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!