|
Founder of Kyokushin Karate
- The founder of our system, Masutatsu Oyama was born in 1923 near Seoul in
South Korea. He studied Chinese Kempo at 9 years of age. When he was 12, he
went to Japan to live and enrolled at University. After mastering Judo, he
became a pupil of Gichin Funakoshi himself making such rapid progress that
at 17 he was 2nd Dan and at 24became 4th Dan. Deciding that he wanted to
devote the rest of his life to spreading the knowledge of Karate, he spent
the next year in seclusion from human society, living in temples and in the
mountains; subjecting himself to the physical rigours of martial arts
training day and night and meditating on Zen precepts, seeking
enlightenment. In 1951 he returned to civilisation and started his own
training hall in Tokyo.
- In 1952, he travelled the United States for a year, demonstrating his
karate live and on national television. During subsequent years, he took on
all challengers, resulting in fights with 270 different people. The vast
majority of these were defeated with one punch! A fight never lasted more
than three minutes, and most rarely lasted more than a few seconds. His
fighting principle was simple — if he got through to you, that was it.
- In 1953, Mas Oyama opened his first "Dojo", a grass lot in
Mejiro in Tokyo. In 1956, the first real Dojo was opened in a former ballet
studio behind Rikkyo University, 500 meters from the location of the current
Japanese Honbu dojo (headquarters). By 1957 there were 700 members, despite
the high drop-out rate due to the harshness of training.
- Sadly, Sosai Mas Oyama died, of lung cancer (as a non-smoker), at the age
of 70 in April 1994, leaving the then 5th Dan 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.
|
