Happy Birthday
Onomatsu (阿武松) Oyakata!!!

Friday, June 27th was Oyakata's birthday! I'm sorry to be late with your birthday update here on the blog but I couldn't get connected to the internet since Thursday night!

Onomatsu Oyakata is by far the nicest Oyakata I've had the pleasure of spending time with! He is a tough coach! He has to work hard as well, he has no other coaches in his heya! That is a big job with as many boys as he has in his heya! But he sure gets the job done and his boys are in good shape!

During a long chanko lunch together my friends and I could get to know him very well. He is a wonderful man with a huge heart! What a pleasure it was talking to him. He spoke very freely and talked about his recent trip to Los Angeles. His Sumo career as a Rikishi and his career as the Oyakata of Onomatsu beya. We learned a lot from him over the course of about 4 hours!!! What a wonderful afternoon getting to know not only the Oyakata but also the other boys at Onomatsu beya!

Onomatsu Oyakata used to fight under the shikona Masurao. He has a very nice career including earning two kin-boshi (gold stars) for defeating two Yokozuna! He earned many other awards and also had 5 Juryo Yusho during his career!

He was an active Rikishi from March of 1979 until his retirement in July of 1990. Unfortunately I could not see much of his sumo during his career as a rikishi because he retired soon after I moved to Japan and was just getting into sumo.

He was a very small and muscular rikishi, similar to Amuru! His height is 188cm and his weight was kept between 100 and 125kg for most of his career. That is quite light for a rikishi but he did very well and like Amuru had a fantastic physique as an active rikishi!!!

Wishing you another year of health and happiness and success for Onomatsu Beya of course!!!
Thank you again for treating us to a wonderful time at your heya before leaving for Nagoya!!