paolo

As usual Ms. Uchidate surprises me (and many others, I think...). All the above is more or less true, but I would have severely scolded Asashoryu: even if his adrenaline was high as usual and the bout was over too early he should have stopped before the extrashove. Hakuho's reaction was understandable even if bad: who started the whole thing ? Would Asashoryu have been cautioned if Hakuho had not reacted ? Of course yes, so of course the one to blame the more was Asashoryu ! Luckily for him Hakuho reacted, so that Asashoryu had a chance to caress him .....

I thought they were almost "friends" before Hakuho grew up so rapidly. I had read that in a basho of some years ago Hakuho had waited for Asashoryu in the hanamichi to give him a high five after having beaten Hokutoriki on senshuraku, so giving Asashoryu the pass for a ketteisen. And that Hakuho was sometimes a guest for dinner at Asashoryu's home with Asashoryu's wife cooking. Was that true ? No wonder that the relationship changed when Hakuho became a menace for Asashoryu's dominance !

This topic is interesting, but I am missing the main point: why is Ama's tachiai considered a henka ? Aminishiki vs Hakuho last basho was a henka, Kotooshu vs Kisenosato in this basho was a henka. But Ama has had more or less a "side tachiai", his head was left of Hakuho's head while his chest was on the right. Sure he was very quick because he needed to have a grip of his own before Hakuho could get one. He knew that he is 40 kilos lighter and he cannot afford a frontal tachiai, so he decided for a special side tachiai.... Again, why is it a henka ? What should Ama have done ? Wait to be pushed back by Hakuho or thrown by his grip ? His only reasonable attitude was to have a grip and try to move Hakuho around before being imprisoned by his superior strenght, and this is what he did, with courage and determination. No coward behaviour, no desire of avoiding the fight. Well done, Ama ! Together with his fantastic final move in his Wakanoho bout, these are the two bouts of the basho up to now....

One more similar bout today (6th bout). But watching his bouts I always have a strange feeling. It is as if his opponents did not go all steam. They seem to give up from the very start, after the tachiai. They try to run away, they allow him to take his favourite grip easily, they seem relieved when in the end the bout is over. It is as if they were thinking: "The basho is just between you and Asashoryu, I do not care even to try my chances, I only want not to get injured because I must get my 8 wins". The same does not seem to apply to Asashoryu's opponents, maybe because Hakuho's physical imposing build is more scaring than Asashoryu's "normal" build. Does anybody have the same feeling ?

Sorry to add this long post just because I was not clear ... I see that many people have taken the following sentence that appeared in a post of mine in the sense that it represented my opinion... Actually I should have written it within quotes; it is simply what I read about Asashoryu's "style" when the first polemics on the subject arouse about 5 years ago ! Wouldn't that be a boring thing to watch. I fully agree I fully agree I agree, even if I do not like Ferrari very much (... incredible, isn't it ? I am italian...) Well said ! Thank you all for your patience and pardon me again ...

As far as I remember, this argument lasts since when I had my first chance of watching sumo (that more or less is when Asashoryu became a Yokozuna). A real Yokozuna wins by Yorikiri and Oshidashi, all the rest is trivial .... Not to speak of the indignant sentences he caused when he used ..... Ketaguri !!!! To my eyes of ignorant western sumo fan, Shomishu's opinion is correct: his general attitude is more that of a judo wrestler than that of a sumo rikishi: for instance his tachiai varies from an "all steam all forward" (beginning of last basho) to a conservative "wait and see". He has no definite "style" and that is precisely his force: varying the amount of strength, speed and technique depending on what his opponent does. Not by chance was Tochiazuma a problem for him, because Tochiazuma waited for him to do something, and many times Asashoryu found himself without a clear idea of what to do...

First part exactly correct "Sticking to the rulebook will suppress the individual character of our rikishi" Second part- "It's not good to put (everyone) in one mo(u)ld". So THERE ARE people who think with their own brain in Sumo world !! Happy day today ...

Will the new "rules" allow a rikishi to behave like that, not to mention a Yokozuna (or a Mongolian Yokozuna, or an Asashoryu Yokozuna) ?

You are obviously right, but let me ask a question or two. What would happen if Asashoryu after every basho, after paying all his duties as a Yokozuna after a basho ( various jyungyo, dohyo-iri and whatever else), asked to go back to Mongolia for ten days to his family ? Would he be allowed to do so ? I personally cannot even see why this should be a matter of debate, but it seems to me that a lot of people think that he should stay in Japan even without an apparent reason....

May I add something. Could it be that, as it happened many other times, he overestimated himself and his physical condition after winning 11 bouts with a certain ease ? With Kotoshogiku he accepted from the very beginning a very disadvantageous defensive push angle that he could not save. With Kotomitsuki the feeling I had was that he said to himself " I always win with this guy, whatever I do and whatever he does I cannot lose, it is just a matter of time before I find the right move"; and this is of course the surest way to lose a bout.... Then it was a big merit of him not to be too much overwhelmed by the two consecutive losses and come back to win the two decisive bouts. As you say, Kaio was relatively an easy task. But Hakuho had a much better tachiai than Asashoryu; yet Asashoryu reacted with an intelligent "judo" attitude ("let us use his forward movement to put him out of balance") that was a nice sign of coldness and intelligence. On the "strength" part you can be right, but my doubt is: he was the quickest, and his speed was the key to his success. Are we sure that changing into a stronger (and so inevitably slower) rikishi will be good to him ?

for me that looked more like a jump from hakuho than a throw from asashoryu ugh... sad but i agree. i never cry wolf but having seen 3 replays on TV, that was sketchy. i hate not being able to just watch sumo like i did when i lived in the bliss of ignorance. otherwise, it was an amazing throw with perfect timing. Do you mean it is a case of yaosho bout ? As far as I see, before the nage Asashoryu strongly pulls Hakuho with his internal left arm under Hakuho's right armpit, and succeeds in moving Hakuho to his(Asashoryu's) side. Adding the final Kotenage he performs almost a Makiotoshi; Hakuho's sees he is defeated and rotates/jumps to prevent worse damages.

Fascinating... Yesterday at 9.50 (italian time) Asashoryu appeared to be the obvious basho winner. Today at 10.00 the basho is completely open, Asashoryu seems to be falling downhill, Hakuho's form is not clear, even the three guys at 3 losses seem to have some chances for a kettei sen... Exciting and amazing !!!

Unfortunately I do not know sumo technique enough to be able to be accurate in my descriptions, but I have watched the bout many times and I think there is a simple mechanical explanation to what happened. Asashoryu wants to get a left underarm grip, and to achieve it he raises his left shoulder internally, being lifted upwards by Kotoshogiku's tachiai. From that moment onwards, the two breasts are in touch with each other, ready to push. But Kotoshogiku is leaning forward around 45 degrees, while Asashoryu is leaning around 30 degrees. From a purely mechanical point of view, Kotoshogiku can now convert to horizontal push around 71% of his power, while Asashoryu can convert only 50%. To be able to resist, Asashoryu should be 40% stronger than Kotoshogiku, which is obviously not the case. Then the only thing that could prevent Asashoryu from being pushed back is the grip of his feet on the ground, but the difference in push force is too big and he slips back till the tawara which briefly gives him the angle that is mechanically required to stand Kotoshogiku's push. The only maneuver that could have saved Asashoryu would have been lifting up Kotoshogiku ( he could have exerted vertically about 86% of his power compared to Kotoshogiku's 50% ). But to do that he would have had at least to have both his hands on his opponent's mawashi, while Kotoshogiku was able to prevent Asashoryu from getting a right grip. Summarizing, no give-up by Asashoryu, it was just a mix of bad(maybe unlucky) tactics by him and good(somewhat lucky) tactics by Kotoshogiku....

I searched through a thousand posts in this forum, but I could not find an answer to an apparently simple question, that is: In front of a perfect henka like Aminishiki's one was, what could Hakuho (or anybody else) have done to avoid it ? When one is starting a full steam tachiai I presume that his body's weight is leaning forward, waiting to be sustained by his opponent's body as soon as possible. Has he got a real chance to avoid falling down if the opponent moves to a side ? Do the rikishi's train also against such moves ? Thanks if somebody can answer and/or direct me to some posts that answer.

septendecimpede=(17+foot/feet).... or, considering that each of the opponents is supposed to have two feet, trigintaquattuorpede (34+foot/feet) ? (Being unsure...) (Clapping wildly...) And, from Sunday onwards, back to serious matters !?!?

How far away has this topic gone from the original title.... Now that I must admit that I am not the Champion any more, and that even the Finns are as good as us at soccer ( (I am not worthy...) ), I would suggest to move these posts to another topic.. Something like "Sumo and the centipede/millipede". Or not ? ;-) (I am not worthy...)

I am sure you can't wait to know what it is in italian.... It is "millepiedi" = mille+piedi = 1 thousand (1000 !!!) + feet So we are the Champions !!!

Where is Asashoryu ? Did he leave Mongolia ? Is he on the right plane ? Will he arrive on time ? Will he be here for the tournament of 9th/10th ? While Hakuho is getting more and more the Good Boy, what is the Bad Boy doing ? If Asashoryu does arrive on time, can he try to be considered at least Good Boy West ?

Thinking it over, you could be right, time will say. Actually it is curious that I could not stand "Bad Boy" Al

I am afraid we are unfortunately going again to the "Good Boy and Bad Boy" saga. The two roles have already been decided, which is particularly curious in this case considering that Asashoryu has been praised for having trained very intensively this time, while Hakuho' s oyakata expressed concerns about his pupil's attitude (he was not training enough in his opinion).

The final statement of the article says that Asashoryu promised he will train hard for next basho. Somewhere, and I cannot remember where, somebody of his entourage seems to have said that Asashoryu, after training hard for this basho because of its peculiarities, will "go back to his previous training habits". As far as I see it, this would mean not so hard a training and only in the very last days before the basho, and this would be not so reassuring for his supporters. Are there any more different news ? Thanks.

Heiiiiii, no problem, that's fine ! I had thought it was an opinion, if it's a fact then okay !!!

Yes, that is correct. Actually the starting point was very far away from here, and we arrived here just almost by chance. The first point was the threat that Hakuho-Asashoryu becomes in the world of sumo one of those disgusting, ridiculous, false pro-wrestling saga's between the "Good boy" and the "Bad boy" that keep spectators watching the bad boy hitting the good boy and then the good boy win at the end. My worry comes from the quotes that can be read at the beginning of this thread, and that unfortunately confirm a suspicion I had months ago. I think we ALL hope that, whatever our opinion about Asashoryu is, the two boys give us just beautiful sumo and nothing more ! The second point was about Asashoryu's somehow debatable attitudes, that have no way to be accepted any more considering that a) he is not sumo number one at the moment and b) he is no more the ONLY one.

Not that the thing is important, of course, but I would tend to think the other way around. If rikishi A has a 10-0-5 and rikishi B has a 10-5, they have the same amount of wins but IMO A's result is better than B's: A has no true losses ! In the same way a 0-0-15 is better than a 0-1-14.... Let nobody be scared: we all know we are speaking about a paradox, but something of this kind could perhaps happen at the medium level: which is better, a 7-7-1, a 7-8 or a 7-1-7 ?

Ok I see what you mean, but I wonder if that's true. What is Hakuho had been injured and absent? I answer following my interpretation of the banzuke: 1. Yokozuna's relative positions and Ozeki's relative positions (and Sekiwake and Komusubi where applicable) interchange based on the wins of previous basho, promotions apart (the promoted goes last at the new level) ; 2. if the number of wins is the same, they do not change. Therefore, if Hakuho had been absent in Aki, Asashoryu would have been Yokozuna East also in Kyushu. But even a single Hakuho's win in Aki would have made Hakuho Yokozuna East in Kyushu. The same applies for Hatsu: if Hakuho had been absent in both Aki and Kyushu, Asashoryu would have been Yokozuna East also in Hatsu; if Hakuho had been absent in Kyushu after having had at least one win in Aki (and so having become Yokozuna East in Kyushu), Hakuho would have remained Yokozuna East also in Hatsu. What do you think ? Does it make sense ?