he was persuaded by his father, a rice farmer, to be a sumo wrestler, although he really wanted to play baseball. he joined the original hanakago stable in may 1976, and for five years he was a "tsukebito" or personal attendant to "yokozuna" wajima hiroshi, until the latter′s retirement in 1981. the two spent much of their spare time tinkering with wajima′s luxury american automobile, a lincoln continental. sawaishi began competing under his own surname, although he went through a number of different "shikona", including otowadake, sawakaze and onoumi, before finally settling on hananoumi, meaning ′lake or sea of flowers.′