Given the dark days for the world of professional sumo and the suspension of the Haru Basho, Sumo Scribblings is turning its focus the amateur sumo season, which is just getting underway. To learn more about the landscape, we spoke with Katrina Watts, who serves as a board member of the International Sumo Federation as well as continental director for Oceania, and who is currently president of the Australian Sumo Federation.

Where did your own connection with sumo begin?

When I was living in Japan working at a university in Kobe, I became interested in sumo, first watching it on TV and then much more seriously after seeing it live in Osaka during the university vacation. At that time photography was one of my hobbies and I began taking sumo-related photographs and often giving them to the rikishi, gyoji, yobidashi and oyakata who formed the subject matter. Everyone in the sumo world was very friendly and happy to chat with me about their sport, glad to explain things to me or tell me their stories from the past. After a while I became a familiar figure at ozumo tournaments and jungyo events, and NHK invited me to join their BS sumo broadcast as a regular guest commentator. As I was familiar with the lower division rikishi, in particular those I had followed since their entry and those who came from amateur sumo, I was also invited on several occasions to commentate in Japanese on the lower divisions for the BS sumo broadcast, from the mukoo-jomen microphone in the stadium.