Mas Oyama in 1991

Masutatsu Oyama was born in Ryong-Ri Yong-chi-Myo’n Chul Na Do Korea in 1923, and completed middle school in Seoul. In 1938, when he was 12 years old, he came to Japan to live, where in 1941, he entered the Tokyo Takushoku University. Oyama had mastered the Eighteen Techniques of Chinese Kempo while he was still in his homeland. When he came to Japan, he became a pupil of Gichin Funakoshi, the man who introduced karate into Japan, and soon achieved the status of a second-grade (Dan) karate master.