Isegahama Stable

Isegahama stable (伊勢ヶ浜部屋, Isegahama beya?) is a stable of sumo wrestlers, one of the Tatsunami ichimon or group of stables. It was re-established by the 63rd Yokozuna Asahifuji Seiya in November 2007, who renamed his Ajigawa stable when he acquired the Isegahama toshiyori name.

The original Ajigawa stable was established in 1979 by former sekiwake Mutsuarashi Yukio. He had originally hoped to become head of Miyagino stable and had married the daughter of the incumbent stablemaster there, but the marriage ended in divorce. He moved to Tomozuna stable upon his retirement in 1977 before opening up his new stable two years later. Ajigawa stable absorbed Kasugayama stable in 1990 on the retirement of Kasugayama-oyakata. In 1993 Asahifuji acceded to the Ajigawa name and took over running of the stable, due to the poor health of the incumbent.

The original Isegahama stable has a much longer history, as it was founded in 1859. Its sixth head was the 38th Yokozuna Terukuni Manzō who passed control over to former ōzeki Kiyokuni Katsuo in 1977. Under Kiyokuni's leadership the stable declined to a point where it had only two active wrestlers left. The stable was wound up shortly after Kiyokuni reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 in November 2006. Asahifuji's decision to switch to the Isegahama name can be seen as an attempt to restore its reputation (the Tatsunami ichimon was once known as Tatsunami-Isegahama).

Isegahama stable is currently a very successful stable, with two wrestlers in the makuuchi division and one in jūryō. During the period of Ajigawa stable, most of the wrestlers' names started with the kanji 安 (pronounced a, meaning peaceful). Since the revival of Isegahama the oyakata has changed all his lower ranking wrestlers names to conform with Isegahama stable tradition, and on his top wrestler Ama's promotion to ōzeki (the stable's first since Kiyokuni) he changed Ama's name to Harumafuji.