4th Kyokushin-kan
All-Japan Open Weight Category Tournament
Toda Sports Center, April 2006

Celebrating with a shout of BANZAI! at the close of the tournament.

There's lots of exciting material below including scenes from the fighting with photographs of the winners and international participants. Be sure also to see below photographs shown on this web site for the first time of Kyokushin-kan's All-Japan Junior Tournament held the day after the Adult Weight Category Tournament. Most importantly though be sure to see photographs and explanation of two exhibition fights that took place at the close of the tournament showcasing a new proposed set of Kyokushin tournament rules created by Kancho Royama and Vice-Kancho Hiroshige which include head punches and limited protective gear. See photo below:

The gloves worn here are actually quite thin and, unlike boxing gloves, there is no foam core so the fighters are able to completely close their fists while punching. The protective head gear covers the vulnerable surfaces of the skull but have no face or jaw protection. These fights where extremely quick and exciting and the fighters risked suffering real damage. The scoring system used, however, is the same Kyokushin ippon-wazari scoring system which protects the fighters from suffering the repeated blows to the head of boxing. There is no ten-count like boxing, for example, there are still only 3 rounds unlike boxing's 10, and there are no ropes which means that fighting is stopped if the fighters go out of bounds. This fight above was an extremely rare for Kyokushin's existing rules 3- wazari fight. This means that the losing fighter knocked down his opponent with a jodan mawashi geri to receive wazari and his opponent got back up to knock him down with a punch for wazari and then a second punch some moments later for a second wazari or ippon.

Expect to hear lots more about this proposed rule change in the future (and see more photos below). For the time being, however, it's important to note that according to Kancho Royama and Vice-Kancho Hiroshige, these are the original kumite rules of Mas Oyama's Oyama Dojo. It was only the mass popularization of Kyokushin that Mas Oyama pursued through existing Kyokushin rules for which the dojo kumite rules were abridged in order to render tournament competition safer. As stated on earlier web pages, however, the result of this mass popularization was that Kyokushin fighters stopped practicing head strikes with the fists and the fighters failed to develop the same head-defensive reflexes that Oyama Dojo students had.

This is thus a move to return to the real Kyokushin, the original Kyokushin of Mas Oyama in which he stressed that fighters must train for real life and limb threatening kumite. This is a change therefore that will be considered radical only by the younger generation who grew up in the era of the new rules, one that will be welcomed by the older students of Kyokushin who remember how they were taught by Mas Oyama before it all got so huge.

An announcement was made at this year's tournament that this new set of rules including head punching will be used at next year's All Japan Weight Category Tournament (perhaps beginning after the 2nd or 3rd round), whereas the All-Japan Open will remain, for the time being, to utilize existing Kyokushin rules without head punches. More below.

But first, Fujii Yusuke defeats Yoshifusa Sakata to become heavyweight champion this year.

Iwata Manabu (shown at left below) defeated Ukraine's Yevgen Yakovenko in the final to became lightweight champion.

And last year's middle weight champion, Shoji Ryosuke, steals the middle weight trophy in the final from last year's All-Japan Open Karate Tournament Champion, Funasaki Yuu.

750 fighters participated in the All-Japan Junior Tournament on the 29th, ranging from 6 years old all the way up to 18. This non-Japanese author who has seen children's tournaments all over the world, has never seen children so technically proficient at such an early age as were these Japanese children. There wasn't a six-year-old among the fighters here who couldn't score a wazari with a jodan mawashi geri or an ushiro mawashi geri. These children, wearing head gear, look exactly like miniature versions of their adult counterparts, and they are extremely technical.

Below, Kancho Royama and Vice-Kancho Hiroshige watch their 8th hour of children's competition on the main mat (of five mats). These children's tournaments are taken very seriously in Kyokushin-kan and Kancho very rarely left mat-side during the entire day. Kancho and Vice-Kancho cautioned the officials to be extremely careful because whereas the young kids might not notice if the officials make mistakes, their parents are all at mat-side cheering and they, on the other hand, would certainly notice and complain in the event of any officiating mistake.

This child (below) was just one of many participating in the Junior Kata competition.

Below, the men's and women's kata champions demonstrate gekisai-sho during a break in competition. -- Masahide Ishijima (right), Chiaki Yanai (left) --

And the adult fights were all day long:

In the lightweight final, Champion Iwata exchanges blows with the 2nd Place Winner, Ukraine's Yevgen Yakovenko.

Below Fujii Yusuke takes first place.

Official Results

Heavyweight Winners Champion: Yusuke Fujii (Jonan Oimachi Branch) 2nd: Yoshifusa Sakata (Shobukan Karate) 3rd: Norihide Ichikawa (Nara-ken Branch) 4th: Yutaka Sakurai (Saikyo Branch)

Middleweight Winners Champion: Ryosuke Shoji (Tokyo Honbu) 2nd: Yu Funasaki (Nara-ken Branch) 3rd: Shun Shibuya (Tokyo Honbu) 4th: Alexandr Prodan (Ukraine)

Lightweight Winners Champion: Manabu Iwata (Johoku Branch) 2nd: Yevgen Yakovenko (Ukraine) 3rd: Konstantin Nemchin (Russia) 4th: Takaaki Tagawa (Kyokushinkai)

Best Fight Award
Seiichi Nobuta (Nara-ken Branch)

Technical Award
Konstantin Nemchin (Russia)

Tameshiwari Award
Yu Funasaki (Nara-ken Branch)

Kata Champion: Masahide Ishijima (men), Chiaki Yanai (women)

More Photographs
(Many Featuring International Participants)