Kyokushinkai karate is a dynamic, active-offensive and spectacular style of karate, founded in the 50s of the 20th century by one of the most famous representatives of martial arts, Masutatsu Oyama.

Oyama taught his followers not only techniques of contact combat but also methods of thinking and behavior in society. With his teachings, he promoted the strengthening of the body, health and spirit of karate fighters, developed their critical thinking and prepared them for the difficulties of real life.

Masutatsu Oyama believed that the highest goal of Kyokushinkai karate is not just physical education, but the development of the best qualities of the person who studies it.

Today, Kyokushinkai karate is one of the most popular sports, actively studied in hundreds of sports clubs and schools in the world.

Masutatsu Oyama (real name Ang and Choi) was born on July 27, 1923, in the province of South Korea. Oyama started practicing martial arts at a rather late age, from the age of 9. At the age of 15, he went to Japan, where he entered an aviation school to become like the hero of his time, the first fighter pilot from Korea. Surviving in those difficult conditions at his age turned out to be more difficult than he expected. Moreover, the Koreans studying in the flight schools of Japan were under the rights of foreigners.

Despite the difficult period in his life, Oyama continued to practice judo and boxing. One day he noticed students learning Okinawa Karate. This interested him and he went to the Gichin Funakoshi dojo at Takushoku University, where he studied what is now known as Shotokan karate.

Masutatsu Oyama’s progress in training was such that by the age of 17 he had become second dan, and by the time he enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army at the age of 20, he had attained fourth dan. At this time, he also became seriously interested in judo, and the progress in this martial art was no less amazing. By the time he finished his judo training, Oyama had reached fourth dan in judo in less than four years.

Becoming a master

After Japan’s defeat in World War II, Masutatso Oyama fell into despair and depression and almost gave up training. Fortunately for us, So Nei Choo entered his life.

At that time, Master So, a Korean native of Oyama living in Japan, was one of the best Goju Ryu masters. He was known for his physical and spiritual strength. It was he who encouraged Masutatso Oyama to dedicate his life to the Way of the Warrior. He suggested that Oyama withdraw from society and train his mind and body for 3 years.

At the age of 23, Masutatso Oyama met Eiji Yoshikawa, the author of the novel Musashi, based on the life and activities of Japan’s most famous samurai. Both the novel and the author helped Masutatso Oyama to better understand the Samurai Code – Bushido and its meaning.

That year, Oyama traveled to Mount Minobu in Chiba Prefecture, where Musashi based his Nito-Ryu sword fighting style. Oyama thought this would be a fitting place to begin his rigorous training. Among the things he took with him was a copy of Yoshikawa’s book. A student named Yashiro went with him.

They suffered loneliness and after 6 months of training, Yashiro secretly escaped at night, which affected Oyama. His desire to return to society became even stronger. So Nei Choo gave many examples and convinced Oyama to continue training. He decided to become the strongest karateka in Japan.

Soon, the person who provided Oyama with the means of living informed him that she was no longer able to support Oyama and after fourteen months he was forced to end his seclusion. A few months later, in 1947, Mas Oyama won the All Japan Karate Tournament, the first since World War II. However, he still felt an emptiness in his soul because he could not spend 3 years in seclusion. Then Oyama decided to devote his entire life to karate. He started training again. For his spiritual ascent, Oyama chose a place on Mount Kiyozumi, also in Chiba Prefecture. His training became fantastic in terms of loads – every day for 12 hours without a break.

Standing under the cold streams of waterfalls, throwing river stones with his hands, using trees as a makiwara, and doing hundreds of push-ups, he hardened his body. Each day included studying the scientific works of the classics of Martial Arts, Zen and philosophy. After eighteen months he ended his seclusion confident and in full control of himself.

During the period of a short but fruitful asceticism in the mountains, Oyama lived according to a strictly developed regime, which often appeared in the biographies of the master and serves as a lesson for frivolous students:

4:00—rise. Meditation with closed eyes – 10 minutes. Jogging in the mountains – 2 hours.

7:00 – cooking.

8:00 — A meal combining breakfast and lunch.

9:00 – start of training. Perform a set of five exercises ten times: lift a sixty-kilogram barbell 20 times; push up on the fingers 20 times; push up in a handstand 20 times; pull up on the bar 20 times; deliver 20 punches to the makiwara from the right and left.

After performing each complex, do breathing exercises and immediately start the next complex, rest until 11:00.

11:00 a.m. execution of the executioner. At the same time, perform any one kata 100 times daily. For example: on the first day Heian-1, on the second Heian-2, etc., until all five Heian complexes are performed, and then perform them in the reverse order. Do the same with other kata.

2:00 p.m. — Lifting heavy objects. Lift a sixty-kilogram barbell 20 times, then gradually increase the load. Make 1000 prints: 200 times on two fingers, 200 times on three fingers, 200 times on four fingers, 400 times on five fingers. Take a short break before each complex. Sometimes, for variety, do 1000 push-ups on fists with a break after 500.

15:00 — development of sparring techniques; exercises with makiwara; rope climbing; exercises for abdominal muscles — 200 times; breaking stones.

17:00 – Cooking. Dinner.

18:00 — Meditation and bedtime.

In addition to this routine, we note that many ascetics and Kempo enthusiasts followed a similar routine not for one year or two, but for twenty, thirty years, or throughout their lives.

Demonstration Fights

However, one victory at the championship was not enough for the master who decided to challenge the biggest schools and introduce a new method of teaching karate. Oyama, being a man of a completely modern composition, quickly realized that only loud advertising could help him in such a bold undertaking. With his characteristic single-mindedness, he set about preparing a grandiose advertising campaign, honing purely stunt numbers.

In 1949, he settled in a hut near the city slaughterhouse and spent seven months there, studying the habits of animals. He developed a new method of slaughtering bulls with his bare hands, learning how to cut off the horns of animals under the root with a “hand-sword” blow.

In 1950, founder (Sosai) Mas Oyama began to demonstrate his strength by fighting bulls. In total, he fought with 52 bulls, three of which were killed, and he cut off the horns of 49 bulls with a “joke” blow. Needless to say, it was easy for him to do it. Oyama was fond of recalling his first attempt, which ended only in angering the bull. In 1957 in Mexico, at the age of 34, Oyama was on the verge of death after a bull went through him with its horn. However, he managed to knock down the bull and cut off its horn. Oyama was bedridden for 6 months recovering from the usually fatal wound. The Japan Animal Welfare Society protested Oyama’s animal fights after Oyama announced his intention to hold tiger and bear fights, even though the bulls killed by Oyama were intended for slaughter.

In 1952, Oyama went on a tour of the United States, where he created a sensation and completely confused the audience with superhuman numbers. Indeed, how should the American spectators have reacted when the visiting master hammered, as if porcelain, huge cobblestones, demolished the necks of beer bottles and the bottles did not fall, hit himself on the knuckles with a hammer, punched with his hands and feet the thick iron boards placed in the eleven-twenty layers of tiles and three-four bricks lying on top of each other?

Oyama traveled around the United States for a year, demonstrating his karate skills live and on national television. Over the following years, Oyama challenged masters of various martial arts, including boxers, to a duel, and had 270 bouts with various fighters. Most of the fighters were defeated in one blow! Fights never lasted more than three rounds and very rarely lasted more than a few seconds. His fighting principle was simple: he approached the opponent and delivered a blow, as a result of which the opponent received a fracture. If the opponent blocked the blow, the block was crumpled or broken. If the opponent did not block the attack, then the ribs were broken. Oyama became known as the “Hand of the Lord” (Godhand), as a living manifestation of the principle of Japanese warriors “One hit is death”. This was the true purpose of the karate technique.

Kyokushinkai

In 1953, Mas Oyama opened his first dojo in Mejiro, Tokyo. In 1956, the first permanent dojo was opened in a former ballet studio on the grounds of Rikkyo University, 500 meters from the current Japan Central Honbu Dojo. By 1957, there were 700 members, although a large number did not survive the grueling training. Practitioners of other styles came to Mas Oyama’s dojo to learn full-contact wrestling. One of the early instructors, Kenji Kato, told newcomers of other styles to stick to their technique and learn the techniques and techniques that “would be good in a real fight.” This was the karate developed by Mas Oyama.

He took methods and techniques from all martial arts and did not limit himself to just karate. The members of the Oyama dojo took the study of fighting techniques seriously, seeing in it first of all the art of fighting. Small restrictions were introduced during kumite – blows to the head were delivered with an open palm or knuckles wrapped in a towel. Grabs, throws and punches to the groin were allowed. Kumite rounds continued until a complete defeat was declared. Injuries were common and student dropouts were very high (over 90%). The students did not have any concessions regardless of their official job status, everyone got what they deserved. Now you could finally think about opening your own school. Oyama began to create a new karate school – Kyokushinkai (Society of Absolute Truth), openly opposing to all the existing directions and styles of Kempo.

The world center of the Mas Oyama school was officially opened in June 1964, and the name Kyokushin was adopted, which means “Ultimate Truth”. Since then, Kyokushin has spread to more than 120 countries around the world, and at this time, IKO has over 12 million registered members, making it one of the largest Martial Arts organizations in the world. Among the well-known people from the world of Kyokushin: Sean Connery – Honorary First Dan (shodan), Dolph Lundgren – Third Dan (Sandan) – Australian Heavyweight Champion, President of South Africa Nelson Mandela – Honorary Eighth Dan (hachidan), Australian Prime Minister -Minister John Howard – Honorary fifth dan (godan), who was awarded a black belt at the official opening of the Kyokushin dojo in Sydney in June 1988.

But what is the triumph of the new teaching? No, rather, the optimal implementation of the entire Kempo heritage, the immortal testaments of the old masters. Oyama himself did not hide the eclectic orientation of his school. Rejecting the dogmatic attitudes of traditional martial arts and, above all, from a narrowly sectarian approach, he made a general revision of all types of martial arts without weapons and with weapons in order to select the necessary elements for his system. All of them in the complex were designed to ensure the requirements of the school: strength, stability, efficiency.

Oyama introduced many new, borrowed and invented combinations into the tactics of free sparring (ju-kumite), thereby undoubtedly adding to the arsenal of karate. Although in his developments we will not find a coherent system connected with philosophical and cosmogonic models, which the old continental schools could boast of. In the field of philosophy, Oyama follows the path of traditional teachings. Having studied the works of Takuan, Miyamoto Musashi and other masters of the past, he develops their ideas about the fusion of man with the universe, about the transformation of the spirit mind into the Void through the practice of Zen. Trying to bridge the gap between the abstract constructions of Zen logic and the reality of modern life, he emphasizes the introverted essence of self-knowledge: Nothing in Zen is opposed to existence. It is not a relative Nothingness. You can reach it only by overcoming the antinomies of life-death and victory-defeat. A significant role is assigned by Oyama to long sitting meditation – zazen, and short-term meditation with closed eyes, which precedes and ends training – mokuso. And yet the main thing in the Oyama system, which finds a response in the hearts of millions, is not dry theory, not meditation and not learning completely standard kata, but practical return, maximum efficiency.

For his students, Oyama developed a whole cascade of dizzying tricks that embody the highest achievements of karate on a physical level:

• punching a sheet of thin rice paper suspended by two threads with blows of the fist and fingers;

• splitting a board (or brick) suspended on a rope with blows of the fist, elbow, rib of the hand, rib of the foot and the front part of the foot from the position of standing on the ground or in a jump;

• splitting several inch boards in the hands of two assistants with all possible blows of hands and feet, including in a jump at a height of about two meters;

• splitting an inch board floating in a barrel of water;

• splitting with hands, feet and head up to twenty layers of tiles;

• splitting three bricks placed on top of each other with a “hand-sword” or “iron hammer” blow;

• splitting with a sword-hand blow three bricks laid on top of each other with ice slabs three inches thick in between;

• punching an ice block with a hand and foot;

• splitting massive stones with the base of the rib of the palm;

• cutting off the neck of a standing bottle;

• penetration with a “arm-spear” blow into a tightly bound bundle of bamboo rods;

• a piercing spear-hand thrust through a hanging cow carcass.

All the described actions belong, respectively, to the category of positive (Yang), embodying the principle of active attack. An equally important place in the Kyokushinkai demonstration program is occupied by numbers that reveal the body’s amazing ability to passive resistance and belong to the category of negative (Yin). For example, a two-inch-thick stick will break when struck against the head, back, chest, arms, or legs of a person standing quietly. Or like this: a person lies on his back on a board filled with nails, a granite boulder weighing at least 50 kilograms is placed on his chest, which is then broken with a blow of a sledgehammer. I will surprise you. However, even more incredible tricks are demonstrated by Indian yoga fakirs or Chinese Qigong masters.

Power numbers in Kyokushinkai are combined with all kinds of tests for speed, clarity and accuracy.

Here we should mention extinguishing a candle at a distance with different blows of the hands and feet, cutting a matchbox made of thin plywood with the edge of the palm, pulling out a paper sheet from under a pack of cigarettes, a glass or a standing cigarette; shaking the ashes from a lit cigarette in the partner’s teeth with a kick and similar tricks designed for a spectacular effect.

However, Oyama attracted fans not only with circus performances. He personally trained athletes from many countries, and traveled around the world with lectures and demonstrations.

Many books, brochures, technical manuals and developments belong to his pen. Many advertising films – documentaries and feature films – were shot by his order. But what is especially important – his pupils win championships. And it is no coincidence that his Kyokushinkai school is not part of the All-Japan Karate Federation. Opposing her World Federation, Oyama went his own way.

It is sad, but in April 1994, at the age of 70, the founder of Kyokushin karate, Mas Oyama, died of lung cancer, although he was not a smoker.