Mas Oyama, originally named Choi Young Eui, is a martial arts master that founded a style of karate called Kyokushikai. They are known for the 100 man fighting test. Meaning in order to get a black belt, you need to fight 100 people all in one sitting. Pretty nuts if you ask me.
Oyama was born in Korea in the 1930s. He learned martial arts from a Chinese worker, who was tending his sister farm. The Chinese dude would but him through some crazy shit. For example, he would plant a seed and told Oyama to jump over it 100 times a day, every day. Which doesn’t seem like much in the beginning but when the seed started to sprout he would still have to jump over this shit. Reports state that the seed grew into a tree. Oyama jumped over fucking trees! Michael Jordan aint got shit on Oyama.
Korea was under Japanese control during the beginning stages of Oyama’s life. When Japan invaded China in the beginning stages of World War II, Oyama went to Japan to enlist in the Japanese Airforce. When he wasn’t training to fly planes, he started learning from the guy who started Shotokan Karate.
Oyama never got to fight in World War II, but didn’t mean he wasn’t gonna quit being a badass. When the war was over, Oyama was pretty pissed that 1) he didn’t get to fight and 2) his homies got shot down by the US. So in a form of random, retarded, yet awesome vengeance, he started to fight the US military personnel that was stationed in Japan after the war.
His good friend told him that even though beating the shit out of these soldiers is kinda badass, its not the smartest thing to do. He convinced Oyama to go train the mountains of Japan and hone his skill. Oyama thought it was a brilliant idea and headed to the mountains. Oyama trained in the wilderness. He punched trees and rocks all day. He meditated underneath freezing waterfalls. He was a bit of a nutty guy. On a sidenote, I have trained in various martial arts for 17 years but let me be the first to tell you, punching trees and rocks daily is kind of a nutty thing.
After 18 months of this ridiculous Rocky IV training, Oyama came down from the mountain and entered a tournament. He won the Japanese National Martial Arts Championship. Right after the win, he went back up to the mountain thinking that he needs to be even more dominant. He stayed in the mountain for another 18 months. This dude was crazy!
When he finally came down from the mountain, he founded a dojo so that he can teach people what he learned. Unfortunately, his style of martial arts was not suitable for everyone. His regimen included full-contact style of martial arts. Pretty much anyone that trained under him has gotten hurt while training under him. It is not a good business model when you have to pay money to get your ass kicked by the teacher and end up going to the hospital. They basically paid Oyama money so that he can punch them in the face. So Oyama did what any business man would do, he traveled the country trying to prove his style was awesome. I don’t know if his style was awesome but I can see he is definitely awesome.
It was a different time back then. Nowadays, when a martial arts school wants to promote the legitimacy of their school they put of shows and lots of precut boards are kicked and broken. Oyama was sick of breaking board, probably because he punched a fucking tree for 3 years. Instead, he decided to fight bulls with his bare hands. He fought a total of 52 bulls and he killed 3 of them with once punch. Although I am not a fan of animal cruelty for no reason, I have to stress how crazy this shit is. He punched a bull (horns included) in the fucking face. This earned him the nickname “The Godhand”. The other bulls he defeated in various ways like karate chopping a bull horn off the animal’s skull. I feel sorry for his penis, especially when he was jerking off.
Furthermore, Mas Oyama also liked getting into full contact sparring matches. Reportedly over the course of 3 days, Oyama fought 300 sparring matches and kicked all their asses. He was so crazy that some of his opponents ended up with broken arms while blocking his punches. When it was all over, Oyama thought the kumite was so awesome that he made a 100-man battle the requirement for getting your fourth-degree black belt in Kyokushinaki Karate. To this day, you need to fight a hundred full-contact matches in a row, win over 50% of them, and not be knocked down for more than five seconds at any time in the trial. It’s exhausting just to think about this black belt test.
Mr. Oyama, even though I don’t agree with some of your decisions, you are truly one of the most baddass Asians of all time.
