From the Blitz magazine archive. First published on blitzmag.net when the site was the online home of Blitz Australasian Martial Arts Magazine; restored from an archived copy dated 2016-03-04. Words credited to Jarrod Boyle in the original.
Having started karate as an uncoordinated youth with no desire to fight, Shihan Tony Bowden’s position today as a 6th Dan instructor and one of three branch chiefs in the Australian Kyokushin Karate Association (AKKA) is a surprise to no one more than him. Having long ago moved on from taking scalps on the tatami to schooling his students in his winning ways, the old karate warrior and multiple-time full-contact champion recently gave Blitz an insight into his journey of more than 40 years in ‘the hardest karate’.
Kyokushin karate, known as the ‘strongest karate’, is one of the more recent incarnations of ‘traditional’ karate. It’s also one of the most controversial. Founded by Masutatsu ‘Mas’ Oyama in the mid-20th century, it does away with some of the trappings of traditional karate in order to produce a more practical, streamlined art better suited to real-world application.
Oyama is still spoken of in hallowed tones by many Kyokushin alumni such as kickboxing champions Peter Graham and Sam Greco, because the basis of the style, no matter what was added or taken away, is all about the practice of discipline and respect.
Shihan Tony Bowden is one of Kyokushin karate’s leading lights. He has built his reputation as a karateka on a history of excellence in full-contact fighting. That said, he entered his first Kyokushin karate school ignorant of fighting, and with no particular desire to fight.
“When I started training, I hadn’t even thought about the fighting,” says Bowden. “I didn’t even know what Kyokushin karate was. I think it’s the same with a lot of students; they hear that there’s a karate school down the road, so they think ‘Let’s give it a go!’ I was just fortunate that I walked into a Kyokushin dojo.”
Surprisingly, Bowden did not define himself as an instant success by way of his natural athleticism. In fact, the reality was somewhat far from that.
“Some years later at a party,” he says, “I was talking with one of my original instructors and he said, ‘When you started, you were so uncoordinated I didn’t reckon you would last six weeks!’ This statement has been a great instructional tool to me. Now, I would never write any student off because, if they have the will to learn, one day they will succeed. To use a saying of Hanshi [John]Taylor: ‘A Black-belt is a White-belt who never gave up.’
Needless to say, the one thing that wasn’t in Bowden’s genetic makeup was quitting. Gary Viccars, long-time friend and Kyokushin associate, himself a 7th Dan, says that Bowden is defined by his ‘never-give-up’ attitude. “He gives you that little smile after you’ve hit him, as if to say, ‘Is that the best you’ve got?’
“I met him when he started doing Kyokushin, about 40 years ago,” Viccars remembers. “This was when he was living in Geelong [Viccars teaches Kyokushin at the Geelong dojo]. At that time, we both did a class at the Corio dojo, but we also used to do security together at the local hotel. He had a friendly side…but you didn’t want to mess with him!”
In those days — a decade before The Karate Kid brought the phrase ‘Sweep the leg!’ into the modern lexicon — Bowden was renowned for his ability to take out opponents’ legs. “We used to train in an organisation called FAKO, which was the forerunner of the AKF,” says Viccars. “Tony used to terrorise people there with it [the leg-sweep]. Once you went anywhere near him, you’d end up on your back.”
Kyokushin practitioners use the word osu to signify respect and obedience to instruction. It is a shortening of the phrase, osu no seishin, which means ‘to persevere under pressure’. Perseverance is one of the principal virtues of the martial artist, and one that Bowden holds particularly dear. By applying himself, the young Bowden began to develop in concord with the principles of Kyokushin. “It was like a drug for me,” he says, “I couldn’t get enough — much to the displeasure of my wife.”
While fighting is considered the ultimate test of Kyokushin karateka, it is not held above the practice of the art itself.
“Fighting in Kyokushin karate is the total sum of all your training, [but] it takes all the other parts of training to make a good fighter. If you perfect your technique through basic training and then place it together with movement in kihon, this sets you up to be the best fighter you can be. Then, good coaches and instructors mould you into a great fighter. One of the things that I like about Kyokushin is that even though fighting is a big part of the training, it is still a style that allows for those who don’t want to fight competitively. Anyone is still able to train hard and fight at the dojo level.”
Bowden places his fighting within the context of his practice of karate and, like the best karateka, downplays the stature of his achievements. Bowden’s success — and dominance — of full-contact karate during his career as a fighter can only be described as outstanding.
A proper summary of his career and achievements is beyond the scope of this article, so it’s best to describe them in general terms; he was awarded Australian heavyweight champion five times and also succeeded in securing three grand champion victories. Bowden achieved this over a 10-year period and the record stands to this day. The only person to come close is Sam Greco, who equalled it before going on to become a K-1 star.
“I’ve always looked forward to someone breaking this record…it has stood since 1984, and I’m still waiting,” says Bowden.
For him to have achieved such a feat in those days, long before the term ‘sports science’ was ever uttered in a dojo, makes one question how today’s fighters would have fared against him — even without having to punch through wooden boards between rounds, as was the Kyokushinkai way.
“I am often asked what my training schedule was in the days that I was competing,” he says. “We didn’t have the expertise that is available today. When I was first training and returned to Queensland (I had a short stay in Victoria for three years), I was the head instructor, so I would go to other dojos for some extra fight training.
“In preparation for the world tournament, I was fortunate to have close friend and top instructor Sensei Les Pickisgill from Victoria come up to stay and help me prepare. Les made me get up in the mornings and forced me to run, which I hated. I often say to people that I had to learn how to fight, as I could not run! After the run, he would take me through a workout on the heavy bag, and that was followed by stamina training.”
“What many people aren’t aware of,” says Viccars, “is that Bowden won the heavyweight championship four years back-to-back. Then, he took a year off. The standard of competition wasn’t what it had been, so he came back to prove the point and won it again! In those days, there was a teams tournament as well. Instead of just having four or five fights in a day, you had to have as many as eight, nine or 10 fights because you had to do both events. People had to be tough to go the distance.”
Bowden’s career as a fighter produced many highlights. As with many of the most successful or seasoned, they recall the unusual fights and opponents rather than simply recounting their own performances.
“I was often criticised because I liked a drop of amber fluid. After defeating Sensei Peter Wolfe in the finals for the position of grand champion, which was a fight-off with the middleweight champion and the heavyweight champion, he found out that I had been out on the town the night before. He came to me and said that he was upset as he had been training hard for three months and in that time he had sacrificed his only pleasure — smoking his pipe!”
The toughest opponent Bowden faced was at the World Tournament in Japan.
“When we were lined up ready to march on, I remember saying to myself, ‘This guy is only small; he shouldn’t be too bad.’ How wrong I was! Sensei Kawabata was one of the toughest customers I had fought in a long time. At the end of the first round, it was a draw, so it went to boards and we had broken the same amount — in those days you had to break a minimum of three 25 mm boards before each round — so we fought again, and again fought to a draw. At the end of this round it was decided by weight; he was only about 60 kilograms and I was over 100. I didn’t even worry about the scales; I just raised his hand as the winner. I had hit him with everything that I could and still could not put him down. Then, following the bout, he ran off the stage and vomited!
“That fight was said to be one of the best fights of that World Tournament. On my last visit to Japan for last year’s World Tournament, someone came up to me and asked if I would sign a book that was put out at the time of the tournament when I fought Kawabata.”
Despite the loss, Bowden learned a valuable lesson from that match. “Sometimes in losing, you can win more than if you had won,” he muses. “By this I mean that even though I lost the fight, because it was so tough and that sportsmanship shown, it made it a great bout. It proved what Sosai always said: a good small man is just as good as a good big man. That’s why the World Tournament is an open-weight tournament.
“One other fighter who I always remember is Wayne Smith, also from Geelong. I had known Wayne previously but had never fought him before. I think at the time he was a bit heavier than I was, so there were two fighters over 100 kilos on the mat! After a gruelling first round, which came to a draw, we were both on the side, looking at each other and telling our coaches that neither of us wanted to go back in! As we are Kyokushin fighters, though, we went to blows again. During that match, we both fell down. We went crashing through the mat and broke the supporting floor! After some quick repairs, we were back into it again. Fortunately, luck was with me and I was declared the winner.”
In true Kyokushin spirit, the pair have since become great friends.
Technique and power are necessary things, but many believe the old-fashioned full-contact karate tournaments depended primarily on toughness. Viccars relates the story of Bowden’s appearance at his own tournament:
“I was running a school in Ocean Grove in those days, so we had our own knockdown tournament and Bowden came down for it. During one of his fights, he dislocated one of his fingers. We taped it together with some electrical tape and he just kept going.”
Bowden’s success as a fighter created opportunities within the Kyokushin organisation, and he became personally acquainted with Mas Oyama himself.
“I first met Sosai when he came to Australia in 1977 for the first AKKA National Full Contact Tournament, which was held in the Sydney Town Hall. I was disappointed that year; I missed out being presented with my trophy for second place by Sosai because of a compound fracture of my finger. After the tournament doctor re-set my finger, I was sent to the hospital to have it stitched.”
Two years later, Bowden became acquainted with the man nicknamed ‘Godhand’ after participating in the second World Tournament.
“In 1979, I placed equal 16th. Following the tournament, three of us stayed on and trained at the honbu dojo for a further six weeks. During this time, we trained with Sosai every Friday night. He held what he called ‘big man’s class’ for fighters over 100 kilograms. During one class, Sosai sat on a chair. He called me forward and asked me to place a finger on his forehead (this is supposed to prevent the person from standing). I did as I was told — as you would if Sosai asked you. To my amazement, when he stood up, my finger ran down his face and left a scratch. I remember saying to myself, ‘I am a dead White-belt — I have just scratched God,’ but Sosai laughed it off.”
Bowden’s distinctions also led him to that most sombre of experiences, attending Oyama’s funeral.
“One of my saddest trips to Japan was for Sosai’s funeral, which was just as big as he was. I was fortunate to be one of the 450 who were permitted into the ceremony. It was a Shinto funeral and as part of it we all purchased a flower as a sign of respect. The back wall was completely covered with flowers. Following the service, others were permitted to file through. Later, I was told that 75,000 people eventually passed through. When I went out into the street, there were people lining the streets for miles down the road.”
Bowden, too, inspires great devotion in his own students. “They just love him,” says Shihancho Viccars. “Every time I have a knockdown camp for my students, I bring him down for it. He has that way of being serious one minute and joking the next, as Queenslanders do.”
Bowden also holds the belief that fighting fits within the syllabus of karate rather than the other way around. This is in accordance with Mas Oyama’s belief that fighting is an expression of the art, not the art itself.
“I must say that I favour traditional karate, as is found in Kyokushin karate [over fight training]. It offers training to anyone from the ages of six to 60. Once you’re no longer able to fight, there isn’t a great deal left for you to do. Traditional karate has a foundation in history with successors that carry forward the original teachings of Sosai Mas Oyama. There is also a life after competition as a teacher and a coach. I know that these positions are available to UFC fighters as well, but there aren’t many that make the transition. I also think that their technique is not perfected through basics. Most [fighters] that move into UFC or cage fighting have come from some form of structured martial arts in the first place.”
Traditional karate differs from fight training in a number of significant ways; one of which is breaking or tameshiwari. Bowden defends its inclusion in the syllabus because “it develops mental strength. I am often asked about the spiritual side of karate and I explain that it is through tameshiwari, because when you set yourself to break boards, tiles, blocks of ice or baseball bats, you need to dig deep inside yourself to complete the break. It involves a combination of both good technique and physical and mental strength. If you take one of these ingredients out of the equation, then you will fail.”
Almost 20 years ago, Bowden took on one of the greatest challenges a disciple of Kyokushin can face: the 50-man kumite.
“In 1996, along with Shihancho Viccars, Shihan Jim Phillips and the late Sensei Luke Grugurevic, I attempted the 50-man kumite here in Australia. It was held at the AKKA National Camp at Narrabeen, Sydney. At that time, the national camp was held over seven days. It was staged on the last day and we were given the morning off to prepare.
“The four of us lined up and our opponents lined up as well, and were divided into teams of four. They would fight each one of us and, at the end, a new batch of fighters would come on. At the start you count the rounds, but after a while you just go blank. Then, you hear the count is 40 and you say to yourself, ‘I only have 10 fights to go.’ At this stage, you summon all your internal fortitude and mental strength to fight through the pain. Then you’re down to the 50th and you give it all. You’ve got to finish on a strong note or, at least, that’s what you think — by that time, you’re out there fighting for your survival. The mental stamina required to complete an event of this nature is bred into all students; no matter how hard it is, you never give up.”
The greatest obstacle to a style of martial arts as relatively new — and revolutionary — as Kyokushin is the death of its founder. Mas Oyama was a powerful, charismatic man who led by example, and the continuance of the style will be a measure of its potency. Established karateka like Bowden are vital to this cause.
“Since the big split when Sosai passed away, I have chosen to stay with the AKKA under Hanshi John Taylor. He has led Kyokushin karate since the early ’70s and, under his leadership, the AKKA has gone from strength to strength. Our tournaments are the biggest in Australia.
“The AKKA continues to lead with the introduction of a national squad for developing both our present and up-and-coming fighters. We have approached the formation of the squad with a very professional attitude, appointing a team manager, coach and state coach, all working together to produce the top fighters of the future.
“On the subject of tournaments, I would like to see all factions come together for a national tournament, but I doubt this will ever happen given that there are so many egos in the way.”
Bowden continues to walk the path of budo. While he has retired from fighting, he remains visible and active in the AKKA, continuing to lead by example.
“I have moved from student to fighter to instructor and now, to the position of branch chief. I find this a very challenging position; as branch chief, you represent all the instructors under you in dealings on both a national and international level. It’s very demanding given that I have a day job as well.”
Shihan Bowden is nothing if not a man of great energy. And this energy, which he has put into fighting, tameshiwari and training as a student, instructor and finally a branch chief, is squarely focused on advancing Kyokushin along the path set out by his mentor, Mas Oyama.
“Kyokushin karate is a growing identity that develops with the improvement of technique and training methods,” says Bowden. “One thing does not change, however, and that is basic techniques and training procedures as they were taught by Sosai Mas Oyama. There are only a few of us left who trained directly with Sosai; it is our job to carry on that legacy.”
More restored features are listed in The Blitz Archive.