Sosai Masutatsu Oyama

Masutatsu Oyama was the founder/creator of Kyokushinkasi karate in japan, was born as Yong I-Choi on the 27th of July, 1923, in a village not far from Gunsan in Southern Korea. At a relatively young age he was sent to Manchuria, in Southern China, to live on his sister's farm. At the age of nine, he started studying the Southern Chinese form of Kempo called Eighteen hands from a Mr. Yi who was at the time working on the farm. When Oyama returned to Korea at the the age of 12, he continued his training in Korean Kempo.

In 1938, at the age of 15, he travelled to Japan to train as an aviator, to be like his hero of the time, Korea's first fighter pilot. Survival on his own at that age proved to be more difficult than he thought, especially as a Korean in Japan, and the aviator training fell by the wayside.

He did however continue martial arts training, by participating in judo and boxing, and one day he noticed some students training in Okinawan Karate. This interested him very much and he went to train at the dojo of Gichin Funakoshi at Takushoku University, where he learned what is today known as CyberDojo home pages.

His training progress was such that by the age of seventeen he was already a 2nd dan, and by the time he entered the Japanese Imperial Army at 20, he was a fourth dan. At this point he also took a serious interest in judo, and his progress there was no less amazing. By the time he had quit training in Judo.

When he was 23 years old, Mas Oyama met Eiji Yoshikawa, the author of the novel Musashi, which was based on the life and exploits of Japan's most famous Samurai. Both the novel and the author helped to teach Mas Oyama about the Samurai Bushido code and what it meant. That same year, Oyama went to Mt. Minobu in the Chiba Prefecture, where Musashi had developed his Nito-Ryu style of swordfighting. Oyama thought that this would be an appropriate place to commence the rigours of training he had planned for himself. Among the things he took with him was a copy of Yoshikawa's book. A student named Yashiro also came with him.

The relative solitude was strongly felt, and after 6 months, Yashiro secretly fled during the night. It became even harder for Oyama, who wanted more than ever to return to civilisation. So Nei Chu wrote to him that he should shave off an eyebrow in order to get rid of the urge. Surely he wouldn't want anyone to see him that way! This and other more moving words convinced Oyama to continue, and he resolved to become the most powerful karate-ka in Japan.

Bulls, Challengers, and the Godhand
In 1950, Sosai (the founder) Mas Oyama started testing (and demonstrating) his power by fighting bulls. In all, he fought 52 bulls, three of which were killed instantly, and 49 had their horns taken off with knife hand blows. That it is not to say that it was all that easy for him. Oyama was fond of remembering that his first attempt just resulted in an angry bull. In 1957, at the age of 34, he was nearly killed in Mexico when a bull got some of his own back and gored him. Oyama somehow managed to pull the bull off and break off his horn. He was bedridden for 6 months while he recoverd from the usually fatal wound. Today of course, the animal rights groups would have something to say about these demonstrations, despite the fact that the animals were already all destined for slaughter.

In 1952, he travelled US for a year, demonstrating his karate live and on national television, during this year he took on all challengers and fight with 270 different people, the vast majority of those were defeated with one punch! a fight never lasted more than 3 minutes, and most rarely lasted more than a few seconds.If he hit you, you broke. If you blocked a rib punch, your arms was broken or dislocated. If you didnt block, your rib was broken. so that he become known as the Godhand.

The beginning of Kyokushin
The current World Headquarters were officially opened in June 1964, where the name Kyokushin, meaning "Ultimate truth" was adopted. In the same year the International Karate Organization (IKO) was established. From then, Kyokushin continued to spread to more than 120 countries, and registered members exceed 10 million making it one of the largest martial arts organisations in the world. Among the the better known Kyokushin yudansha (black belts) are Sean Connery (Honorary shodan), Dolph Lundgren (sandan, former Australian heavyweight champion), and President Nelson Mandela of South Africa (Honorary hachidan), and most recently (June 1988), the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard (Honorary godan) who was awarded the grade at the official opening of the Sydney Kyokushin dojo.

The End?
Sadly, Sosai Mas Oyama died, of Akiyoshi Matsui in charge of the organisation. This has had many political and economic ramifications throughout the Kyokushin world, which are still being resolved. In the end, the result may well be a splintering of Kyokushin, much like Shotokan now appears to have done, with each group claiming to be the one-and-only true heir of Mas Oyama's Kyokushin, either spiritually or even financially. It has even been suggested, not entirely in jest, by one Kyokushin writer in Australia (Harry Rogers) that maybe Oyama created the turmoil on purpose, because he didn't want Kyokushin to survive without him! It is however reasonably certain that all Kyokushin groups, regardless of their ultimate allegiance, will still maintain the standards set by Mas Oyama.