Kancho Royama's Seminar in Cape Town, South Africa
Hosted by Shihan Hennie Bosman, May 2006
(Photos by Ross Allchorn)

Shihan Hennie Bosman and Kancho are seen here, center, with guest instructors Shihan Kaneko (beside Kancho with glasses) and Shihan Ishizawa on the far right. Also seen here is Sensei Ligo from the US (left) who acted as interpreter and Sensei Ghana (to Kancho's left) from Congo.

Shihan Hennie Bosman of South Africa hosted his annual seminar at Stellenbosch this year and Kancho Royama was, for the 4th consecutive year, its guest instructor. At the same time Shihan Bosman was celebrating his 50th birthday and the addition to Kyokushinkan of 5400 members from 90 dojos in Congo.

Shihan Kaneko, below, concentrated on instruction of Naifanchin kata and Kyokushinkan's first bo kata, Oshiro no kon.

Kancho traveled to Cape Town with two instructors, Shihan Kaneko and Shihan Ishizawa, arriving on Shihan Bosman's birthday, May 24th. A birthday party was scheduled for the 25th and Kancho made one of several speeches at his party congratulating him on his many years of dedication to Kyokushin and expressing his gratitude for his hard work to expand the size of the Kyokushinkan organization on the African continent to nearly 10,000 members.

Here Shihan Ishizawa is shown with students practicing Naifanchin.

The camp was held from the 26th until the 28th and consisted of an evening training on the first day with a lecture and question and answer session with Kancho, of nine hours of training on the second day, and of a half day of training and a promotion test on the final day of the camp.

After a short run with students to warm up, Kancho teaches defensive theory against head strikes.

To the camp participants, Kancho encouraged everyone to remember the meaning of budo as opposed to sports karate. Kancho reminded everyone that the Chinese character for "bu" in budo can be broken down into the words for "pike" (a traditional and lethal Chinese weapon) and "to stop," hence the meaning, "to stop weapons," or "to stop conflict." Accordingly, Kancho reminded us, the budoka must be prepared to both stop conflict, when possible, and be able to defend against any kind of attack, when not. In sports, Kancho said, there is a winner and a loser, but the loser can go home to try to win again on another day. In budo, in its truest sense, the loser might forfeit his life. This is the type of mentality we must all adopt in our training: not to train simply to win in sports-like competitions, but to protect our lives and the lives of others when threatened.

We must, Kancho said, be prepared to protect ourselves against all kinds of attacks. When the 1st All-Japan open tournament was held in Japan and Mas Oyama announced that it would be a "full-contact" tournament, the Japanese public feared that participants would be killed. They knew the strictness with which Kyokushin karate trained and they could not believe that these techniques could be used unchecked in a competition without resulting in serious injury. It was at this time that punches to the head were forbidden in tournament competition in order to win widespread popularity for Kyokushin.

Kancho pointed out that for the first handful of All-Japan tournaments, up until the 1st World Tournament, the fighting style used was one in which the fighters were trained to protect their heads from their opponents' hand strikes, because it was still common to fight in the dojo with head punches. It was only then that the fighting style became specialized to one in which the athletes lost the instincts and techniques to protect the head. Kancho used "boxing" as an example of another specialized fighting style. Boxers, since the age of the Roman Empire when boxing was created, developed excellent means of defending themselves against punches. But what happens however, Kancho asked, when a boxer gets kicked with a powerful and well-aimed kick? Of course, the boxer would fail to protect himself and might be beaten because his "sport" has failed to train him to defend himself against kicks.

The same thing, Kancho said, happened to Kyokushin: It became specialized and young karateka ceased to learn how to protect their heads from punches and other hand strikes to the head. It was Mas Oyama's teaching first and foremost, Kancho reminded us, that Kyokushin karate is budo karate not sports karate, and that the meaning of budo is to be able to defend against all techniques not just some of them. Kancho reminds us that in Mas Oyama's dojo they trained rigorously to defend against hand strikes to the head and that Mas Oyama only eliminated these techniques in the name of popularizing a "sport" which took on many of the characteristics of "budo", thanks to the extreme physical and spiritual demands of the fight. Moving forward however, Kancho reminds us, we must re-incorporate learning defenses against all kinds of attacks and remember that Kyokushin karate is budo karate, not sports karate.

Shihan Kaneko and Shihan Ishizawa teaching the bo kata, Oshiro no kon. We regularly moved indoors when it started to rain.

Here, Kancho tirelessly signs autographs for the kids.

Above, Kancho and guest instructors pose for a photograph with 5 members from Congo, and below with Shihan Bosman's instructors.

Shihan Nesterenko, below, from Russia attended Shihan Bosman's 50th birthday party.