A few sumo questions...

[amadus]

1) Is Kotooshu eating a liberal amount of chankonabe followed by rest? Because he doesn't seem to building the patented sumotori robust physique.

2) How often do rikishi cross-train in other budo disciplines--if ever at all? Has there ever been a rikishi to be highly proficient in another budo? If so, who, and what other budo?

3) What era was the best time for sumo; i.e. in what time period were sumotori on average most technically skilled and disiciplined?

[Josh Reyer]

1) Is Kotooshu eating a liberal amount of chankonabe followed by rest? Because he doesn't seem to building the patented sumotori robust physique.

Well, he's very tall, and very young, no doubt with a very fast metabolism. It's hard to put on a layer fat in that case; it all turns to muscle. Also, his ascent was extremely fast.


2) How often do rikishi cross-train in other budo disciplines--if ever at all? Has there ever been a rikishi to be highly proficient in another budo? If so, who, and what other budo?

There was a rikishi named Tenryu who studied aikido with Ueshiba Morihei in the 1930s. I don't know about "cross training" as such; many oyakata frown on any kind of non-sumo training. Many rikishi have judo experience, although I don't know how many continue after their weight balloons.


3) What era was the best time for sumo; i.e. in what time period were sumotori on average most technically skilled and disiciplined?

Hard to say, since every generation says the earlier generation was better and the next generation sucks. :) I tend to think that for technical sumo the Taiho-Kashiwado era was best. The tachiai at the time was real minimal; rikishi didn't even touch their hands to the ground. The just made a simultaneous "fake" to the ground and then got into it. This led to a lot of yotsu-zumo. The Chiyonofuji era was a nice mix of yotsu- and oshi-zumo.

[Earl Hartman]

Chiyonofuji ruled!. His speed and power at the tachiai was something to behold, and nobody could get their hands on the maemitsu faster than he could. A little hikitsuke, march them to the edge of the dohyo, and then just an uwate or shitate nage/hineri to take them down when they resisted. No fuss, no muss. Beautiful.

I suppose it was just because I was there at the time, but I thought the Kitanoumi-Chiyonofuji-Wajima era was the best.

I'm always rooting for Koto-oshu now, though.

You know. Just because.

[Mrose]

Kotooshu, as said before, is rather young and all that, but also I believe that he has put on a bit of weight since he became Ozeki...unfortunately, he has also started losing a lot since he became Ozeki. I think he rose a little too fast.

Many of the foriegn rikishi started out in Judo or wrestling before being spotted as a talent for Sumo. Asashoryu said in an interview that when he first started Sumo after doing Judo for sometime, he had to adapt to a different strategy. You can see it in many of his pre-yokozuna matches. He would often just step out of the way of his charging opponent and give an extra push to help them out of the ring.