I'll Take a Bet On Fighting Spirit!
On May 10, 1978, in Nara, the ancient capital of Japan, Kancho Oyama gave a speech at a Public Seminar in which many prominent people from throughout Japan were also invited to speak. As in all Kancho Oyama's speeches, he spoke without the aid of any notes, and without having previously planned anything. The speech was some two hours in length. I'm not the kind of person who usually gives speeches on such a big stage, and I think perhaps I had better do a Karate demonstration, rather than speak, so that you can all feel satisfaction. But I can only talk about Karate, because I only know about Karate. I'm not a politician, nor a good speaker, and I'm neither a businessman nor a leader. I'm just a Karate-Ka. So I'll just talk about Karate. Karate came from Okinawa 46 years ago. Mr. Funakoshi, who did much to make it popular, brought it to Japan. But Japan already had a similar art called Jujutsu, which developed from Koppo. Koppo became Yawara. Yawara became Jujutsu. Jujutsu became Judo, Karate and Aikido. Judo has throwing, strangles and ground holds, and originally was divided into 2 systems. 1) Kodokan Judo, specializing in throwing and based in Tokyo, and 2) Butokukai, based in Kyoto and specializing in ground holds.