Re: Yobidashi and towel

[achimp@t-online.de (Achim Pawelczyk)]

At 9:51 Uhr 6.4.1998, Doreen Simmons wrote:
>Hi all! Skip this if you don't like trivia.

Wonderful, just the subject for a few quiet inter-basho weeks. Now I know
nearly everything about towels. As no other members seem to be active, I
try the next stage.

>The kensho envelopes for one bout are tied together in a bundle. The
>winning rikishi steps down, hands the bundle to the yobidashi, and his
>sagari if he still has it, and waits empty-handed until he needs the water
>dipper. Meanwhile the yobidashi carefully threads the stiff spikes of the
>sagari through the string that is tying the bundle of envelopes together.
>(It ends up looking a bit like a hammer.) (I knew this already.)

That reminds me of those rare long fights, when the rikishi looses his sagari.
So far I just noticed that the gyoji throws it out, if he can get a grip on
it, sometimes even rips it of a rikishi if both stand still for a while.
Now I am sure he throws it to the yobidashi on the correct side for the
rikishi who it belongs to - quite an act while never taking his eyes of the
two on the dohyo.
The yobidashi has therefore a lot more time to put the sagari strings
together to a neat bundle - he always gets it quite in disorder.
If that sagari belongs to the looser, the yobidashi can give it to him
together with the towel when he leaves.

Also there are some rikishi, who do not take their sagari off when
receiving the winning call (the loosers even more often), with or without
envelopes.
This looks like bad manners, or is it not the rule to take it off when
leaving the dohyo ?
If a rule, my question as always, what is the deeper meaning of it ?

Also these rikishi (I think it was Tochinonada) sometimes seem to have
sagari that are not straightend up properly.
The tsukebito prepare the sagari with a kind of starch, flatten and smooth
the ends and make it look like a bundle of arrows.
If not properly prepared, the sagari is soft and without form.
In this case the rikishi cannot give the sagari to the yobidashi, who would
need too much time to put the sagari through the string of the envelopes.

No need to mention that such a rikishi usually also has no towel.

The
>yobidashi then gives him the water dipper and afterwards retrieves it, then
>hands the departing rikishi the sagari-and-bundle, along with the towel.
>The towel is  neatly folded and goes under the rikishi's thumb - that is,
>underneath the handful and therefore as near out-of-sight as possible. This
>must be why I missed it. Fortunately I still had the recording of my Day 8
>of the Haru Basho that I hadn't checked yet, so was able to look at the
>final few bouts.
>

I think there are different personal styles of the yobidashi in handing
these things over. In some basho it looked like the towel was wrapped
around the sagari, in other the towel was folded and the Rikishi carried
them in one hand but apart. Sometimes the envelopes were in the other hand
and not combined with the sagari at all (the towel was with the sagari of
course).

Quite a task for next basho to look for such szenes.


-- Achim Pawelczyk
-- achimp@t-online.de
-- http://home.t-online.de/home/achimp/
-- a chimp at home