KYOKUSHIN KARATE

Meaning

‘Kyoku’ meaning ultimate or extreme and ‘shin’ meaning truth.

Sosai Oyama

Kyokushin karate was founded by the late Sosai Masutatsu Oyama The ideals of Sosai were to overcome your own presupposed physical limitations and attain a level of ‘truth’ in yourself forged by hard karate based training.

His own legendary training followed a regimen of self-sacrifice and hardship that will unlikely be repeated. It included 18 months of solitary training in the mountains, where he trained every day for longer than I slept. It included running up steep slopes, lifting large rocks as weights, jumping bushes and boulders many times, striking trees to condition his hands and feet and meditation under freezing waterfalls.

After he amazed the world with his amazing karate prowess, he opened his first Dojo, training hall, in 1953, and after training many overseas students in the Honbu, world headquarters, Kyokushin Karate spread globally and became the largest martial art association with over ten million members worldwide.

Sadly, Sosai passed away in 1994 at the age of 70, but his legend and legacy still lives on today with instructors passing on his philosophy in dojo throughout the world.

Kancho Matsushima

Yoshikazu Matsushima was born on April 23rd, 1947.

Kancho Matsushima started training karate at the Ikebukuro dojo in Tokyo, Japan in 1965. He was an early student of Sosai Oyama.

Kancho has taught karate around the world, has appeared in magazines, television shows and movies promoting the Kyokushinkai. Matsushima, Kancho was selected to appear in Sosai's book Advanced Karate.

In 1989 he was awarded a special presentation by Sosai for promoting Kyokushin Karate!

As one of the very first Branch Chiefs appointed, Kancho has been training, teaching, and promoting Kyokushin for over 40 years. He is totally dedicated to, and focused on the preservation and positive growth of Sosai's karate.

Kancho Matsushima (9th dan) was elected as President of the International Karate Organization Matsushima Group in November of 1998. He continues to travel around the world, selflessly sharing his knowledge and expertise of the Kyokushin style of karate.