All Kyokushin Tameshiwari Records: From the First One To the Current

Official tameshiwari in Kyokushin means breaking boards at tournaments.



There are four techniques in tameshiwari: Seiken (fore-fist), Sokuto (knife-foot), Enpi (elbow) and Shuto (knife-foot). The standard board is 33 centimeters long, 21 centimeters wide, 24 millimeters thick and is made of soft wood (usually pine wood).

The first tameshiwari record in Kyokushin was set on September 20, 1969 at The 1st All Japan Open Karate Tournament. The winner was Terutomo Yamazaki who broke 16 boards.
 
Up to date the top tameshiwari achievement is 34 boards broken. This record was set by Ilya Karpenko on July 27, 2015 at The All American Open Karate Championships in New York.

Below there is a list of all tameshiwari record breakers and their achievements:

Terutomo Yamazaki

• Terutomo Yamazaki - 16 boards (3 | 4 | 5 | 4), September 20, 1969, Tokyo, Japan
  The 1st All Japan Open Karate Tournament (1st place winner at the tournament)
  
  
• Terutomo Yamazaki - 21 boards, October 22, 1972, Tokyo, Japan
  The 4th All Japan Open Karate Tournament (4th place at the tournament)
  
  
• Terutomo Yamazaki - 24 boards (4 | 7 | 6 | 7), November 4, 1973, Tokyo, Japan
  The 5th All Japan Open Karate Tournament (2nd place at the tournament)

The first three records were set by Terutomo Yamazaki. He was Kyokushin tameshiwari record-holder for a whole decade who managed to improve on his own achievement twice.

Willie Williams

• Willie Williams - 26 boards (5 | 6 | 8 | 7), November 25, 1979, Tokyo, Japan
  The 2nd World Open Karate Tournament (3rd place at the tournament)

The record stood unbroken for four years.

Akira Masuda

•  Akira Masuda - 29 boards (6 | 8 | 7 | 8), January 22, 1984, Tokyo, Japan
  The 3rd World Open Karate Tournament (top 16 fighters)

Other fighters were able to replicate Masuda's achievement but it was only 8 years later when more boards were broken.

Kiyofumi Abe

• Kiyofumi Abe - 31 boards (6 | 9 | 8 | 8), November 1, 1992, Tokyo, Japan
  The 24th All Japan Open Karate Tournament (he didn't win any place)

This can be considered to be the top achievement at the tournaments held in Japan. No one was able to beat this record at Japanese tournaments. And even at the global scale Kiyofumi Abe's tameshiwari points remained the highest for almost 15 years.

Slawomir Was

• Slawomir Was - 33 boards, June 23, 2007, New York, USA
  All American Open Karate Championships 2007 (5th place at the tournament)

Ilya Karpenko

• Ilya Karpenko - 34 boards (6 | 10 | 11 | 7), June 27, 2015, New York, USA
  All American Open Karate Championships 2015 (2nd place at the tournament)

It will be very difficult to break records with broken «American boards» at tournaments in Japan.

In the article Tameshiwari Records of the Absolute World Championships, we calculated (combining the best attempts of all championships), the potential Tameshiwari record for tournaments in Japan is 35 boards (7 | 10 | 9 | 9).

So the main tameshiwari record is still ahead!