Career
His highest rank was maegashira 12. He was a schoolfriend of future yokozuna Akebono. He made his professional debut in November 1990, joining Magaki stable.
Yamato reached the salaried sekitori ranks in March 1995 when he was promoted to the jūryō division.
He chalked up a winning record of 8-7 in his debut and was ranked there for seven tournaments. He was forced to sit out the March 1998 tournament with a life-threatening bout of pneumonia which sent him down to jūryō.
Still not fully recovered in May, he turned in a disastrous 1-14 record and fell to the unsalaried makushita division. Just before the July tournament he was hit by a car and was forced to withdraw once again.
This sent him down to the bottom of makushita.
After a 5-2 score in September he decided to retire rather than face another long struggle back up the rankings, and started up his own restaurant, Kama"āina"s, in Tokyo"s Roppongi district. Although Yamato never rose high enough in the rankings to face a yokozuna in tournament competition, he once defeated Takanohana eight times in a row in training. Yamato specialised in pushing and thrusting techniques, rarely fighting on the mawashi, and his two favourite kimarite were tsukidashi, or thrust out, and oshidashi, or push out.