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Kyokushin Karate was created by Sosai Mas Oyama, who was once a student of Shotokan's
Gichin Funakoshi and Gogen Yamaguchi of of the Goju-Kai. Sosai was born in Korea and was
influenced by Chinese and Korean martial arts previous to his training in Karate. Sosai
was not particularly impressed with the combat side of the Karate he encountered so he
retired to the mountains near Chiba, where he lived the life of a recluse. During this
self-inflicted isolation, through intensive training he formulated a new Karate system
that was based on actual combat experience. He later named this new style Kyokushinkai or
"style of the ultimate truth".
Kyokushinkai training is known to be severe and requires a certain amount of conditioning. Because of this it has come to be known as the "Strongest Karate". Sosai has never stuck rigidly to the traditional techniques of Karate and has looked outside his own martial art for other methods and techniques. |
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In the early seventies, Sosai introduced a type of competition called knockdown. He
felt that this was the only true test of a Karateka's fighting skills. Knockdown allows
full power strikes to the body and kicks to the head.
