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Oyama Karate Kyokushin Hungary

Sosai Masutatsu Oyama

The origin of kyokushin karate


Kyokushin was created by Masutatsu Oyama (1923- 1994) and became one of the most popular and strongest of martial arts in the past few decades. Kyokushin karate is an effective self-defense system, a sport, a philosophy creating the harmony of the mind and the body and a way of life. Kyoku means distant, Shin means truth and Kai means joining. Its symbol is the kanku, which stands for unity, power and infiniteness. There are 10 student grades (kyu) to be followed by 10 master grades (dan) in kyokushin.
Matsutatsu Oyama, was born in Tokyo on 27 July (on 4th June according to the old Japanese calendar). He started his studies in Seoul, Korea. As a child he studied kempo and received his 2nd dan grade at the age of 17. During the world war he took part in military training but the war ended before his real war action. In 1947 he took part at the 1st karate tournament after the war and he took 1st place. In 1948 he decided to dedicate his life to karate. He spent 18 months in the Kyosumi mountains, Chiba, where he trained by himself to perfect his karate knowledge and to get absorbed.
He chose different ways to demonstrate the power of kyokushin, for example he broke the neck of a whisky bottle by his bare hand. In the 50's he was invited to teach in the USA many times. He developed a huge organization with the help of his students. Sigeru Oyama, M. Miura, Tadeshi Nakamura have chosen to take separate ways since then.
Oyama dojo was founded in the middle of the 50's in Tokyo. This was the beginning of kyokushin. The main principle was the following: until you reach 1 000 hours of training, you are a beginner, you start to take a look at the depths after 10 000 hours only. He built a massive world group. Continents opened up for kyokushin: Europe, North and South America, South-east Asia, Australia and Africa. He was the man to make the word 'karate' popular in the world. He published books to spread his ideas: What is karate?, This is karate, Dynamic karate, The final, strongest karate were among the best selling ones. Sosai created traditions. In 1975 they held the 1st World Tournament which has been organized every 4 years since then. He visited Hungary a few times: he attended the world famous IBUSZ-Oyama Cups (named after him). By his visits in the '80s he helped to give a boost to the popularity kyokushin in Hungary. He passed away on 26 April, 1994. His tomb can be found in Tokyo.