Kyokushinkai Karate
Masutatsu Oyama (1923 - 1994)
Kyokushinkai Karate was founded by Sosai Mas Oyama in 1955.
Mas Oyama was born on July 27th 1923.
He originally studied Chinese Fist (kempo), and in 1938 became a student of Master Gichin Funakoshi in Shotokan karate.
Starting in 1946 Mas Oyama spent a year training in a temple on Mt Minobu, before returning to become the champion at the All Japan Karate-do tournament in 1947.
Mas Oyama decided to dedicate his life to the way of karate, and returned to isolated training on Mt Kiyozumi in 1948, where he remained for 18 months. It was during this period that Oyama developed his own philosophy or 'Rinen' of Karate, which he called Kyokushin, which literally translates as 'Ultimate Truth'
Upon his return, Oyama toured the world demonstrating Kyokushinkai against other fighters and most famously live bulls.

Kyokushin Karate is structuraly organized from Kihon to Ido, Kata, Yakusoku Kumite and Jiyu Kumite, and focuses on strenuous physical training and realistic contact during sparring. Mas Oyama believed that this level of contact was necessary in order to fully appreciate the resiliency of the human body and spirit, and to prepare for any confrontation..
In order to develop Kyokushinkai as the 'strongest' karate, Mas Oyama began the 100 man kumite test, where a karate-ka must fight 100 chalengers in a row, all on the same day. Mas Oyama himself demonstrated this on 3 consectutive days (300 fights).
Another distinguishing charaterisation of Kyokushinkai is its use of circular movements in the execution of techiniques.
Since 1975 Kyokushinkai has held a full contact world Karate-do Open tournament every 4 years.
Sosai Masutatsu Oyama died of lung cancer on April 26, 1994.
