Houses

A heya is a training house. The men live there, practice there, and take the shikona the oyakata gives them. They are not a team. You do not cheer a heya the way you cheer a club — you follow the people, and the house is how they were made.

Oyakata and ichimon

The oyakata is the stablemaster, usually a former sekitori who holds a Kyokai elder stock (kabu). He names recruits, sets the training, and sits in the judges’ seats when it is his turn. When he retires from the association, the stock — and often the house — passes on.

Houses group into an ichimon, a clan. Related heya share history, sometimes a tokoyama, sometimes a joint practice. Ichimon-mates still fight each other on the card. Same-heya men do not, except in a playoff.

A day in the house

• Asageiko

  Morning practice. Lower-ranked men arrive first, clean, and wait. Sekitori train later and harder. The oyakata watches.

• Chores and meals

  Unpaid rikishi cook, clean, and serve. The hierarchy is the house: junior men eat last. A salary changes that overnight.

• The rest of the day

  Naps, chores, a public appearance, more work on the body. Jungyo weeks replace this with a bus and a provincial dohyo.

Making juryo is the life-change. A sekitori gets a private room, a tsukebito (an attendant from the junior ranks), better food, and a salary. Falling back to makushita reverses most of that. That is why the joi on the guess board matters — those names are fighting for a different existence, not just a number.

Names, hair, retirement

The shikona is the ring name Tachiai prints. It can change when a man is promoted, or when a house wants to pass a name down. The legal name stays off the sheet.

The topknot is the chonmage. A tokoyama builds it. On the dohyo, sekitori wear the more elaborate oicho-mage — the ginkgo-leaf knot. When a man retires, the danpatsu-shiki is the public goodbye: guests snip the knot, the oyakata cuts last.