Asian Art Forum

Shotokan Ryu Kase Ha Karate Do Academy of Macedonia

and my name with the title:

Zhivko Tasevski Kyoshi 7 Dan

Hmmm...

There's a lot to think about here.

The title, "Shotokan Ryu Kase Ha Karate Do Academy of Macedonia" is going to be a crazy number of characters. This will make it a rather expensive chop.

All the words before "Academy of Macedonia" are Japanese Romaji. I presume you would want "Academy of Macedonia" to be written in Japanese as well?

In Mandarin Chinese, Macedonia is written 馬其頓.
This is a lot better than the interim title which meant "Former Yugoslav Republic". I think the 馬其頓 title has only been in common use for the past 10 years, so it's very new (some Chinese will not recognize it).

In Japanese, they use the Katakana character set for western words and titles, so Macedonia is マケドニア in Japanese (that's 5 characters - two more than the Chinese version).

Oh, and the official title of "Republic of Macedonia" is 馬其頓共和國 in Mandarin Chinese. For anyone who is not sure what 馬其頓 refers to, the full title 馬其頓共和國 will tell them it's a country.

To be honest, if this was my chop, I'd just have "Shotokan Ryu Kase Ha Karate Do" on the chop
However, I just spent a great deal of time on Google trying to figure out the "Kase Ha" part (the ha is easy, but the Kase could be any of dozens of Japanese words), and it seems that virtually every dojo on the planet that claims the title "Shotokan Ryu Kase Ha Karate Do" is just writing 松涛館流空手道 (Shotokan Ryu Karate-Do) on their logo, patch or dojo title. I could not even find a single result that included "Kase Ha" on Japanese Google.

Maybe 松涛館流空手道 is enough, and it will save you a ton of money.

As far as your name...
I suggest you pick your surname, or maybe your given name, but just one name. It's going to be a few characters for just one of your names. Asian names are generally 2 to 4 characters with an occasional 6-character name (often descendants of the Emperor's family have a 4-character surname along with a 2-character given name in China, but very rare). It will "feel" like a name if there are 4 or fewer characters.

I would avoid the rank part, and here's why: Rank is rarely if ever carved into a chop. It is expected that all will know one's rank. To boast your rank can be seen as shameful or arrogant. Another thing to think about is that putting "7 Dan" on the chop will make this valuable chop obsolete when you reach 8 Dan and 9 Dan. Why not make the chop good forever?

For the name chop, you will also need to decide if you want a Mandarin Chinese transliteration, or a Japanese Katakana transliteration of the name.

Please carefully think about this information, and let me know if it helps you refine your chop request.

Obviously, I care about getting you the best chop to suit your needs and budget, or I would not have spent the last hour working on this information for you. I'll help you as much as I can.

Yours,
-Gary.

I did a little bit of digging and found that this particular brand of Shōtōkan Ryū is descended from Kase Taiji [加瀬太地] (2/9/1929–11/24/2004), from whom the name Kase Ha [加瀬派] is drawn. Taking that into account, the style Shōtōkan Ryū Kase Ha Karate Dō would be rendered as 松濤館流加瀬派空手道.

One interesting point is that usually style names are structured to list the ha [派] first followed by the ryū [流] and then the dō [道] or jutsu [術]. This is such a commonly used order that seeing the alternate order in the name that you submitted made me want to do some searching to see if the order was accurate for the name of this style.

I found that, depending on the particular school, there doesn’t seem to be a universally accepted order for this style name. Some use Shōtōkan Ryū Kase Ha Karate Dō, others use Kase Ha Shōtōkan Ryū Karate Dō, and still others jump back and forth on their websites, alternating between one order and the other. Even the Wikipedia article about Kase Taiji states that he officially named his style Shōtōkan Ryū Kase Ha Karate Dō but then goes on to note that Kase's widow, Chieko, became honorary president of the Kase Ha Shōtōkan Ryū Karate Dō Instructors' Academy, which uses the other order, in June 2005. Here’s the article in question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiji_Kase.

The UK portion of this Wikipedia article specifically refers to the Kase Ha Shōtōkan Ryū Karate Dō Academy (KSKA):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate#United_Kingdom

These sites bounce back and forth between which order they use:

http://www.shotokanryukaseha.com/other_ ... harter.htm ... harter.htm
http://www.ksk-academy.org/en/academyinfo/

So, if the choice ends up being to have the seal done in Japanese, the full name would look like one of these (depending on which order you choose to place the ha and ryū in):

Shōtōkan Ryū Kase Ha Karate Dō Academy of Macedonia
マケドニア松濤館流加瀬派空手道会

Kase Ha Shōtōkan Ryū Karate Dō Academy of Macedonia
マケドニア加瀬派松濤館流空手道会

Note that I used the character 会 [kai] to translate ‘academy’. This character is actually more general and is usually translated as ‘association’ or ‘club’, but it’s very commonly used within the martial arts to refer to general organizations, such as associations, clubs, academies, societies, etc.

The more specific word for ‘academy’ in Japanese is 学院 [gakuin]; however, I don’t think this term is normally used in reference to an academy in the field of martial arts as it generally has more to do with an educational institute or academy. At any rate, if you end up choosing Japanese as the language for this seal, Gary’s native Japanese translator will double-check the translation and make sure it’s accurate, but I wanted to make note of that character and explain why I used it here.

I hope this information proves useful.

Scott