Brothers in Sumo –
part two
Brian Lewin
Brothers still active on the dohyo get their turn

Yokozuna Comparisons
Joe Kuroda
SFM’s most eminent historian, JK, has a crack at the impossible and tries to see who was the greatest of the tsuna wearers

Rikishi of Old
John Gunning
Takanobori – former sekiwake, former NHK man and all ’round gent

Heya Peek
Barbara Ann Klein
Kitanoumi-beya, Kitazakura, mirrors & photo bonanza

SFM Interview
John Gunning
Kazuyoshi Yoshikawa (son of the late sekiwake Takanobori) on life in sumo way back when

Sumo 101
Barbara Ann Klein
Behind every good man there stands a good woman – read and ye shall see. A departure from our regular 101 feature

Photo Bonanza
See the Hatsu Basho
plus much more through the lens of our photographers

Hatsu Basho Review
Lon Howard
Lon gives us his Hatsu Basho summary, along with the henka sightings results

Lower Division Rikishi
Mikko Mattila
Mikko Mattila covers lower division goings on in detail

Haru Basho Forecast
Pierre Wohlleben & Mark Buckton
Pierre predicts the Haru Basho banzuke while Mark highlights the ones to look out for in Osaka

Kimarite Focus
Mikko Mattila
Mikko takes us on a tour of his chosen kimarite

Minusha
John McTague
John’s unique bimonthly view of sumo news from outside the dohyo and in the restaurants!

Online Gaming
Alexander Nitschke
SFM’s own Alexander Nitschke covers the long running Hoshitori Game

Kokugi Connections
Todd Lambert
Todd’s bimonthly focus on 3 of the most interesting sumo sites today

Fan Debate
Feb's debate sees
a pair of Kiwis exchanging opinions on the honbasho going on the road

SFM Cartoons
Benny Loh & Stephen Thompson
In the third of our cartoon bonanzas, sit back and enjoy BL’s offerings and put a caption to ST’s pic to win yourselves a banzuke

Let’s Hear From You
What was it that
made you a sumo fan? A unique perspective from a sightless reader.

Readers’ Letters
See what some SFM
readers had to say since our last issue

Sumo Quiz
The Quizmaster
Answer the Qs and win yourself next basho’s banzuke.

  watched for just a few minutes. Kitanoumi Rijicho also showed up for a few minutes a bit later, but left very soon – to attend to his duties at the hon-basho, I assumed.

A number of bouts were performed for about 40 minutes, most of them routine with each rikishi generally having a turn, and won and lost fairly evenly. It was interesting to note that none of the lower-ranking men seemed to have his own towel, but rather shared community towels. Maybe one’s own towel was reserved for promotion to sekitori. But I sort of lost concentration on the surroundings, focusing instead on watching two wrestlers in particular – Tenichi, MS28e, and Orora , Sd4e.
 
  
Tenichi looking at the mirror (Photo by Meike Sinke)
 Tenichi appeared to be wearing Hawaiian board shorts, the uniform for surfboarding. He never once donned a mawashi, but rather stood poised before the mirror, gazing at himself, occasionally rocking back and forth, and once flexing his muscles with what looked to be medium-weight dumbbells. Even when the heyagashira, Kitazakura, appeared on the dohyo, Tenichi just kept peering at himself in the mirror. Now, I had seen this done before in many heya, but never so extensively, and certainly not by any of the lower ranks. Even my favorite mirror-
watcher, Chiyotenzan from Kokonoe-beya, is a serial mirror-peerer – and that’s a story for another time – but not as doggedly as Tenichi was. Well, maybe he had to fight that day and didn’t want to exhaust himself…….

Orora is a whole different mammal. I was very curious to watch him at keiko ever since I first saw him, and particularly after a very unique bout that I witnessed between him and Tanno (former Datenishiki) of Dewanoumi beya. If you saw these two behemoths’ bout on video, you would ask for the real-time version, thinking you were watching the slo-mo. But they actually fought in what can only be called slow motion, after
 
Orora doing suriashi (Photo by Barbara Ann Klein)
 
 a tachiai that looked to have the impact of two pillows gently bumping up against one another. Very disorienting to the spectator (me). Back to today’s practice, and Orora was the same way. His “bouts” with his heya-mates were basically “I’ll just stand here while you pound on me and then I will use my great bulk to push you out.”
 
Orora rolling after butsukari-geiko (Photo by Barbara Ann Klein)
 
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