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The Road to Karate – A Budoka’s Way To Live
By Hiroshi Shoji. Shihan of the Japan Karate Association.

Part 27 Joining The IAKF

The Second World Karate-do Championship was organised by France and held in Paris. The outcome of the championship was reported in the Japanese newspaper with the big headlines “Karate, You Lost!” However, I do not believe that we lost the competitions from a technical viewpoint. The murky characteristics of the championship caused great concerns for the future of Karate among the international Karate circle, which triggered the establishment of the International Amateur Karate Federation (IAKF).

What I found at the Paris World Championship was a lack of consistency in the direction among the Japanese instructors. The Japanese attitude underlying their inconsistent direction was arrogance on their part. “It was us who taught you Karate, therefore you must follow what we say”. But as shown in the history of Europe where all the countries exist with their borders adjacent to each other, Europeans have acquired, through the history of their past wars, diplomatic supremacy with which they protect their countries and people. Against such Europeans, the self-indulgence of the Japanese had no place. Not only that, they twisted our arms and spun us around easily.

For France who took the stance of “Karate in Europe by Europeans”, the World Championship in Paris had to be won by them by all means. To achieve this objective, they silenced the competitors who made protests with the police threatening them with their handguns. And they changed the competition rules. As a protest against the biased judges in team competitions, many countries withdrew from individual events including not only Japan, but also USA, Canada and etc. The World Union of Karate-do Organisations (WUKO) was immature as an organisation, thus such irregularities occurred. Representatives of the countries who were dissatisfied with the WUKO held a conference in New York and resolved to form a new organisation. The purpose of the establishment of a new organisation was to maintain the traditional Karate-do by preventing the tendency in Europe of changing some rules for Karate competitions that would inevitably cause Karate-do to deviate from its traditional form.

Despite the movement taking place internationally, the domestic situation in Japan was awry as well with the executive committee indulging itself in argument on political manoeuvring, ignoring suggestions and requests from various people in the Karate circle. I believe that they engaged themselves in such activities, due probably to the lack of its ability to analyse what was happening internationally and also the difficulty they had among themselves in adjusting various factional views in Japan, thus shielding themselves behind the ideology of unifying Karate-do. Whilst the domestic Karate circle was in such a state, the new organisation solidified its foundations steadily and had grown into a large organisation with more than fifty member countries throughout the world, including Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The championship was held in Los Angles to inaugurate the new organisation.

It was decided that the Japan Karate Association would participate in the world Karate-do championship which was to be organised by the IAKF in Los Angles in August 1975. I was appointed the manager for the Japanese national team. No excuse would be allowed for the Japanese team which had a bitter experience in the previous world championship. We were expected to make the perfect wins, no matter who would be judging or no matter what the competition rules were. No excuse was allowed.

We had already sent our main competitors to Europe for a month since April 1975 for them to build up their experience against non-Japanese competitors. Among them were members who had been banned from competing for a year as they had withdrawn from the competitions in the Paris World Championship. We wanted to give them an opportunity to restore their honour. On their return to Japan, we held gasshuku till 10 August 1975. The gasshuku was implemented with a hard training schedule from stage 1 through stage 5. No team members ever complained and all followed my training diligently. The heavy pressure put on our shoulders with an expectation to achieve a perfect victory not only in the team events but also in the individual events gradually evaporated as we continued our training.

By the time we arrived in Los Angeles, top competitors from each country were already there and they were casting a hot eye on us. Their objective was to defeat Japan and to collect data and information about the Japanese competitors. Every country was busy running round collecting data and information about other countries. As I had full confidence in our competitors, I ignored the data collection. The Japanese competitors responded to my confidence very well. We won the team Kumite, team Kata and individual Kata. Only individual Kumite was still remaining. A maximum of two competitors from each country were entitled to enter the individual Kumite competition. 56 competitors from 29 countries were nominated. Representing Japan in the individual Kumite were competitors Oishi and Tanaka.

Competitor Tanaka - slotted in A block - used to be awkward in fighting against westerners. But in this championship, throughout the team and individual Kumite, he was full of confidence. He attacked his opponents at their weak points with his first class switchover kicks. Particularly spectacular was his third bout. Competitor Tanaka twirled his huge opponent in the air with one hand and put one knee down on the floor and thrust his punch in the opponent’s face. His excellent technique was impressive. It was like a choreographed movement in a film and made us think for a moment as if we were watching a prearranged demonstration. It will be very rare to witness such a magnificent action in a bout.

Competitor Oishi in B block was said to be the unparalleled competitor who had won numerous competitions in Japan. He won the 12th through 14th All Japan Championships, three years consecutively. In this championship, he won through the fourth round easily, but in the fifth round bout, which was a semi-final, there was an unexpected happening. His opponent in the fifth round bout was competitor Hedlund from Sweden. Hedlund was a strong competitor who was always a candidate for the winner in a competition in Europe. His footwork was swift and his punch was heavy, quite often seen with western competitors. In his bout against competitor Hedlund Competitor Oishi stayed calm, keeping a safe distance without getting lured into Hedlund’s strategy built on his swift and rhythmical footwork and then Oishi went a sudden attack. Competitor Hedlund’s footwork halted momentarily. Simultaneously Oishi captured him with his lightening Oi Zuki to the mid section. Judges raised their flags for Ippon (full point). Oishi pulled his punch immediately. But unfortunately, right after Oishi’s punch, Gyaku Zuki from competitor Hedlund landed just above Oishi’s right eye. No one expected this accident and everybody in the stadium held their breath. The whole stadium was wrapped in suppressed silence. Oishi on the court was suffering a dizzy spell but trying to control his wobbly legs. A medical stop was ordered. “Battle for life or death” – these words flashed across my head. I felt the blood withdrawing from my body and got quickly to Oishi. He was stoically withstanding the pain. Judges decided on Oishi’s win by Hansoku (a violation of the rules). As the flags for Ippon (a full point) had been already raised, the judges should have awarded a win by Ippon to Oishi, rather than a win by Hansoku from competitor Hedlund. However, the judges must have been confused by the accident, which might have caused them to make the inaccurate decisions. Competitor Oishi was doubly unlucky. Nevertheless, the audience applauded Oishi for his gallant fighting. The competitors who advanced to the final were Tanaka from A block and Oishi from B block, both Japanese.

As I was worried about Oishi’s injuries, I suggested that he withdraw from the final. But he insisted that he continue fighting. I had to respect his strong spirit. The audience cast their admiring eyes on the two Japanese competitors and they did not spare their support for Oishi who survived the very tough fight previously, with the cheering words “Samurai Nippon”. They had fought a number of times in Japan before and were good rivals in their training. Oishi who normally maintained his calmness had to struggle in keeping his physical balance, which prevented him from using his usual excellent strategy against the opponent. He dashed into offence towards competitor Tanaka without much attention for his own defence. His attacks were calculated based on his full knowledge of competitor Tanaka, but did not work on him who was sharp in his techniques. Inevitably the victory went to competitor Tanaka.

We were successful in our mission to achieve the perfect wins at the world championship. We left for home on the following morning even without time to celebrate and congratulate our competitors on their success.

Read our Tribute to Shoji Sensei from November 2003

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