Where have you seen this before?

[sensei8]

Regarding the “Mountain” kanji, I’m sure a Japanese speaker would greatly help. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the Japanese language, it’s that quite a few words don’t translate exactly and a lot of it is context driven rather than definition driven.

I was going to say that character is mountain too. I’ve seen it plenty of times, mainly in Oyama (Mas Oyama, Shigeru Oyama, and Yasuhiko Oyama). Their last name/family name translates as mountain or big mountain. The kanji is one character followed by the one listed above. For reference, it’s written on the gis in this pic:

http://www.oyamakarate-sf.com/about-us.html

Mas Oyama’s name is written the same way. Trivial information: Mas Oyama took Shigeru Oyama’s father’s last name as his when choosing a Japanese name in honor of him. Shigeru Oyama’s father sponsored Mas Oyama’s Japanese move and allowed Mas to stay with his family when he went to Japan. Mas taught Shigeru and his brother Yasuhiko karate as partial payment.

Ironic trivia: Mas Oyama wanted Shigeru Oyama to change his name when he sent him to the US so people wouldn’t assume they were related or confuse Shigeru Oyama as the founder of Kyokushin. Odd how he took his family name in honor of his father, yet wanted Shigeru to change his name.

Solid post, JR!!