Masatoshi Nakayama

Masatoshi Nakayama, born on April 13, 1913, in the Yamaguchi prefecture of Japan, and dead on April 15, 1987, was an internationally famous Japanese master of Shotokan karate. He entered Takushoku University in 1932, where he began learning karate under Gichin Funakoshi and his son Gigo, and in May 1949 he helped establish the Japan Karate Association, becoming its Chief Instructor. With Teruyuki Okazaki he restructured Shotokan training to follow both traditional karate and modern sports science, and he established kata and kumite as tournament disciplines. For almost forty years he worked to spread Shotokan karate around the world through textbooks and instructor programmes, and he was the first Shotokan master to reach 9th dan while alive and was posthumously awarded 10th dan.