糸東流 shitōryū Shito-Ryu

糸東流 is a name, and its three characters work differently from a word's. 流 is a flow or a current, and in the arts it means a school, a line of teaching handed down. 糸 means thread and 東 means east, but here they are not read as words: the name is made from initials, read shi and tō. What it records is a lineage, the Shuri line and the Naha line of karate joined in one school. Whether it is for your own Shito-Ryu training or for someone who trains in the style is yours.

The name joins the first characters of the surnames of Mabuni Kenwa's two Okinawan teachers, Itosu Ankō 糸洲安恒 and Higaonna Kanryō 東恩納寛量, to 流, a school; Mabuni still styled himself a teacher of 剛柔流 in his book of October 1934, and the earliest dated print reported to give 糸東流 as his school is the Dai Nippon Butokukai's register of ranks of April 1941.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 糸東流.

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