Cursive · sōsho 草書 · VC6B
Cursive or sōsho (草書) styles are the most simplified styles and Master Takase's favorite. While very beautiful, these styles are often difficult to read even by specialists.
剛柔流空手道
gōjūryū karatedō
Goju-ryu Karate-do
Goju-ryu karate-do, the hard and soft school: the karate of Miyagi Chōjun's line.
by Master Eri Takase
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Eri Takase received the rank of Shihan, master, from two calligraphy societies, the Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodō, and won best-of-category awards in all-Japan national competitions. She has created calligraphy for people around the world for more than thirty years, and with your order she will be creating calligraphy for you.
In a ritual as old as calligraphy itself, Master Takase prepares the ink, meditatively rubbing the ink stick against the stone until it reaches the perfect consistency for the paper. Then, properly loading the brush with ink, she brushes your scroll. And only when the scroll is just right and meets her approval, she signs it and affixes her seal, completing your original scroll.
12 1/4" × 43" (31 × 109 cm) Japanese Scrolls
The scrolls have woven damask borders and special layered Japanese paper (washi), designed to last generations by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, with whom we have worked for over two decades.
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Your scroll arrives boxed, with a printed insert describing the words in detail.
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Ships in 1-3 days from Washington State
Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days.
Your scroll ships from Master Takase's studio in Washington State. Shipping is calculated at checkout. We ship worldwide.
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Every order is covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. If your scroll arrives damaged, or we made an error, we replace it or refund you in full, including shipping.
Explanation
剛柔流空手道 (gōjūryū karatedō).
Gōjū-ryū is a style of karate, the Naha line of Miyagi Chōjun, senior pupil of Higaonna Kanryō, and a Japanese encyclopedia names Miyagi its founder. 剛 (read gō) is hard and unyielding, 柔 (read jū) soft and yielding, 流 (read ryū) a school or lineage of an art, and 空手道 karatedō the way of the empty hand. A story is told of the name: a senior pupil of Miyagi's was asked at a demonstration what his school was called and, as the Japanese Wikipedia tells it, could not answer, and Miyagi then took the name from a line of the Bubishi, the boxing manual Okinawan karate hands down: the method is hard and soft, swallowing and spitting. The tellings date that day anywhere from 1929 to 1937. The Japanese Wikipedia and Higaonna date the first paper to carry the name to 1931; a study of 2016, and the Wikipedia's own list of his papers, give 1932; and the name is in print by 1934.
An Okinawan history of 1941 names Miyagi of the Gōjū-ryū as the authority in the prefecture.
Learn More About These Words
We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 剛柔流空手道.
