Today is my last day at the Kencho for a while. Next week...back to school. Checking my schedule it appears that I will not be back here for at least two weeks, maybe longer. Have to admit that I am happy to be heading back to the classrooms. Although the work is harder than simply sitting here at the Kencho, studying Japanese, writing in here, answering emails, reading, and thinking about lunch, it is also much more fun. Will have many new students and one new school. So let the show begin.

The parents left yesterday. Was sad to see them go, but happy to have my small apartment back to myself. So, mixed feelings, as it probably should be. Think they had good time and I had fun showing them my life over here.
At the train station where we dropped them off, I could see mom's eyes starting to tear up, but I reminded her that I'd be seeing her in three months, at Rigel's wedding, and she seemed ok again.
Anyway, I am glad they came.

After Robin, Gary and I dropped them off, we headed over to the Kose Sports Center because the sumo boys were in town. The whole thing took place in a large gym and you couldn't be too far from the action. And all the boys were there: Kokkai, Kotomitsuki, Takamisakari, Kaio, Chiyotaikai, and even the yokozuna (top rank) himself, Asashoryu. I had been wondering if the top-level guys would be present or if this would just be some second-half pre-season football game where all the good guys are sitting out. But no, they were all there.
Robin and Gary aren't exactly sumo fans and I was happy to answer questions when need be. They had seen a documentary on sumo, though, so they weren't completely out of the loop. So we had fun and talked and watched the show and it was a pretty good day.
One thing I will say here, though, is that there was definitely something missing from the feeling of the whole day. I chalk this up to the fact that this was a demonstration and not an actual basho. The matches didn't mean anything really and I kinda had that same feeling I get when I watch a pre-season football game. You wait and wait for football to start and then you see, near the end of July, that there is a pre-season game on tv. So you make it a point to tune in because, after all, it's football. So you get your beer and nachos all ready for kickoff and sit down to watch excited that the last six months have passed. But as you watch 1st and 10 turn to 2nd and 6 and then to 3rd and 3 you realize that this game is missing something. It's the first half and all the prospected starters are out there. The lines seem to be crashing into each other with all the gusto of a post-season game. The safeties are hitting the tightends like a train hits a car stalled on the rails. But nonetheless, something is missing. What can it be?
Well, I'll tell you, it's the lack of something being on the line. Sure, the jobs of some of the players are on the line during the pre-season, but do we sportsfans really care about those on the cusp anyway? No. We just want a good game whose outcome means something. Even a 3-11 team near the end of the regular season is fighting for something. Those pre-season games mean nothing! I'm sure some sportsfans would argue with me on this point but I stand by my claim. I only watch because, well, it's still football.
Anyway, back to sumo. So there was something missing from the feel of the day, but it was still fun to be there and watch. The official events were to get underway at 11:00 but we had arrived around 9:00 and as we walked in I could see many rikishi (wrestlers) out on the dohyo (the platform they fight on). Some were standing just off the dohyo and some up on it. Two rikishi would push each other around for a few minutes and then step off as two others took their places. It looked like the scenes I've seen on tv from sumo stables where they do their training. So it was pretty cool to be able to watch them do this.
Right off I noticed that Kokkai was out there and watched as he stood around, talked to some of the others, and rubbed his two day stubble (he is normally clean shaven). The relaxed atmosphere out there on the dohyo was in direct contrast to the normal tenseness experienced at a basho. These guys are normally up there, staring each other down, going through the pre-bout rituals, and psyching themselves up; all this in front of a crowd that can smell and nearly taste the competition like it was a gourmet dinner being prepared in the next room.
So in this relaxed atmosphere we picked out some seats and watched as Takamisakari, Kotomitsuki, Buyuzan, Kakizoe, and eventually Kaio, Chiyotaikai and Asashoryu came out to play on the dohyo. So we sat and watched and talked.
At 11:00 the real demonstration started. The day ran much like an official basho's day does with a few exceptions. It was all speeded up some as the between bout rituals were shortened, there were demonstrations of things you don't get to see at a basho, and there were a couple of extra shows.
The extra shows included a sort of slapstick sumo fight between two guys whose names I don't know. They got up there and tripped over each other, spit water at each other, picked on the ref, mock-fought, and even went out into the audience and shared a beer. It was funny at points and rather corny at others but I suppose that was the point. Sumo is a very serious business and this demonstration showed that it does, indeed, have a sense of humor.
A little later about seven rikishi from the middle ranks got up there and did a little song/spoken word thing. I guess they picked the best singers cause they were actually pretty good. They sang in that sort of traditional Japanese way and took turns at the mic. And it was interesting to see these normally macho, I'll-pound-you-into-the-dohyo, men singing and moving in a way in which I've never seen them before. Imagine Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Louis, and some of the other heavyweights in the middle of a ring singing a sort of opera and classic jazz tune mix. I'm sure these rikishi did it much better than those guys could.
There were also behind-the-scenes-of-sumo demonstrations. They had a drummer go out on the dohyo and beat the drum that you sometimes hear outside the stadium in Tokyo. Then they had Takamisakari get his hair done by a young expert. A rikishi's hair is much like the old samurai warriors' were hundreds of years ago, and those hairstylists that fix the hair of the rikishi have been in training for many years and travel with the whole circuit. And then they had Asashoryu and five of his attendees show the audience how his large white rope, which signifies his yokozuna status, is tied on. The rope is worn only by yokozuna and is not made until he attains that rank. The lower ranking guys from the yokozuna's stable make the rope when he gets his promotion and apparently it weighs around 20 pounds. It is tied around the yokozuna's waist and the back is fixed in a large arching knot. He does not wear this for his fights but only for what I call the yokozuna dance, which he does once, everyday of a basho, just after the top forty guys are introduced announcing the last and top tier of fights to happen for that day.
So all of this happened between breaks in the demonstration bouts and eventually the big boys came out to fight. There isn't much more to say because, as said earlier, these bouts really didn't mean anything. But they did seem to put fighters of about equal ability against each other so that was a good thing. Kokkai fought Takamisakari, Kotomitsuki fought Wakanosato, Kaio fought Musoyama, and Asashoryu fought Chiyotaikai.
After that last match we had to escape quickly as Gary had to get to work. So it was a good day and the next time I see those guys live will be May 22nd in Tokyo for the real thing.