SEIJI SHIHAN ISOBE:
COMMITTED TO POWER, CHAMPIONS AND TRADITIONS

Q: Please tell us your story in Karate. SHIHAN ISOBE: Originally started training Shotokan, it was in the 60s. I was very happy at first but I began to doubt the practicality of the style. I wanted to complete what he started, so I decided to stay to win my Shodan. Formerly there was no color grading system, were only white, brown & Black. One day, our instructor trained in Kyokushin karate and came back with pretty face abused (in those days still had attacks Kyokushin fist to the face). This increases our doubts in style. I waited until the day he told me it was Black Belt. One day the instructor told me: You're good enough to use the Black Belt? Then I leave. Q: As an ongoing training? YES: Continue my own training for several months with a friend. At that time, and we were a group of 50 who seek to form a true Budo Karate. As a group we decided to contact Mas Oyama and we wrote a letter expressing our interest.

Q: What was your response?
SI: We obtained a response to our letter from Sosai send us an instructor, but we had to pay for travel, lodging and meals for 10 days.

The stay was very expensive in 1967. So we decided that some of us were at Honbu for the cost of bringing a trainer to train. I'm sure 1967. It was the year that Sosai wanted to go to Hokkaido to fight with a bear.

Three of us went to Tokyo; Takehashi, another companion and I went to Honbu in Tokyo to meet Sosai.

Just spent three days and wanted to train but it was not possible, just look at the practice and went home. When we returned, we try to recall what we had seen and train in the same way.


Q: Eventually when you started training at the Honbu?

SI: In 1968 we returned to Tokyo and began to form our group. We made a deal to open a zonal group of Kyokushin.

The first train in the Honbu, while training, I break a finger badly. No we used low kicks in Shotokan. When blocked the kick and had to close my fist again, loosened my finger and I could not see if my finger was fine, when I opened my hand and saw that instead of moving was in another direction.

I could see the bone fracture and dislocated, which put in place. In the hospital against the Honbu settled the bone and splint and return immediately to train for the next three days at the Honbu. Fukui I traveled to Tokyo many times that year.
I fought in the First, Second, and Third National Tournament in Japan.

Q: I think you Sosai was also conductor?

YES: It was an uchi deshi at Honbu for three months when he fought in the Second National 1970. The person who used to lead to Sosai, crashed in the middle of the night. While we trained morning Sosai said: Did any of you have a driver's license? Three of us raised our hands, Kanemaru, someone else and myself. He asked what kind of license Kanemaru and Kanemaru had replied that he could drive truck and then asked the second boy, who replied that he had a license but had never managed. Then I asked and I answered that he had led a lot but only in the field, I was not sure he could handle in Tokyo. He replied: No problem, done!
It was a German car, the steering wheel was next. The first time I turn on a sharp bend to the left, everyone used to make this curve three times because the road was very narrow, I was lucky and can do it one time and Sosai said: You're a good driver, you can drive for me.

Q: It's a long way from driving for Sosai to teach in Brazil.

SI: I was his driver for a year and eight months, was when he was planning to get my second Dan and return to Fukui. Sosai said, she wanted me to leave the country. He sent an instructor to New York and one to Taiwan for six months, was supposed to replace the instructor and go to Taiwan, which eventually never happened.

Then I plan to go to Australia, but just as I was preparing to leave, my plans changed again and was sent to Brazil.

Sosai called me and said: You've heard of Brazil? All I knew was that the Southern Hemisphere, and had heard of Rio and Sao Paulo. Sosai told me that anger to Brazil for a year to teach, to which I responded Oss, since it was all I could say. This happened 30 years ago and am still here. Brazil is now my home.

Q: When I arrived in Sao Paulo, few practitioners of Kyokushin had then?
SI: As 100 students in training.

Q: And now has 100 zones?
SI: We now have subsidiaries in six countries. There are about 100 zones and 5000 students under my direction in South America.

Q: Also in Brazil has developed not only the organization but also a style of Kyokushin basic principles known as Brazilian Kyokushin. Please tell us as development.

SI: Many people in Japan know about Karate Do and the Japanese have a way of thinking that is different. You tell them they do a million times over and over again, just applying the basic concepts, with the Japanese students can be done in this way, as the Japanese do not question the importance of this understanding should be done. So in Japan do not have to worry about doing something new and different.
When I was training in Japan, I began to combine several of the knowledge that each of the different grades had to do to graduate. I put together several combinations to form what is now known as Brazilian Kyokushin. Are only the basic combined in various ways different from what are traditionally made.

Q: How Kyokushin help you to grow in Brazil?

SI: In Brazil, there are instructors of all styles, since Brazil has the largest concentration of Japanese outside Japan. Nobody had ever heard of Kyokushin, so that when used to break rocks and ice with my hands, while students of other styles I saw. I asked their instructors: - We saw a guy who can split rocks and ice with bare hands. The instructors said they did not believe in what they saw, because apparently I had broken the rocks with a hammer and then was stuck, and there is a old trick in Japan where you can leave the ice melt a little before break.

Then they asked me to break a few blocks of ice for a television program "60 Minutes" was broadcast live to South America. I wanted to make a big break. Asked to prepare seven blocks of ice, which would break with a Shuto (Edge of the hand). Road to the study told me that three of the blocks had been broken, so I said I had no problem, that would break his head. When I got to study, I saw with great surprise that the blocks were twice the normal size. Still could not break my word and decided that my neck or break the ice

When cameras started rolling, I jumped and broke the ice blocks. My ears buzzed and I was stunned but the ice broke. I was pleased but when she saw the recording Sosai told me not to do it again. However, I was satisfied.

Q: I'm sure many people want to know FILHO FRANCISCO ON AND TRAINING.

SI: Approaching the day of his 100 fights, you could hear stories about 50 to Filho fighting every week for six months in preparation for the Hyaku Jin Kumite.

Many journalists came to Brazil from Japan and wanted to know how I trained as strong champions. All you have the Brazilians do not have the Japanese is power.

They are not as good technically as the Japanese technique is only partially physical, the other is spiritual. No one has a fighting spirit as the Japanese, this should work in his possession.

When Filho had 20 years, Andy Hug knocked out in the fifth World Championship, Filho had that fighting spirit also reserved for Japanese, half also 190cm and weighed 92 kg Judo say that in itself does not have a big explosion, you can not project the power needed. Filho has a big explosion and I knew I had the power potential, so we started working on tube train (special rubber reinforcements to develop power and strength), and a large tula. The tula Filho weighed 80Kg and when I hit it, looked like a toy and had to get a duffel bag of 120 kg and thus its power development.

Before the start of the next world championship, the Japanese National Open Champion, Yoshihiro Tamura came to Brazil, but hardly had to move the tula. It was then confirmed that the training had given my students was effective. In 1994 we had the World Club Cup and 14 countries came to fight, Filho won and again I saw that our training really worked and I wanted to win the world championship in 1995.

Q: But it must be excited when Filho won his first fight in the K-1.

SI: It was very serious to me. I asked his permission to Kancho Matsui Filho could participate in the K-1 thinking this would make Kyokushin proud.

I was shocked when they find out that Andy Hug will be his first opponent. With much more experience in the ring, he was not sure that Chico (Filho nickname) could beat him in his first fight in K-1. I was very nervous before the match and I felt so guilty that it lost Filho, Kyokushin I give it up forever by the loss of my student.

This was the first time Kyokushin entered the K-1 and had been my idea, so only I was liable. I remember being in the corner and had my eyes fixed to track the movements inside the ring. Once I moved to the right and saw a boy standing just where was Andy? He was on the floor unconscious, I can now stay in Kyokushin and be proud that my student has done the right thing.


Q. In your opinion, there is some secret in karate?

SI: There are no secrets in karate, only the need to train, train and train, besides eliminating the ego.

Some people train hard with the incentive of making money and have a reputation. Such people want it all, expensive clothes, fancy homes and cars and this is where life gets complicated and difficult. We must keep in mind that this is Karate.

When you leave Sosai in Haneda Airport (old airport in Japan) I leave with these words:

I want you to go with the attitude that you're gonna die, just because you live in this way, you will understand the meaning of OSU ..