Sosai Masutatsu Oyama
Masutatsu Oyama was born on 27 July 1923 in the village of Kimje in South Korea under the name Hyung Yee. Masutatsu Oyama's real name is Choi Young-i, but for a time he was nicknamed Choi Bae-dal (Bae-dal meaning Korean people). He was born into an aristocratic family of yangban (scholars), his father Sun Hyang being the mayor of the town of Gimje, near Wa-Ryongri Yong-chi Myonchul Na Do, Masutatsu Oyama's real home village. The fourth child in a family of six boys and one girl, he discovered Chinese Kempo and the ancient Korean martial arts at the age of nine on his sister's farm in Manchuria. The Gojû Ryu of Yamaguchi Gogen comes to him later from a seasonal worker at his parents' farm.
But young Masutatsu is a turbulent boy. At 13, his father sends him to Japan to calm down. He then changes his name to the one by which the whole world will know him. At 15, he leaves for the military school of Yamanachi in the hope of becoming a pilot. He discovered Karate Do!
In Tokyo, he followed the teaching of the greatest, among them Ô Sensei Funakoshi Gichin. Nidan in two years, he won in 1947 the first « All Japan Tournament » gathering all the styles of karate do. At the age of 20, he successfully passed his 4th dan in karate. He practiced Judo at the military academy and 4 years later obtained his 4th dan. But he began to regret the lack of contact and reality in the Shotokan style that he practiced with Yoshitaka Funakoshi.
After the Japanese defeat in 1945, Japan is occupied. One evening, Mas Oyama intervenes in a party to protect some young dancers from a troublesome « gaijin ». A brawl ensues, which Mas Oyama ends with a tsuki to the American’s head. The man dies on the spot. Deeply affected by this event, Mas Oyama works on a farm to pay an allowance to the victim’s family for several years.
He then met So Nei Chu, an expert in Gojû Ryu, who advised him to complete his research with internal spiritual work. He went into exile to meditate for three years in the solitude of the Kiyosumi mountains. Yashiro, one of his students, took up the challenge and accompanied him in his solitude. Their only contact is with Mr Kayama who regularly supplies them with food. He imposes on himself an iron discipline and a rigorous training. Imbued with Zen, he imposes draconian training sessions on himself, winter and summer, with kihon under icy waterfalls, running in the mountains, striking in the trees, etc. In the evening, it is the life and work of Myamoto Musashi that strengthens his will by the light of a candle.
He draws from the ancient Korean forms the work of the kicks to which he adds the sweeps and the attacks in the legs. The Gojû Ryu that he learned from Master Yamaguchi Gogen inspires him the techniques of fist and breathing work. From Shotokan, he took the basic principles of linear movement and added the circular forms of Master Kenichi Sawai’s Taikiken for the higher ranks.
Yashiro broke down after 6 months, and his patron also had to abandon him after 18 months, thus forcing him to put an end to this crazy ordeal.
When he returned to civilisation in 1950, he tested his strength on a bull. He faced 52 bulls in his life, killing 3 of them, usually content to break their horns with the edge of his hand. In 1952, he began a triumphant tour of demonstrations and challenges in the United States and then in Asia, confronting karatekas, boxers, wrestlers and other opponents whom he largely dominated. He repeated the experience in Asia, facing the best local martial arts fighters, including Thai boxers.
In 1953, he opened his first Dojo in a district of Tokyo: Meijiro. It is Shihan Bobby Lowe who exports for the first time this severe style outside Japan, with the opening of a Dojo in Hawaii, after having been the first « uchi deshi » (internal student) during 18 months
1964 saw the opening of the first Honbu Dojo, and it was in fact only at this date that Master Oyama gave his style the name Kyokushin (the school of the ultimate truth). From then on, everything went on at an incredible speed.
Sosai Oyama – Hand of God
Master Oyama became a true legend during his lifetime. He created a style (Kyokushin means « ultimate truth ») where fights take place to the knockout. Breakdown and endurance are used by the students to test and surpass themselves; kihon and kata are the main tools allowing each one to progress on the « way ».
For the most hardened of his karatekas, Master Oyama established a test that everyone can present whenever they wish – Hyaku Nin Kumite – the test of 100 fights.
Currently, the Kyokushin organisation represents the strongest school of Karate do in Japan and in the world, with more than twelve million practitioners on the five continents. This school is the object of a fabulous media impact, mixing television reports, comics, cartoons and numerous technical or fictionalized books on Master Oyama himself. Its success undoubtedly comes from the spectacular side of the « apparent part of the iceberg »: the reality of the combats.
But Kyokushin is more than a fighting art. It is a school endowed with a fabulous technical wealth where humility is de rigueur, where self-respect is earned through respect for others, where the mind is acquired through the rigour necessary for training. In the end, fighting is only one part of a whole that can be considered as an art of living.
Master Oyama left us on April 26th 1994. He has gone to join the great Masters who, like him, have written the history of Karate do with their will and their sweat.
THE FOUNDERS OF THE WORLD KYOKUSHIN KARATE ORGANIZATION
KWF founded with Sosai Oyama. From left to right: Antonio Pinero, Loek Hollander, Masutatsu Oyama, Andre Drewniak.
