Couchsurfing in Okayama

Hello to everyone out there.

As you can probably tell from the frequency of my posts, I am the kind of guy who is more inclined to run around having as much fun as possible rather than sitting around all day blogging about it. That being said, I would have even more fodder for fantastic blogs were I to be visited by itinerant vagabond couch surfers. Couchsurfing.org is essentially a hospitality network. People extend certain courtesies to travelers, in exchange they get the opportunity to hang out, share travel stories, and show someone around their neck of the woods. It is a completely awesome concept, and works out better than you could hope by facilitating the itinerant vagabonding by linking like-minded folks together. You can use it to find impromptu tour guides that will give you some real local flavor, not just find couches to crash on, so in that way it is a wonderful travel tool. Yes, you could be that guy on the couch!

Only problem is I have no street cred with the couch surfing community. My part of Okayama-ken might not get that many visitors, but surely some folks are passing through here. If I have ever crashed on your couch, or you have ever crashed on mine, or we have ever traveled anywhere with calamity and hilarity ensuing go on my couch surfing profile and give me the props I so richly deserve.

Just don't be disappointed if its a futon instead of a couch.

Baddest Motherfuckers in the History of Japan Vol. II - Mas Oyama

Back due to popular acclaim, here is another installment in the Baddest Motherfucker series. If Mas Oyama was still around and knew I hadn't started with him he could break me in half like you do your two chopsticks before digging into a plate of gyoza. Of course he's enough of a badass he wouldn't care either way, would  continue training hard,  and go about his business of emasculating live bulls of their horns. More on that later.

His full name is 大山倍達 (Ooyama Masutatsu)  which could mean many things, but I like to translate it as Great Mountain Two-fold Master. Thats one hell of a name, and very fitting for this man who did a great deal of training up in the mountains. He was born in 1923 in Korea with a Korean name I can't hope to translate, and later chose to live in Japan, becoming a citizen in 1964. He trained in Karate in Japan under Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of Shotokan Karate, as well and Judo and boxing, but it was Karate that he devoted his training to.


As with any badass, the tales of his exploits have grown with time, and its tough to tell legend from truth, mystique and myth from historical fact. Either way it is not doubted that he trained himself to a brutally high level of skill in the martial arts. He did it in the old school Japanese fashion; He went up into the mountains and trained in nature. He went to Mt. Minobu, a site famed for being the location where our previous badass, Miyamoto Musashi, developed his style of two sword fighting. What do you do when you live on a mountain and train Karate all day? You meditate, punch and kick the crap out of rocks and trees, get all hardcore under flowing waterfalls, and work on your conditioning. He decided to do this for 3 years, and become the most powerful Karateka in Japan.

He wound up coming down from the mountain top after 12 months. He wasn't pleased with this, but his training sponsor wasn't able to support him any longer. He came down from the mountain and proceeded to win the Karate tournament in the Japanese National Martial Arts Championship competition because he was an unstoppable beast. After this he returned to the mountaintops for 18 more months of hardcore badassery, in order to make good on his original plan to train in nature for 3 years. More conditioning, more zazen, and more technical practice on the mountain top.


His skill as so great he eventually earned the nickname "Godhand" because of the sheer brutality of his striking. After he returned to society he started demonstrating his Karate in 1950, eventually opening his own dojo in 1953. In 1952 he traveled all across the U.S. for a year accepting all challengers, and beating the tar out of 270 dudes that thought they could take him. He also demonstrated his skill by wrasslin bulls. By wrasslin I mean punching the crap out of them. His shuto is known to have shorn off many a bulls horn, and he is even said to have punched 3 bulls in the head so hard they died outright from the impact. Feats of this sort earned him the nickname Godhand.

At the Oyama dojo Kyukishin ryu evolved through a process of ji-sen kumite. Basically, full contact fighting. People from many styles came to train there because of the nature of the sparring, and it is said they would incorporate any techniques that they saw value in for real situations. They trained hard, and they were hardasses because of it. Kyokushin is one of the largest karate organizations in the world, and they carry on Oyama's tradition of full contact sparring, though they have rules in place for safety these days. He did a great deal for spreading Karate around the world, and demonstrated the vast potential of a human being with great discipline.


The man earned the name Godhand, and that is why he is one of the baddest motherfuckers in the history of Japan.