoulders, applied pressure, and advanced forward with very deliberate strides. Wrestler B resisted slightly but reversed as in the previous exercise. The foot movements of the pairing were supposed to be coordinated, so that A’s left-strides forward tallied with B’s right-steps backward. It is safe to say that some pairings coordinated their movements markedly better than others. Throughout the lengthy duration of the exercise, Homasho remained impassive, his calm shiko interspersed with the odd swig from one of four bottles of mineral water placed in front of me. To the left of these bottles lay a gold-plated mould of a hog’s head, to mark the Year of the Pig.

At around 7.30, some straw brooms were fished out from a cupboard near Homasho, and the sandy ring was swept by the junior deshi in preparation for suri-ashi. This exercise is designed to fine-tune the wrestlers’ forward movements, and hopefully equip them for that legendary oshi-taoshi which causes zabuton to fly. The deshi formed two lines at right angles to one another and traversed the dohyo in a variety of ways. Initially, they crouched and executed a basic tachi-ai, thereby crossing the dohyo in a straight line. Then, they converted a leftward tachi-ai into a rightward-moving assault. Afterwards, they imagined dealing with an opponent’s canny side-step, and enacted a straight initial charge followed by a pivot at the tawara. Finally, they traversed the ring in five undulating movements, initially charging straight before twice skipping from right-to-left followed by left-to-right.

Suri-ashi soon gave way to the honing of yori-kiri movements. Again, the wrestlers formed two lines at right angles, but this time traversed the dohyo more slowly, dragging their bulk across the clay with forward flicks of the heels and toes. Such a pronounced scraping of soles against clay was deemed too much for the round, young deshi to handle, and he was told to continue traversing with accentuated strides.

The brooms then re-emerged to sweep the sand nearer the centre of the dohyo for the next phase of foot-hardening: butsukari-geiko. Homasho’s water-fetching tsukebito, a spotty-faced sandanme sumotori by the name of Tomishima, stood near the shikiri-sen and challenged a larger deshi to spring from a crouching position and clatter him at full throttle. To motivate his colleague, and doubtless to psyche himself up for the considerable impact ahead, Tomishima shouted when exhorting the deshi to charge. The deshi obliged, gave Tomishima’s wobbly pectorals a nasty sting, and caused Homasho’s tsukebito to slide to the edge of the dohyo. The sound of the impact was considerable, but paled into insignificance after the almighty pangs that occurred an hour later when Homasho charged at Tomishima so ferociously that the latter instinctively sought to back away. Such was the force of Homasho’s advance that the attendant’s back often found itself slammed against the wall panels some six metres away.

After butsukari-geiko came the tsuki-dashi workout. Teraosho, one of the more rotund deshi ranked at jonidan 89E, occupied the centre of the dohyo, spread out his blubbery arms and invited a series of colleagues to take turns in removing him from the ring via a ‘tsuki’ thrusting attack to the upper body. It was here that the difference between the established sumotori and the novices was most cruelly exposed. The skinny novice missed Teraosho’s pectorals completely with his charge, ended up thrusting against thin air, and earned a reprimand for almost taking his partner’s eye out. Meanwhile, the weightier novice, for all his size, appeared woefully short of thrusting power and took four attempts to even move Teraosho let alone oust him from the ring. He, and his inexperienced companion, spent the remainder of the training session tossing a heavy rice bag between them, in the hope of building up the necessary arm and leg power for more convincing tsuppari attacks in the future. Homasho, meanwhile, set to work with the real weights, and practiced charging while gripping a dumb-bell in each hand.

At 8.05am, two deshi departed the training session to head down to the Kokugikan for their morning matches. As they did so, the ring was purified by way of a sprinkling of salt prior to the day’s first practice bouts, which were between Teraosho and an equally chubby sumotori. Teraosho began splendidly; winning four of the first five bouts, but then seemed to decline spectacularly (perhaps due to his poorly right foot?) and lost four on the bounce. Tomishima then entered the combat zone and punished him in similar fashion. The last two Tomishima victories came before the bespectacled eyes of the oyakata, whose 8.15am entrance in a lime-green tracksuit had been welcomed as enthusiastically as Homasho’s.

Amid the morning greetings, Shikoroyama swiftly perched himself on the zabuton which had been carefully laid a couple of metres in front of my own. His commanding presence inspired the deshi to fight harder in the practice bouts; their grunts becoming louder with each one. To remind the oyakata that he had been fighting for some time, Tomishima loudly asked Teraosho if he felt fine after so many bouts.  ‘I seem good!’ came the confident reply, before each made a beeline for the other’s belt. Teraosho’s condition was clearly far behind that of Homasho’s tsukebito, though. The latter won the bout easily, leaving the former to eye the oyakata nervously in defeat. The oyakata did not look overly impressed but immediately turned his attention to the next practice match, won by Tomishima with a tsuppari attack that evoked memories of Terao.

Besides Homasho, it was not too difficult to guess upon whom the hopes of Shikoroyama were pinned. The twenty-year-old Tomishima was at the centre of practically every exercise and proved extremely difficult to dislodge from the victor’s corner in the moshi-ai (winner stays on) bouts. When his tsuppari ran out of steam, he fought valiantly on the mawashi and elicited hearty encouragement from both Shikoroyama and Homasho as a result. ‘Use your leg!’ the oyakata implored during the longest bout of the day, in which Tomishima eventually triumphed. It was the only piece of technical advice that Shikoroyama felt expedient to pass onto him.
The oyakata did, however, call the young pretender aside for a lengthy discussion on a different matter. He evidently could not recall Tomishima’s wrist being bandaged the day before and therefore resolved to quiz him thoroughly.

‘You’ve bandaged it,’ he began, almost disbelievingly.

‘Yes!’ cried the young protégé, like a private addressing his commanding officer. 

‘Really!’ asked the oyakata.

‘Yes!’

In response to a gesture from his stablemaster, Tomishima offered his arm up for inspection. The oyakata felt his way along the bandage, prodded something, and observed: ‘It hurts here, then?’

‘Yes!’ yelped the young protégé, either through unflinching obedience or flinching with pain.

It is not surprising that Shikoroyama pays particular attention to the wrists of his deshi. Terao’s wrists took responsibility for practically his entire career, being called upon to perform the tsuppari in nearly 2,000 professional bouts. It is reported that just before he retired, a doctor informed him that he was effectively fighting in sumo’s top division (and still occasionally winning) with the wrists of an 80-year-old woman. Little wonder then, that the oyakata shows acute scepticism towards anyone who claims to have a minor wrist complaint! It was interesting to note that the tape had disappeared from Tomishima’s wrist come the following morning’s practice!

The wrist examination completed, the practice bouts resumed, with Tomishima easily overcoming whatever pain he may have borne to triumph in virtually every one. One bout saw Shikoroyama become particularly exasperated. Despite claiming he ‘seemed good,’ Teraosho seemed anything but, and after once again appearing unworthy of borrowing Terao’s shikona, provoked his coach into barking a barrage of instructions as he tussled. After what must have been his tenth consecutive defeat, the oyakata took him to one side and advised him not to bring his right leg across his body so much. Shikoroyama demonstrated the correct leg movement and instructed his deshi to practice it several times before entering moshi-ai again. He then sat back down, swivelled towards the Japanese spectator with the newspaper, and successfully asked if he could borrow the sumo pages. Safe in the knowledge that Homasho needed no advice on how to batter his tsukebito, Shikoroyama checked if the press had any advice on how Homasho could have beaten Kokkai more convincingly the previous day.

By this time, amidst widespread heavy breathing and deep coughing, the two youngest deshi had been fought to exhaustion by an airborne rice-bag and had relapsed into shiko. Every couple of minutes, they turned uneasily towards their stablemaster, as if expecting him to admonish them. When he did look up from his paper, though, their expectations were unfounded. ‘That’s good for today. Get changed,’ he said, abrasively, prompting the two novices to lunge for their towels and scurry to the changing rooms.

Twenty minutes later, and a peek through the sliding doors revealed that they had been charged with preparing the morning’s first meal. This being the case, the oyakata must have considerable faith in the supervisory skills of the stable’s chef, a well-built twenty-something with the words ‘Love and Peace’ emblazoned on his white t-shirt. I admired how comfortable Shikoroyama seemed having offloaded the preparation of his meal onto two teenagers who could barely catch a rice-bag. Then again, although the rookies may not wish to realise it, these learn-on-the-job cookery sessions could be the biggest favour that sumo ever does for them. Should they fail to break into the elite few who regularly grace sumo’s salaried ranks, they will find themselves with a very useful skill that can be used to earn a living after sumo.

As the novices debate who should cut which ingredients, one wonders how they actually perceive their situation at present. How high will their ambitious minds allow them to aim? How badly do they long for the day when they will no longer be forbidden from trying the exercises at full pace? With how much trepidation do they view the prospect of leg-splits and battle-hardening? How do they ever hope to emulate Homasho? And, although they respect their oyataka as an authority figure, do they have any idea of how famous a fighter he really was? Of the prestige that comes with saying and knowing that they are being coached by him? Of the legendary Fukuzono family thrusting tradition that they are expected to inherit and prolong?

As the would-be stars of tomorrow clunk away in the kitchen, a star of today leads the brief morning prayer that follows ten minutes of warming down. In the absence of his oyakata, who has once more returned to his quarters, Homasho rises, bows, claps his hands and presses the meaty palms together for a second. His tsukebito and the other deshi follow suit. One hopes that as well as for their own well-being, they particularly pray that the two gentle-looking souls on canteen duty do not become too disheartened with sumo over the course of a long, hard 2007.




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