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糸東流 shitōryū Shito-Ryu

糸東流 (shitōryū) names Mabuni Kenwa's karate after the first characters of his two teachers' surnames. In October 1934 his own book still called him a master of another school. That year his publisher's journal reported the new name, and a friend later wrote that he had first called his school 半硬流.

Japanese Scroll of Shito-Ryu (shitōryū) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Shito-Ryu糸東流shitōryū

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Abstract

糸東流 is a name made of two other names: the first characters of the surnames of Mabuni Kenwa 摩文仁賢和's (1889–1952) two Okinawan teachers, Itosu Ankō 糸洲安恒 of the Shuri tradition and Higaonna Kanryō 東恩納寛量 of the Naha tradition, read shi and tō, and 流, a school. The dates given for the naming run from 1931 to 1939: Mabuni's own book of October 1934 styles him a master of 剛柔流 and speaks of my school without naming it, while the oldest item in which the full-text search of the National Diet Library's Digital Collections finds 糸東流, his publisher's journal of 1934, reports it settled that he takes the name, and a history of karate of 1982 holds, on manuscripts found lately, that he still called his school 摩文仁流 in 1938 and 糸東流 only after the registration of 1939. By 1940 he and his co-author print 剛柔流 and 糸東流 as the only two schools whose masters named them, the Butokukai's register of April 1941 lists him under 糸東流, and in 1943 Funakoshi Gichin counts the two among the school names he had known from of old. An older name, 半硬流, half-hard school, is given to Mabuni in Japanese from 1952 by his friend Konishi Yasuhiro, and in English, among the books read here, from 1979; the earliest English telling of it read here, of 1976, gives it instead to the naming of Miyagi Chōjun's 剛柔流, as a Japanese compilation does in 1970.

Overview

The sense. A proper name, the name of a style of karate. The Japanese dictionaries on kotobank have no entry for it; it is mentioned in the 世界大百科事典's article on karate, which divides the art's forms into a quick, light kind and a plain, heavy kind and says 前者は松濤館流，糸東流，和道流(首里手系)に属し，後者は剛柔流(那覇手系)に多く見られる, the former belong to Shōtōkan-ryū, Shitō-ryū and Wadō-ryū (of the Shuri line), the latter are found mostly in Gōjū-ryū (of the Naha line) [1]. The Japanese Wikipedia counts it among the four great styles of karate, with 松濤館流, 剛柔流 and 和道流, and as a style of both the Shuri and the Naha lines [2].

The words. 糸 is thread, 東 is east, and 流 is a flow, a current, and in the arts a school, a line of teaching handed down. Read as words, the three characters say nothing: the name is made of initials. 糸 is the first character of 糸洲, Itosu, and 東 the first of 東恩納, Higaonna, the surnames of Mabuni's two teachers; a chronology of 2004 co-written by Mabuni Kenzō 摩文仁賢三, Kenwa's third son in the Japanese Wikipedia [2], says it was 糸洲、東恩納の二人の頭名字から命名, named from the initial characters of the surnames of the two men, Itosu and Higaonna [3], and every account agrees [4][5]. Neither teacher's name is read the way the style name reads it: 糸 is ito in Itosu and 東 is higa in Higaonna, and in the style name the two characters take their Sino-Japanese readings, し and とう, shitō [5]. Itosu was a master of the Shuri line and Higaonna (1853–1915) of the Naha line [4][6], and Mabuni studied with both [4][7]. The name records that the style joins the two.

The text in English. The style came into English as a sound, Shito-ryu, in the 1960s, and the first English book to carry it named its two teachers [8]. The modified Hepburn of the name is shitōryū.

The historical record

About 1902 and 1908, the two teachers. Mabuni, born in Shuri in 1889, entered Itosu's teaching at thirteen and Higaonna's at nineteen, by the biography of the martial-arts magazine 月刊秘伝 [4]; Andreas Quast, in McCarthy's Bubishi of 2016, has Itosu from 1903 and Higaonna from 1908, on the introduction of his friend Miyagi Chōjun 宮城長順 [7]. He served in the police, and in 1925 was among the founders, with Miyagi and others, of the 沖縄唐手研究倶楽部, an Okinawan karate research club [4].

May 1926, two posts in Okinawa. The national directory of middle-school staff, 『中等教育諸学校職員録』, as of May 1926, lists 唐手、摩文仁賢和, karate, Mabuni Kenwa, on the staff of the prefectural normal school at Shuri, and 實習助手、武、實　摩文仁賢和, practical assistant, martial arts and practice, on the staff of the prefectural fisheries school in Naha [9]. The Japanese Wikipedia gives the fisheries school post from 1924 [10]. In 1926 he was teaching in Okinawa.

1928 to 1930, to the mainland. The tellings differ by a year or two. John Stevens: He joined Funakoshi in Tokyo in 1928, but the next year he moved to Osaka [11]. The 月刊秘伝 biography and Masutatsu Oyama give 1929, Oyama with the Osaka and Kyoto areas [4][12]. Donn Draeger and Robert Smith give 1930, and Nakayama Masatoshi has clubs formed at Ritsumeikan and Kansai universities in 1930 with the arrival of Mabuni and Miyagi [13][14]. Mark Bishop, from a leaflet given him by the pupil Uechi Kan'ei, has Uechi in Osaka from 1924, ill by 1926, and then enrolling at Mabuni's dōjō near his lodgings, the Yoshukan, with no year for the enrolment [5]; the staff directory of May 1926 has Mabuni in Okinawa [9].

1931, 摩文仁流 (reported). The Japanese Wikipedia says that in 1931 he called his school 摩文仁流, the Mabuni school [10]. The sentence carries no reference, and the biography the article cites on every sentence around it has no 1931 and no 摩文仁流 [4]. The English Wikipedia gives 1931 as the year the style was founded, on a website that no longer answers [15]. The oldest item in which the Digital Collections' full-text search finds 摩文仁流 is his own book of October 1934, below [16]; a note on its authors in a reprint of 1991 of 『空手道大観』 has him calling himself 摩文仁流 from about 1933 and taking the name 糸東流 in 1934 [17].

October 1934, his own book. Mabuni published three books in 1934 [10]. The third, 『攻防自在 空手拳法 十八の研究』, a study of the form Seipai, "eighteen", dated in its colophon 昭和九年十月二十五日, the twenty-fifth of October, survives in a facsimile [18]. Its advertisements style him 日本拳法 空手術教授 剛柔流 拳法師範, professor of karate-jutsu, master of the Gōjū-ryū fist method, and 剛柔流空手拳法大家, authority on Gōjū-ryū karate; they name him instructor at Kansai University and other schools and president of the 大日本拳法關西空手術研究會, the Kansai karate research society; and they give two dōjō in Osaka, one in 西成區鶴見橋 and the 尚進館 in 港區 [18]. The Japanese Wikipedia notes the same style in the advertisements of the two earlier books of that year [10]. The book's list of its series describes its first, second and fourth volumes as 剛柔流, and announces the third as 摩文仁流空手拳法 女子護身術, Mabuni-ryū karate: self-defense for women, for two forms of his own composition, 青柳 and 明星 [18]. The first chapter opens 我が流派に於ては必ず、基本型や開手型を行ふ前に豫備運動を行ふ, in my school we always do preparatory exercises before the basic forms and the open-hand forms: a school, and no name for it [18]. In the pages read, the cover, the preface, the contents, the first chapter and the back matter, the book prints 糸東流 nowhere.

1934, his publisher's journal. The first number of 『空手研究』, Karate Research, from his publisher, 空手研究社, is dated 1934 in the National Diet Library's record and December 1934 in another library's record that the library's catalogue search carries [19][20]. The library serves it only to readers in Japan; its full-text search shows the text of one page of it in snippets, with the reading glosses printed beside the characters run into the line [19]. On that page Mabuni stands with Miyagi Chōjun, then abroad, as the two great masters of 剛柔流 karate; he trains his pupils first in the orthodox school of Itosu and, past a certain level, in Higaonna's school alongside it; and, considering his present position, and in memory of the great kindness of his two teachers, it has been settled that he takes the name 糸東流 from the 頭字, first characters, of the two great masters, one from each [19]. In the search's text that sentence's subject is cut to …仁師範, master …-ni; the lines on either side name 摩文仁師範, Master Mabuni [19]. The next sentence announces that the publisher has asked him to set down the orthodox Itosu school as a course of lessons for self-study [19]. Read oldest first, this journal is the first of the 581 items in which the search finds 糸東流 [21].

1934 to 1939, the dates for the name. The Japanese Wikipedia and the 月刊秘伝 biography say that in 1934 he opened a dōjō in Osaka named 養秀館, Yōshūkan, and took the name 糸東流 [2][4]. The chronology of 2004 puts the 養秀館 in 1934, at 大阪市都島区高倉町, and enters the name twice: under 1935, among the four great styles, 「糸東流」…糸洲、東恩納の二人の頭名字から命名, and under 1939, 糸東流空手道と命名（摩文仁賢和）… 大日本武徳会本部へ「糸東流」登録, named Shitō-ryū karate-dō (Mabuni Kenwa) … registered 糸東流 at the headquarters of the Dai Nippon Butokukai [3]. Bishop writes according to some sources, this was in about 1937 [5]. The Japanese and English Wikipedias both give 1939 for the registration with the Butokukai, the national body that granted ranks in the martial arts [2][15]. None of these cites a document of the year it gives for the name; the journal above is one, for 1934, and for the registration of 1939 the Japanese Wikipedia cites the transcription of the register of 1941 below [2]. Fujiwara Ryōzō 藤原稜三, in the karate sections he wrote for the 『日本武道大系』 of 1982, puts the name later: manuscripts found lately, he writes, show that when Mabuni drafted his 攻防拳法空手道 in 1938 he called his school not 糸東流 but 摩文仁流, so that he called it 糸東流 only after the notice of his school's name that he filed with the Butokukai in 1939 [22]. In a dialogue printed in 1986 Fujiwara recalled finding, in the spring of 1949 at the house of Konishi Yasuhiro 小西康裕, a note said to be in Mabuni's hand reading 摩文仁流, and Konishi answering yes when he asked whether it was the earlier name of 糸東流 [23]. The two dōjō the October 1934 book names are neither of them 養秀館 [18].

1937, the Butokukai register. The Butokukai's printed register of ranks for 1937 lists, under karate, a single 錬士, renshi, a teaching title: 稲垣虎吉, ranked in May 1936 [24]. His entry gives the date of rank, the year of birth and an address, and no school, and on that page no living holder of any art is given one; the facing page, of holders who had died, gives each a school [24]. Mabuni is not among its karate 錬士.

1940, the manual. A manual by Mabuni and Nakasone Genwa 仲宗根源和, 『攻防拳法 空手道入門』, in a seventh printing of March 1940 that the library serves only to readers in Japan, has a section on the two schools, 剛柔流 and 糸東流. Its snippets say that most school names were given by others, and that 剛柔流, Miyagi's, and 糸東流, Mabuni's, were the only two whose masters took their names themselves [25].

April 1941, 糸東流 in the register. The register's edition of April 1941, 『大日本武徳會範士教士錬士名鑑』, is not in any open library; a collector's blog of 2016 transcribes its karate pages, and lists among the 錬士 富名腰義珍（松濤館流）, 大塚博紀（和道流）, 比嘉世幸（剛柔流） and 摩文仁賢和（糸東流） [26]. This blog is the one reference the Japanese Wikipedia gives for Mabuni's rank and for the registration of 1939 [2][10]. It carries a book of 1941, and it transcribes no dates of rank. It is a register kept by the Butokukai, not a book of his.

December 1943, Funakoshi. Funakoshi Gichin's 『空手入門』, published in December 1943, speaks against the multiplication of styles, recalling a demonstration at the Butokuden in Kyoto some years ago where he did not recognize what he saw as karate, and then names two exceptions. In the Portuguese translation of the English of 1988: Pelo que é do meu conhecimento, os únicos estilos que nos chegaram do passado são o Goju-ryu do Mestre Miyagi e o Shito-ryu do Mestre Mabuni. Nunca dei um nome ao karatê que estudo, as far as I know, the only styles that have come down to us from the past are the Gōjū-ryū of Master Miyagi and the Shitō-ryū of Master Mabuni. I have never given a name to the karate I study [27]. A book of 1962 by Wakamatsu Reikichi 若松礼吉 quotes the passage in Japanese, dating it by the book's December 1943, and in the library's text of its page the two are the only school names Funakoshi had known from of old, 古くから, Miyagi's 剛柔流 and Mabuni's 糸東流; he had put no school name on the karate he studied, he goes on, though his pupils called it Shōtōkan-ryū of their own accord [28]. The English, which the Portuguese follows, makes the names he had long known into the only styles that have come down from the past. Within a decade of the book of 1934 that does not use the name, Funakoshi treats it as Mabuni's, and as a name of long standing.

1952 to 1977, 半硬流. The oldest item in which the Digital Collections' full-text search finds 半硬流, half-hard school, is a karate manual of 1952 by Konishi Yasuhiro (1893–1983), whose note on its author sets arts against men's names, and sets 半硬流, 剛柔流 and 糸東流 karate against the name of his ally and friend (盟友) Mabuni Kenwa [29][30]. In a book of 1956, writing of two masters, Miyagi Chōjun first, Konishi calls the other the late Mabuni Kenwa, who at first called himself 半硬流: Itosu's foremost pupil, who had also studied with Higaonna beside Miyagi and mastered 剛柔流 too, and who later took the first characters of his two masters' names and called his school 糸東流 [31]. A book of 1962 writes 糸東流 (at first 半硬流), and counts it with 剛柔流 as the first two clear school names in karate [28]; a book of 1977 from the association of the school Uechi-ryū, in the life of a man who trained at Mabuni's dōjō at Tsurumibashi in Osaka, says Mabuni first styled his school 半硬流 [32]. Each is read in the library's text of its pages, which the library serves only to readers in Japan. The name belongs to another story in Japanese too: a compilation of 1970 edited by Wataya Kiyoshi 綿谷雪 sets 半硬流 at a martial-arts tournament in Kyoto, before the formal name 剛柔流 [33], and a survey of Okinawan karate of 1996 tells that Shinzato Jin'an 新里仁安, asked his school's name at the tournament for the enthronement in 1929, answered 半硬流, and that Miyagi afterwards, on 法剛柔呑吐, one of the eight maxims of the fist in the Okinawan 武備志, … (the window breaks off before its verb) [34].

1952 and after. Mabuni died in Osaka in 1952 [4]. The name on a book's title page comes late: the earliest book in the National Diet Library's catalogue with 糸東流 in its title is Tani Chōjirō's 『型 谷派糸東流空手道』 of 1979 [35].

The name in English

1963, Edmund Parker and the encyclopedias. The first English book to carry the name reads its two characters as two people: Shito-ryu was developed by two people, Itosou and Kanruo Higaonna. From this style Goju-ryu …, and Shito-ryu and Goju-ryu are almost identical; Goju-ryu being a branch of Shito-ryu [8]. Parker has Mabuni and Funakoshi lifting karate's veil of secrecy together in 1916 [8]. The Encyclopedia International of the same year lists it among the principal Okinawan styles [36].

1967 to 1973, the style arrives. H. D. Plée has Mabuni settle in the Kyoto region where he created the Shitoryu style [37]. Black Belt magazine in October 1967 calls it the least known of major karate styles [38]. Draeger and Smith, in 1969: Funakoshi developed the Shotokan style and Mabuni the Shito style [13]. Fumio Demura, who came to the United States in 1965 to teach it, published Shito-Ryu Karate in 1971, the first English book under its name [39]. Oyama in 1973: Mabuni's school of karate is called the Shito school, while Miyagi's is called the Goju school, and on the next page, Kenwa Mabuni said that the notion of this and that school in karate came from outsiders. The names of karate schools did not come from the so-called schools themselves [12].

1995, Stevens and McCarthy. Stevens: in 1934 managed to open up a small dojo and thereafter publish a variety of pamphlets on his style of karate, the Shito Ryu. The name indicates a blending of the Higaonna and Itosu styles of karate [11]. Patrick McCarthy has Mabuni responsible for bringing together karate-jutsu's two main streams when he created his Shito-ryu tradition [40].

1976 to 1999, Hankō-ryū. The English name hanko-ryu, half-hard style, is first in print, among the English books this history has read, in Toguchi Seikichi's Okinawan Goju-Ryu of 1976, and it is not Mabuni's there. Toguchi, a pupil of Miyagi, tells how Miyagi sent his pupil Shinzato to a martial arts convention: Mr. Shinsato, though, had no ready reply when asked the name of his style … Having no choice at all, then, Mr. Shinsato groped for an impromptu name and dubbed his style, hanko-ryu (half-hard style). When Mr. Shinsato returned to Master Miyagi, he told him of the hastily chosen name. The master, finding it quite reasonable, quoted from the Chinese Eight Poems of the Fists … and so Naha-te formally took the name of Goju-Ryu [41]. The Japanese Wikipedia's telling of the same event has Shinzato at a demonstration in Tokyo in November 1930, unable to answer, and cites the demonstration's program, where the column for his school is blank; it gives no 半硬流 [42]. From 1979 the English books read here give Hanko-ryu to Mabuni, as Konishi had in Japanese: P. M. V. Morris, This he originally called Hanko-ryu … but later changed [43]; David Mitchell in 1984, a style which he first called Hanko Ryu, or 'Half Hard Way', which he sets beside Miyagi's 'Hard/Soft Way' [44]; and Bishop in 1989, on the word of Kanyei Uechi, a pupil of Mabuni whom Bishop distinguishes from the Uechi-ryū master of that name, who enrolled with Mabuni in Osaka after falling ill there by 1926: Mabuni had first called his style Hanko-ryu … Later, in remembrance of his two teachers, he took the Chinese character 'shi' ('ito' in Itosu) and the Chinese character 'to' ('higa' in Higaonna) and combined them to form 'shito', thus Shito-ryu; according to some sources, this was in about 1937 [5]. The English Wikipedia carries Hankō-ryū, or "half-hard style" as Mabuni's first name for the style [15].

Today. The name is written in English Shito-ryu, Shito-Ryu or Shitō-ryū. A rendering should keep it a name: thread-east school is what the characters say and not what the name means, and the school of Itosu and Higaonna is what it means.

A reading

The characters are the easy part, and every witness agrees on them: two teachers' initials, read in the sound a reader of Chinese characters would give them, and 流, a school. What the name records is a lineage, the Shuri line and the Naha line in one man, and that is the claim a student makes in wearing it.

The date is the hard part. In October 1934 Mabuni wrote my school and did not name it, advertised himself as a master of 剛柔流, and announced a book of his own forms as 摩文仁流 [18]; in the same year his publisher's journal, still counting him a master of 剛柔流 beside Miyagi, reported it settled that he would take the name 糸東流 [19]. 剛柔流 was the name of Miyagi's school, the Naha line that he and Mabuni had both learned from Higaonna [27][7], and in 1934 Mabuni taught under it; 摩文仁流 was the name for what he himself had composed; and 糸東流 was announced as the name for the two lines he taught, Itosu's first and Higaonna's after it. I read the name as taken in 1934. The papers Fujiwara cites, which by his account show Mabuni calling the school 摩文仁流 in 1938, I have not seen [22]. It would cut against the journal only if the journal's announcement was not acted on, and two later witnesses read more easily if the name was in use for some years before the registration of 1939: the manual of 1940, which counts it with 剛柔流 as a name its master took himself, and Funakoshi in 1943, who counts it among the names he had known from of old [25][28]. A man who in 1934 stood under 剛柔流, announced 摩文仁流 for his own forms and was reported taking 糸東流 carried more than one name at once, and I read the chronology his son helped write, which enters the naming under 1935 and again under 1939, as the record of a name in use before it was registered [3]. The registration I have not seen, only a transcription of the register of 1941.

The journal also says why he took it: his present position, and his debt to his two teachers [19]. It names the school in 1934, and the register of 1937 gives no school to any living holder on its page [24], so no register I have read was asking for one when he took it. The manual of 1940 says that most school names were given by others, and that 剛柔流 and 糸東流 were the only two whose masters took their names themselves [25]. Oyama reports Mabuni saying that the names of schools came from outsiders [12]: that is the manual's rule, and his own name is its exception. I read 糸東流 as a name Mabuni made from his teachers for reasons of his own, which the Butokukai's register later recorded.

半硬流 I give its characters, since the Japanese books do [31]. Its oldest witness in the library's search is Konishi's of 1952, a man who called Mabuni his ally and friend, and by 1956 Konishi says outright that Mabuni first called his school so [30][31]. That is earlier than any telling read here that gives the name to the Gōjū story, in Japanese from 1970 or in English from 1976 [33][41]. I read 半硬流 as a name Mabuni used before 糸東流, on Konishi's word. Whether Shinzato's improvised answer was the same name I cannot tell: the program the Japanese Wikipedia cites leaves his school blank [42], and the tellings that give him 半硬流 are later than Konishi's. Two men who shared a teacher and, in 1934, a school name could each have answered with it.

Notes

Sources not seen

『大日本武徳會範士教士錬士名鑑』, 長島孝有 編, 大日本武徳会本部雑誌部, April 1941 (National Diet Library Search, https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000136-I1970867909771177689). It is the register the blog transcribes. It would settle the date of Mabuni's rank, and whether its karate entries print 糸東流 in the new form 糸 or the old form 絲.

The page of 『空手研究』 第1輯 that names 糸東流, 空手研究社, 1934 (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1027727), served by the National Diet Library only to readers in Japan, and reprinted by 榕樹書林 in 2003 (National Diet Library Search, https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000136-I1971149384788151977). It would let the passage be read whole, at the page, with its heading, and settle the month.

摩文仁賢和・仲宗根源和『空手道入門 別名・空手独習の手引』, 空手研究社興武館, October 1935 (National Diet Library Search, https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000001-I47111104048372), and its enlarged edition 『空手道入門 別名・空手術教範』, 京文社書店, March 1938 (https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000136-I1971993809776267844), whose seventh printing of 1940 is cited here from the library's text; reprinted by 榕樹社 in 1996 (https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000002538988). They would show whether the section on 剛柔流 and 糸東流 was in print before 1940, and so test Fujiwara's 摩文仁流 of 1938. 仲宗根源和 編『空手道大観』, 東京図書, 1938, digitized by the National Diet Library (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1104139) and served only to readers in Japan, is the book of those years whose reprint of 1991 is cited here for its note on the authors.

The manuscripts Fujiwara cites for 1938, and the pages of the 『日本武道大系』 that cite them, which the National Diet Library serves only in its own reading rooms. They would show what the manuscripts are and what they say.

小西康裕『図解空手入門』, 1952, and 『空手上達法』, 1956, at the page (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2461495, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2480268), served only to readers in Japan. They would let Konishi's sentences on 半硬流 be read whole, with what stands around them.

船越義珍『空手入門』, 国防武道協会, December 1943 (CiNii Books, NCID BC11034068). The Japanese of the passage quoted here in Portuguese is known here only from its quotation in the book of 1962, in the library's text of its page; the book would settle Funakoshi's own wording and spelling.

『明治神宮鎮座十年祭 奉納武道形大會要覧』, 1930, the program the Japanese Wikipedia cites for Shinzato Jin'an's blank school. It would settle what the Gōjū story's convention recorded.

綿谷雪・山田忠史 編『増補大改訂 武芸流派大事典』, 東京コピイ出版部, 1978, the reference work the Japanese Wikipedia cites for the style's lineage. Its entry on the style may carry a date and its source.

Gabrielle and Roland Habersetzer, Encyclopédie des arts martiaux de l'Extrême-Orient, 2004, the English Wikipedia's source for the registration of 1939. It would show whether that date rests on a Japanese document.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「糸東流」, 世界大百科事典 (旧版), in the article 空手, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/糸東流-1332267
  2. 「糸東流」, the Japanese Wikipedia, § 歴史. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/糸東流
  3. 沢勲・摩文仁賢三・樋口豊治・長田眞男「空手道学の略史とITによる手技術と急所の相関モデル」, 大阪経済法科大学論集 88, 2004, pp. 83–121, the chronology at p. 91. https://keiho.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/1921
  4. 「摩文仁賢和 Mabuni Kenwa – 糸東流空手道」, WEB秘伝 (BAB Japan). https://webhiden.jp/master/mabuni_kenwa/
  5. Mark Bishop, Okinawan Karate: Teachers, Styles and Secret Techniques, second edition, A & C Black, London, 1999, pp. 105–107; the first edition was of 1989 (the edition page).
  6. 「東恩納寛量」, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/東恩納寛量-1103091
  7. Andreas Quast, essay on the manuscripts, § Mabuni Kenwa (A), in Patrick McCarthy, Bubishi: The Classic Manual of Combat, revised and expanded edition, Tuttle, Rutland, Vermont, 2016.
  8. Edmund K. Parker, Secrets of Chinese Karate, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1963, p. 55, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/secretsofchinese00park
  9. 『中等教育諸学校職員録』 大正15年 (5月現在), 中等教科書協会, 1926, the normal school's list and pp. 929–930, scans 535 and 537. National Diet Library pid 937376. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/937376/1/537
  10. 「摩文仁賢和」, the Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/摩文仁賢和
  11. John Stevens, Three Budo Masters: Jigoro Kano, Gichin Funakoshi, Morihei Ueshiba, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1995, p. 73.
  12. Masutatsu Oyama, This Is Karate, translated by Richard L. Gage, revised edition, Japan Publications, Tokyo, 1973, pp. 314–315.
  13. Donn F. Draeger and Robert W. Smith, Asian Fighting Arts, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1969, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/asianfightingart0000drae
  14. Masatoshi Nakayama, Best Karate, vol. 1, Comprehensive, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1977, p. 131.
  15. "Kenwa Mabuni" and "Shitō-ryū", the English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenwa_Mabuni
  16. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on 摩文仁流, oldest first, 11 October 2026: 10 items; the oldest Mabuni's book of 1934, pid 1915276. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=摩文仁流&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  17. 仲宗根源和 編『空手道大観』, 緑林堂書店, Tokyo, 1991, the note on the authors, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 13142623. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13142623
  18. 摩文仁賢和『攻防自在 空手拳法 十八の研究』 (空手研究叢書 第二篇), 空手研究社 興武館, Tokyo, 1934, a facsimile: the preface, p. 11; the contents, pp. 16–17; chapter 1, p. 19; the colophon and the advertisements at the end. Internet Archive MabuniSeipaiStudy1934. https://archive.org/details/MabuniSeipaiStudy1934
  19. 空手研究社 編『空手研究』 第1輯, 空手研究社 興武館, Tokyo, 1934, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 1027727. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1027727
  20. 『空手研究』, 空手研究社興武館, 1934.12, the record at National Diet Library Search. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000136-I1970867909849643658
  21. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on 糸東流, oldest first, 11 October 2026: 581 items; the oldest 『空手研究』 第1輯 (1934), pid 1027727. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=糸東流&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  22. 藤原稜三, the sections on the history of karate and its masters, in 今村嘉雄ほか 編『日本武道大系』 第8巻, 同朋舎出版, Kyoto, August 1982, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 12141092. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12141092
  23. 儀間真謹・藤原稜三 編『近代空手道の歴史を語る 対談』, ベースボール・マガジン社, Tokyo, October 1986, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 12144507. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12144507
  24. 『武道範士教士錬士名鑑』 昭和12年, 大日本武徳会本部雑誌部, 1937, pp. 296–297, scan 160. National Diet Library pid 1055514. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1055514/1/160
  25. 摩文仁賢和・仲宗根源和『攻防拳法 空手道入門 別名、空手術教範』, seventh printing, 京文社書店, Tokyo, March 1940, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 3456304. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3456304
  26. 「大日本武徳會武道範士教士錬士名鑑」, 「まるふじ文庫」の収集武道書 (Yahoo! ブログ), 25 November 2016, transcribing 『大日本武徳會範士教士錬士名鑑』 of April 1941, at the Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20161226055045/http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/marufujibunko2015/27817398.html
  27. Gichin Funakoshi, Karatê-Do Nyumon, Editora Cultrix, São Paulo, 1988, the Portuguese of the English of Kodansha International, 1988, p. 30.
  28. 若松礼吉『空手道 拳法』, 不昧堂書店, Tokyo, 1962, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 2497746. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2497746
  29. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on 半硬流, oldest first, 11 October 2026: 17 items; the oldest 小西康裕『図解空手入門』 (1952), pid 2461495. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=半硬流&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  30. 小西康裕『図解空手入門』, 川津書店, Tokyo, 1952, the note on the author, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 2461495. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2461495
  31. 小西康裕『空手上達法』, 川津書店, Tokyo, 1956, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 2480268. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2480268
  32. 上地流空手道協会『精説沖縄空手道 その歴史と技法』, 上地流空手道協会, November 1977, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 12141812. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12141812
  33. 綿谷雪 編『古武道文献集』 1 (武芸流派大事典補訂稿), 武芸帖社, 1970, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 13331523. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13331523
  34. 高宮城繁ほか 編著『沖縄空手道概説 武道空手の諸相』, 沖縄空手道協会北谷道場, August 1996, snippet view, National Diet Library pid 13898273. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13898273
  35. 谷長治郎『型 KATA 谷派糸東流空手道』, 修交会総本部, 1979, in National Diet Library Search. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000001-I47111100336138
  36. Encyclopedia International, Grolier, New York, 1963, vol. 10, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/encyclopediainte10newy
  37. H. D. Plée, Karate: Beginner to Black Belt, Foulsham, Slough, 1967, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/karatebeginnerto0000plee
  38. Black Belt, October 1967, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/black-belt-1967-10
  39. Fumio Demura, Shito-Ryu Karate, Ohara Publications, Los Angeles, 1971, as registered in the Catalog of Copyright Entries, 1971, and as described in Demura, Nunchaku: Karate Weapon of Self-Defense, Ohara Publications, 1971. https://archive.org/details/catalogofcop197132511l
  40. Patrick McCarthy, The Bible of Karate: Bubishi, Tuttle, Rutland, Vermont, 1995, "The Impact of the Bubishi on Modern Karate-do".
  41. Seikichi Toguchi, Okinawan Goju-Ryu: Fundamentals of Shorei-Kan Karate, Ohara Publications, Burbank, 1976, "The Origin of Goju-Ryu". https://archive.org/details/okinawan-goju-ryu-fundamentals-of-shorei-kan-karate
  42. 「宮城長順」 and 「剛柔流」, the Japanese Wikipedia, with their reference to 『明治神宮鎮座十年祭 奉納武道形大會要覧』 (1930). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/宮城長順
  43. P. M. V. Morris, The Illustrated Guide to Karate, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1979, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/illustratedguide0000morr_s7v5
  44. David Mitchell, The Official Martial Arts Handbook, Sphere, London, 1984, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/officialmartiala0000mitc
  45. 船越義珍『空手入門』, 国防武道協会, 1943, in National Diet Library Search. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000136-I1970867909860261127

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-11 ten-s610, G6 on the gate record's For the page block, traced claim by claim (spec § 7.4): round 1 PASS, both; wordings in the gate record's § Gate · citation sweep (Claude), 2026-10-11 ten-s610, G7 against the shelf texts: four differences, fixed; the NDL snippet items and the web addresses outside its reach

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 糸東流 (shitōryū)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/shitoryu.