Kaicho Tezuka

Toru Tezuka was born on March 2nd, 1942, in Tokyo, Japan.

Toru Tezuka met Mas Oyama for the first time in 1960 when he was in college. They became very good friends. 

He started as one of his students in 1973.
After Sosai gave him orders to attend the general meetings, Toru Tezuka also joined the Kyokushin Kaikan as a committee member of the Organization.

In 1974, Toru Tezuka established the first dojo at Chiba according to Sosai Oyama's principles and started his teaching.
Toru Tezuka received the rank of Shodan from Mas Oyama in August 1976.
He organized the first tournament in Chiba in 1979. Many talented fighters participated in this tournament, including Matsui, a student of the Tezuka dojo. Matsui studied with Toru Tezuka for 13 years.

Over the course of the following years, Toru Tezuka became a Shihan at Kyokushin Kaikan, established 12 dojos in the Chiba Prefecture, and held another 10 tournaments in Chiba.

After the sudden death of Sosaï Oyama on April 26th , 1994, the Kyokushin KaiKan organization went into chaos in Japan and worldwide. Mas Oyama had left no testament or official instructions regarding his successor as head of the organization, and the ongoing disputes and divisions within the organization greatly troubled the elder shihans in Japan.

After several years of consultation, the council of elder shihans in Japan chose to elect Toru Tezuka as the head of the International Kyokushinkai Karate Organization and asked him to continue Sosai's work.
They felt Shihan Tezuka was the most representative of what they wished the International Karate Organization to become.

Toru Tezuka was a wise man, very sincere and honest, and he had been Mas Oyama's closest friend for well over 30 years. Now a highly respected businessman and influential man in Japan, Toru Tezuka was open-minded and understood the trends that would allow Kyokushinkai Karate to develop worldwide in Sosaï's spirit, without deviating from its fundamental mission.

Unfortunately, soon after beginning his mandate in the Organization, Toru Tezuka was hospitalized for many months. When he returned, one of his members had taken over the organization on his own. Again, confusion was overwhelming the IKO which quickly split into 3 groups: IKO1, IKO2 and IKO3, under self-proclaimed leaders. Each of these groups took a different direction in reference to Sosaï Mas Oyama's original teachings and karate philosophy.

In this turmoil, Toru Tezuka did not try to fight for power in the fractured IKO. He wisely kept away from these troubled organizations and continued doing what Mas Oyama had told him to do.

In the year 2000, Toru Tezuka was elected IKO Kyokushin KaiKan world representative with the power to officially approve high level representatives throughout the world for the IKO Kyokushin Kaikan Tezuka Group.
For Kancho Tezuka, as well as for all his members, the principles of the Bushido, "Gi", "Yu", "Jin", "Rei", "Makoto", "Meiyo", and "Chugi" constitute a way of life that gives the highest value to respect, and makes it the first duty of the karateka.

Today Toru Tezuka is relentlessly pursuing an international mission whose objective is to gather and unify Kyokushinkai karatekas worldwide in the true spirit of Mas Oyama's teachings.
He travels throughout the world and continues to build the KyokushinKai organization according to Mas Oyama's true principles.