[I:http://sportsrealm.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/AlCase35.jpg]While there have been many fantastic karate instructors, only Mas Oyama can honestly lay claim to being the toughest karate master. This is most interesting, because Karate came from China, came into existence on Okinawa, and migrated to Japan, which became the ‘Land of Karate.’ Mas Oyama, (b-Choi Yeong-eui), however, was not from any of those countries, but rather from Korea.
Mr. Oyama was born into Japanese occupied Korea in 1923. He learned his first martial arts from a Chinese migrant worker named Lee when he was 9 years old, he was told to plant a seed, and to practice jumping over it as it sprouted. It is said he could jump fantastic distances because of this practice.
After World War II Mas lived in Japan, where he was ostracized for being Korean. In 1946 he enrolled in Waseda University and took instruction from the second son of Gichin Funakoshi in Karate. Because of his Korean status he trained in solitude, and many would claim this solitary lifestyle would keep him dedicated and free of distractions, and enable him to achieve a very pure and high level of Karate.
From Waseda University he went to Takushoku University, and from the son he went to the father, for at Takushoku he studied with the father of modern day karate, Gichin Funakoshi. After shotokan he moved to Goju Ryu, studying with Chojun Miyagi. He was eventually promoted to 8th dan in that system by Gogen Yamaguchi.
During this time Mas Oyama became famous as a fierce fighter, and he specialized in fighting members of the US military police. He was involved in so many fights that his picture was displayed on the walls of every police station. Eventually, and probably because of his propensity for fighting, he was advised by a friend, Mr. Neichu So, to retreat to the mountains and live a life of seclusion and hardship, and to dedicate himself to a regimen of hard training in the martial arts.
Mas Oyama spent 14 months in hard training on the top of Mt. Minobu, then, later, another 18 months. He returned to Tokyo a fierce and unbeatable fighter. During this time he took to fighting bulls, shearing the horns off them with a chop, or killing them outright, with nothing but kicks and fists.
Eventually, Mas established the Kyokushinkai, which became renowned for its brutal and tough training. One of the hallmarks of this type of training is the 100 man kumite, in which a fighter faces one hundred opponents in the roughest type of freestyle imaginable. The schools of this toughest Karate master are now spread throughout the world.
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