14th January 2022 - Sumo Hatsu Day 6
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Written at home while listening to folk such as Hamish Imlach, the 
Humblebums, Karen Dalton and John Fahey.

So we have started Hatsu, the first tournament of the sumo year. There 
were some last minute changes with rikishi catching covid and so whole 
stables having to sit this one out. The most notable in the top 
division is papa bear, Takayasu. There is also the shadow cast by 2 
members of Juryo being caught gambling. Shall have to see what goes on 
here! Speaking of scandals, we have possibly the last basho with 
naughty boy Ryuden in the unsalaried ranks. 

By the end of the first act, days 1 to 5, it felt a bit like Kyushu 
part 2. At the end of day 5, we had Terunofuji, Mitakeumi and Abi at 
5-0 and 5 others chasing at 4-1. There were some key differences. 
Namely the lack of Takakeisho who after day 4, went kyujo with a 
ligament issue in his foot. Poor Takakeisho! Anyhow, day 6 came and 
shook things up to make things more exciting. 

Terunofuji faced Tamawashi today and hit the clay. From the off, 
Tamawashi was dominant with lots of pushing and thrusting aimed at the 
neck. Terunofuji was quickly forced to the straw bales and seemed 
rather alarmed at this. He lost balance and the right arm headed 
downwards. Tamawashi noticed and simply pushed from above to prevent 
yet another 15-0 record for Terunofuji. This broke a nice 26 winning 
record too. Fortunately for Mitakeumi and Abi, they managed to win 
their bouts today. 

Most exciting bout so far has to be Ura against Terunofuji on day 5. 
It was magnificent and could have gone either way. I certainly hope 
Ura gets a prize even if he lost. He lost by losing his balance and 
spinning to the clay. 

So we start act 2 with 2 at 6-0, 2 at 5-1 and 8 chashing at 4-2. It is 
nice to see Kotoeko in the chasers after a fair few make koshis. Oho 
on his debut in Makuuchi is doing well in the chasing pack. 
Wakamotoharu and Tsurugisho, the others promoted from Juryo, seem to 
be struggling with records of 2-4. 

It is wonderful to be back in the midst of a basho. Particularly after 
a fairly horrid week at work. Someone decided it would be a great idea 
to start working using the agile methodology and that 2 days spent 
entirely in front of teams would be perfect. Agile can work and I like 
parts of it. Particularly the breaking down of tasks into sprints with 
a target. However, I struggle to see how hardware development can be 
broken into neat packages of work with clear ends. Electronics in 
particular can involve lots of rework due to component obsolescence or 
requirement creep. I really disliked having to spend 2 days at short 
notice (we only found out on Monday) trying to plan while working 
remotely and without any training in the tools. It was most tiring 
having to stare at a screen and fight various IT issues like only 1 
member of the team having access to a particular network. Spending my 
lunch watching that day's sumo sort of made up for the misery of 
teams and planning!