Profile of Mas Oyama on Famous Like Me

Masutatsu Ōyama (Kanji:大山倍達; 1923-1994) was a Korean born Japanese karate master. His Korean name was Choi Yeong-Eui (Hangul: 최영의; Hanja: 崔永宜), but he liked to be called Choi Bae-Dal (최배달; 崔倍達).

Born in Gimje, North Jeolla province, South Korea, Oyama began studying kempo karate at age 9, and moved to Japan five years later where he enrolled at JIA (Japanese Imperial Army) at 15, studying shotokan karate. He studied various styles of Martial arts and trained on Mt. Minoubu of Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It was said that he shaved one of his eyebrows so he would not leave the mountains. He stayed in the mountain for a total of 14 months and was forced to leave after his sponsor had stopped supporting him. Months later, after he had won the Karate Section of Japanese National Martial Arts Championships, he was distraught that he had not reached his original goal to train in the mountains for three years. So he went into solitude again, this time on Mt. Kiyosumi and he trained there for 18 months.

Oyama enrolled at Takushoku University in Tokyo and was accepted as a student at the dojo (training hall) of Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of shotokan. He trained with Funakoshi for two years, then studied goju-ryu karate for several years with a senior student of the system's founder, Chojun Miyagi.

Masutatsu Oyama founded Kyokushinkai Karate, a hard style of karate, which stresses that its students should submit to vigorous training.

One of Oyama's inspirations was the famous Japanese samurai Miyamoto Musashi.

To show the world his strength, he frequently fought bulls unarmed. He usually used his knife hand to strike off their horns. He also took on all challengers, winning the vast majority of his challenges in a few minutes and often in a single blow. This style was adopted from the Japanese martial philosophy of Ichi geki, Hissatsu or "One strike, certain death."

As effective and brutal as kyokushin is as a self-defense system, it is not without its character-building qualities. Oyama made sure to include in his art the elements of courtesy, respect, wisdom and humility. Without them, Oyama believed, a fighter cannot possibly know when it is and is not appropriate to use his martial arts skills. Such a man is little more than a brute who lacks control, he claimed. "Karate begins with courtesy and ends with courtesy," Oyama once said.

Oyama travelled around the world to fight other master martial artists. His name entered Japanese popular culture thanks to a manga called A Karate Fool for Life (空手バカ一代; karate baka ichidai) that was based on his earlier stories.

Oyama was a living legend until he passed away on April 26, 1994, at the age of 71, of lung cancer.

Before passing away, Oyama built his Tokyo-based International Karate Organization, Kyokushinkai, into one of the world's foremost martial arts associations, with branches across the globe. In Japan, books were written about him, feature-length films splashed his colorful life across the big screen, and comic books recounted his many adventures.

Oyama's life story is portraited in the 2004 Korean movie Fighter in the Wind or Baramui Fighter. However the plot of this movie disagrees with most other accounts.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Mas Oyama