I purposely avoided the use of positions as titles. If I ever get things 100% correct, I fully expect the world to end. What is also totally wrong is dubious Martial Arts organisations that call their teachers Professor. Also, in an academic and other setting people are usually referred to as Professor Goldsworthy or Dr Jones if they hold a Chair or have an earned Doctorate. The shi in the latter is the same as in bushi and means warrior or samurai. You can see that the "kyo" character is the same, but the "shi" in the former means teacher, expert, master. For example "kyoshi" can be written in two ways - one (教師) means "teacher" the other (教士) is a shogo title. They are vitally important as writing Japanese words in Romanji often introduces misunderstandings. The kanji is the first thing someone who is serious about developing an understanding of the concepts under consideration would look at. What is also wrong is to dismiss the importance of the kanji. What is wrong is when westerners say things like "I'm Sensei Hank". However, titles/ honorifics are often mixed with positions - for example Haruki Uemura the Head of the Kodokan is referred to as Uemura-kancho - kancho meaning "Head of School" or "Principal" and the shogo are also used e.g. Firstly it is correct in Japan that "it is rude to be polite about yourself" and you would never say "Watashi-wa Jones-sensei desu". Nice article and as I wrote, almost 100% correct but not quite. I guess this is really the topic for another blog post. When you do formal actions they should be done sincerely. It's not something for putting teachers on pedestals or for controlling students. The formal etiquette serves several purposes (providing structure, a clear understanding of proper behavior, a means of expressing respect and appreciation, and a way of maintaining a safe training environment, among others), but it should always be performed sincerely. My personal comment on dojo etiquette is that first and foremost it should be sincere. "Sempai" and "Kohai" while popularly used in the US, are rarely used in dojo in Japan, and are much more terms used in grade school.Ī good book for digging deeper into dojo etiquette and behavior is Dave Lowry's "In the Dojo: A Guide to the Rituals and Etiquette of the Japanese Martial Arts" The only forms address normally used are "Sensei" which can be added after a name, or used by itself, and "san" which is only used after a name. In Japan, titles are usually for business cards and figuring out who outranks whom in the hierarchy.
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