The Shotokan Tiger by Rob Redmond
That symbol with the tiger inside the circle is the Tora no Maki, or the Tiger Roll. This drawing was originally created by a Japanese man named Hoan Kusugi who was a friend and student of Funakoshi Gichin, the founder of Shotokan Ryu Karate. He was reportedly instrumental in convincing Funakoshi to teach karate in Japan. He also was the man who first convinced Funakoshi to write his knowledge of karate into a book, and promised him that if he would, he would design the book and make a painting for the cover. He drew it specifically in order to illustrate the cover of Funakoshi’s book Karate-do Kyohan. Kusugi is thought to be as important as Kano in convincing Funakoshi to stay in Japan to teach karate. The character up in the Northeast quadrant of the circle is part of the artist’s signature.
Ryukyu Karate Kenpo, Funakoshi’s first book about karate, was written in 1922. The plates for that book were destroyed in the fire of the Great Kanto Earthquake in September of 1923. Later that year, Funkoshi released the book again, this time under the name of Rentan Goshin Jutsu. Funakoshi eventually followed that book with another edition called Karatedo Kyohan.
Kusugi is reported to have declared to Funakoshi that Karate-do Kyohan was the master text of karate. In Japanese, the master text for a particular topic is called the Tora no Maki. The Japanese did not produce books like we do in the West traditionally. Instead, they wrote their documents as long scrolls, rolled them up, and stored them in cubby holes just as our ancestors did hundreds of years ago. The Japanese had largely abandoned this practice by the time Funakoshi authored his book, but the expression had become hard-wired into the Japanese language.
“Scroll of the Tiger” in this case is idiomatic and means “key” or “crib notes.” The picture of the tiger in the circle is a pun on the words Tora no Maki, which could also be taken to mean “Roll of the Tiger.” Tiger sushi, anyone?
Even today, if you bother to pull the paper cover off of Karate-do Kyohan, you find that the tiger is in gold leaf on the blue cloth cover of the English edition. The guy on the paper cover, in case you are wondering, is a statue of the god Fudo, one of the 12 zodiac gods of Buddhism. The statue is kept in Todaiji, the largest wooden building on Earth, a Buddhist Temple/Tourist Attraction that I was fortunate enough to enter in Nara City, Japan. I was pretty shocked when I looked up and the cover of Karate-do Kyohan was looking back down at me. The statue is about 20-25 feet tall.
Every now and then someone asks me whether or not this symbol is someone-s registered trademark, and whether or not it can be used without permission on web pages, uniforms, and karate school logos. My answer to that is that I searched the US Patent and Tradmark Office-s web site on the day I posted this article, and I found only three entries under Shotokan. Only one of them included this symbol. However, in that entry, the Tora no Maki was only part of the logo of a karate club, and the trademark had since been abandoned. Therefore, I believe that no one currently has a trademark on this image in the United States, and that because it has become so widely used around the United States without receiving a legal challenge, my non-legal-expert opinion (which is worth what you are paying for it - nothing) is that no one can stop you from using this tiger in a circle symbol on anything that you like.
.This Tora no Maki, or the Shotokan Tiger, as it is commonly called, has become the symbol of Shotokan Karate.
What is important is avoiding using the entirety of association or karate club logos that incorporate this tiger. But the tiger and circle alone have apparently gone the way of the refridgerator brand name - it has become a house-hold item that probably no court in the US would try to enforce on behalf of anyone in Japan or inside the US.
I do not know what how trademarks work in other nations, so if you are outside the US, a quick call to a solicitor or attorney should give you some idea about whether or not you can use this in your club’s logo.
Today, one can find patches, belts, shirts, belt buckles, pendants, rings, and all sorts of goodies that have been made using the image of the Tora no Maki. Some people are not even aware that it refers to Shotokan specifically, and they have co-opted it into logos for clubs offering other martial arts.
It is a shame that anyone even has to worry about something like whether or not they use a tiger drawing made in the 1920’s in Japan that was probably copied from a Korean or Chinese temple roofing tile by Kosugi in the first place. But I guess those are the times we live in.
Karate-do Kyohan has been out there for a long time, and many challengers have arisen to best it, and I believe some of them have succeeded. Is this book still the Master Text? Of course it is, don’t be silly. You can only be first once - all others, no matter how much better, are merely followers.
