the Sumo Association directors. Normally he will receive additional support from his stable in terms of junior wrestlers to act as his manservants. He can wear purple fringed ceremonial aprons (keshō-mawashi) He may be called on to represent the wrestlers on formal occasions such as when VIPs visit a sumo tournament, or on formal visits to Shinto shrines. List of active ōzeki Takakeishō, since November 2019 Sekiwake is the third-highest rank in professional sumo wrestling, and is one of the san'yaku ranks. The term is believed to derive from guarding the ōzeki (大関 or 関) at his side (脇). It represents the highest rank a wrestler can achieve by continuously making a kachi-koshi (a winning record in the tournament) in tournaments. Promotion to sekiwake depends on either a space being available, which is quite common, or having a record in the previous tournament that is very convincing. Typically 11–4 or better as a komusubi is sufficient for promotion to sekiwake even with no normal space available; lower ranks need progressively more wins. There are special promotion criteria, typically a minimum of 33 wins over three tournaments, for advancement from sekiwake to ōzeki; merely recording consecutive winning records while at the sekiwake rank is not enough to advance. In the 1980s, Sakahoko stayed at sekiwake for nine consecutive tournaments without even getting close to ōzeki consideration, and Gōeidō was stuck at the rank for fourteen consecutive tournaments, a modern-day record, between May 2012 and July 2014, before being promoted to ōzeki in September 2014. Unlike the higher ranks of ōzeki and yokozuna, a wrestler will nearly always lose the rank immediately after having a make-koshi tournament (a losing record during a tournament). Very occasionally, however, a lucky sekiwake might keep his rank even with a 7–8 record if there are no obvious candidates to replace him, as when the komusubi and the upper maegashira have also had losing records. This has happened five times since the six-tournaments-a-year era began in 1958, most recently with Gōeidō in July 2013. In each case the wrestler was merely moved from the sekiwake East rank to the less prestigious West side. For many purposes sekiwake and the komusubi rank are treated together as the junior san'yaku ranks, as opposed to ōzeki and yokozuna. For example, records of number of tournaments ranked in junior san'yaku are often referred to in sumo publications. For wrestlers reaching this