Daughter Rei Shirakawa reveals…the reason for Takanohana’s slow walk, which this magazine had witnessed many times!
She said, “That’s right! Dad, you can’t kill mosquitoes. Even if they come, like this.”
Rei Shirakawa, 21, the second daughter of former yokozuna Koji Takanohana (50) and Keiko Kono (58) and a TV personality, appeared on “Hitoshi Matsumoto no Sake no Tsubame ni naru Hanashi” (Fuji TV) on April 28. Her co-star Yusuke Kamiike (44) had dined alone with Takanohana, and from Takanohana,
Takanohana told him that he always tried to move slowly even if there was an emergency in order to prevent injury.
Shirakawa then told the story of how he and Takanohana had once dined together. Shirakawa then struck a pose, slowly moving his outstretched hands and clasping them together in front of his face. Downtown’s Hitoshi Matsumoto (59), who serves as the MC, laughed and said, “What an idiot! and the studio laughed out loud. However, the reaction of the reporter who saw this was the complete opposite of Matsumoto’s. “I see! I see! I didn’t know that! I see. FRIDAY had visited the Takanohana stable (closed on October 1, 2006) to cover the event, and had seen him many times strolling around the area. His unique gait, in which he walked forward slowly at a very slow pace, at first glance made us suspect that he was in poor health.
Takanohana weighed 165 kilograms during his active career, but only two years after his retirement, he had dropped to 80 kilograms and was rumored to be seriously ill. Later, it was discovered that Takanohana had succeeded in losing weight through an exercise he had devised called “chicoa size. The exercises are based on sumo’s yomata, and have been made into DVDs and have become a staple among sumo-loving “sujos” (female sumo enthusiasts).
Although the reason for the extreme weight loss was discovered, the reason for the extremely slow movements remained unknown. So, let us look back at those days to find out exactly how slow he was….
