国際和道流 kokusai wadōryū International Wadoryu
国際和道流 (kokusai wadōryū), International Wadō-ryū, puts international before the karate school of Ōtsuka Hironori 大塚博紀, and the international federation of that school puts Wadō first in its own Japanese name.
Abstract
国際和道流 is international and 和道流, the karate school of Ōtsuka Hironori 大塚博紀. No Japanese organization is known to write its name so. The nearest body is the Wado International Karate-Do Federation, founded by Ōtsuka's pupil Suzuki Tatsuo 鈴木辰夫 in 1990 or 1991, whose Japanese name in its own romanization, Wado Kokusai Karate-Do Renmei, puts Wadō before Kokusai; 国際和道流 keeps the English order.
Overview
The sense. A name: the Wadō-ryū school of karate, called international.
The words. 国際 kokusai, international. 和道 wadō, the way of harmony: 和 harmony, peace, 道 a way. 流 ryū is a current, and in the arts a school, a line of teaching handed down. 和道流 is Ōtsuka's name for his school [1].
The text in English. International Wadō-ryū renders the characters word for word, in their order. The federation's own English name is Wado International Karate-Do Federation [2].
The historical record
1938 and 1939, 和道流. Ōtsuka, a master of jūjutsu who had learned karate from Funakoshi Gichin 船越義珍, Motobu Chōki 本部朝基 and Mabuni Kenwa 摩文仁賢和 [1], named his school 神州和道流空手術 when he received a teaching rank from the 大日本武徳会 in 1938, and shortened the name to 和道流 the next year [3]. The federation that carries his line says the style was founded in 1934 and that the name was first used when he joined the 日本古武道振興会, which it dates to 1929 [4]; the Japanese Wikipedia dates that society's founding to 1935 [5]. The dates differ by a decade, and this history holds them side by side.
1990 and 1991, the international federation. Suzuki (1928–2011), of Yokohama, a direct pupil of Ōtsuka [6], formed his own federation to safeguard the essence of Wado Ryu as he was taught by his teacher [7]. The federation's own page: The Wado International Karate-Do Federation or Wado Kokusai Karate-Do Remni was founded in 1990 by Professor Tatsuo Suzuki 8th Dan Hanshi [2]; the English Wikipedia gives 1991 [7]. Its romanized Japanese name puts Wado first and Kokusai after it.
Today. No Japanese organization is known to write 国際和道流. A rendering reads it International Wadō-ryū, keeps 流 as -ryū, and should not take it for any federation's own Japanese name.
A reading
国際和道流 is clear Japanese and says what it means: the Wadō school, international. It is not the name of a Japanese body. It follows an English name, Wado International, and follows it in the English order, international before the school, where the federation's own Japanese, as it romanizes it, puts the school first. I read it as a translation into characters of an English name, made for someone who belongs to an international line of Wadō-ryū, and it carries the school's own name, 和道流, unaltered.
References
- 「和道流」, the Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/和道流
- Wado International Karate-Do Federation, "About the WIKF". https://www.wikf.com/about_wikf.php
- 「大塚博紀」, the Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/大塚博紀
- 和道流空手道連盟, 「和道流の歴史」. https://www.wado-ryu.jp/histor/
- 「日本古武道振興会」, the Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/日本古武道振興会
- 「鈴木辰夫」, the Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/鈴木辰夫
- "Tatsuo Suzuki (martial artist)", the English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsuo_Suzuki_(martial_artist)