Re: [SUMO]: new Rijicho

[Masumi Abe <abe@accesscom.com>]

I don't expect people to react a certain way to any of my posts. If someone
react to them, fine, and if no one react to them, that's fine, too.

My interpretation of this election is that it won't change too much.

Dewanoumi/Sakaigawa Rijicho was seen by many, people in Sumo Kyokai and people
outside, that he had been trying too hard and too quick in "modernizing" Sumo
Kyokai and sumo community. His "modernization" was not particularly popular
among oyakata and rikishi. Sakaigawa Rijicho was much more "radical" than
younger oyakata.

Most of oyakata paid tons of money to "buy" their oyakata names, and Sakaigawa
Rijicho wanted the system so that no one can "sell" or "buy" the rights to be
oyakata. Sakaigawa Rijicho thought the best thing to do is to declair that
oyakata rights belong to Sumo Kyokai.

Another not-so-popular change was the new jungyo system, which Sumo Kyokai
became the sole organizer of any jungyo. Before the change, local sponsors of
rikishi and/or heya had a chance to be an organizer of jungyo. Those people
were a great souce of extra income for rikishi and oyakata. But Sakaigawa
Rijicho cut the source of extra income for rikishi and oyakata. Instead, all
money flow for the jungyo became clean and clear and totally controled by Sumo
Kyokai.

The new and younger Riji are rather conservative and keep the operation more
traditional than the policy of Sakaigawa Rijicho, I believe.

So, at least for the jungyo system, there is an outside chance of changing
back to the old system, but unlikely.

-Toshiyori Masumiriki

A & V Antoce wrote:

> The news of elections in the Sumo Association did not attract a great deal
> of interest, it seems. If I may have a question for Masumi Abe or Doreen
> Simmons or anybody else who knows anything about this: in (the near) future
> should we expect some noticeable changes in sumo with the new leadership of
> the Sumo Association ? And what could these changes mean - if any ?
> Thanks a lot,
> V. Antoce


--
<abe@accesscom.com> Masumi Abe <abe@sentius.com>
San Francisco Bay Area / Silicon Valley / Palo Alto
URL: http://www.accesscom.com/~abe/ --- it's up and running
JUSTIN URL: http://www.dosanko.co.jp/spoton/abe/index.html