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Kyokushinkai Karate officially came into being
around 1964. Its founder, Masutatsu Oyama,
had been developing it since the early 1950's, having initially
trained in Kempo as a child, then in Shotokan under Gichin
Funakoshi, Goju Ryu under So Nei Chu, and Judo. Kyokushinkai
means The Society of the Ultimate Truth.
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It rapidly gained in popularity, to the extent
that it currently has a worldwide membership of over 10 million.
It soon became known as "The strongest karate", not only
because of the incredible feats of strength and endurance that Mas
Oyama performed, but also because of the rigorous requirements of
the training and tournaments - i.e. the karate is also strong, not
just its practitioners bodies and minds..
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In 1994, Mas Oyama
died leaving behind a very confused organisation. While on his deathbed,
he apparently spontaneously appointed Akiyoshi
(Shokei) Matsui, then 5th dan, as his successor. Qualified though
Matsui was, both in Kyokushin and in management, many of the higher
ranked members and Branch Chiefs of the organisation took exception
to this. As a consequence, there has been a number of rifts in the
Japanese organisation, which have propagated through to the rest
of the Kyokushin world.
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Australia had already previously experienced
some internal divisions, and the Japanese schism increased those
problems. As a consequence, some of Australia's yudansha
decided to ally themselves with Matsui. Since then, there have been
a number of further splits in the organisation. Some groups have
chosen to join other Japanese based groups, some of which are spin-offs
from the spin-offs, and a number have even chosen to go independent,
since they had a number of dojo under their aegis already.
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Another group decided to ally themselves with
Hanshi Steve Arneil
of Great Britain, who originally left the Japanese Kyokushin fold
in 1991 to form his own International Federation of Karate (IFK).
However, he still calls his karate by the name of kyokushin, and
he still teaches it as it was originally taught to him by Mas Oyama.
Hanshi Arneil was also the first person to complete the the
100 man kumite after
Mas Oyama.
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There are numerous other Kyokushin-based styles
that have been started by karateka who had achieved relatively
high rank under Mas Oyama. Among the more
notable are Ashihara, World Oyama Karate, and Seido-kaikan.
A comprehensive, but by no means complete, list of offshoots can
be found on the Flavours of Kyokushin
page. It is also noteworthy that many of those who completed the
100 man kumite are founders of their
own styles.
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