What title does your instructor have?

[Pacificshore]

I refer to my instructors as Sensei. The Grandmaster as Grandmaster. Myself, I too am addressed as Sensei by the other bb in my system, and the lower ranks. When I teach my private students, they call me by my name. But, they know to address any other bb of the system, or the GM as such. It's part of the tradition and respect as well.

[Gumbi]

I dont mind so much that they have a title, but its the title they choose that I dislike. My brother doesnt really do any martial arts training at all, but hes gotten the idea of which styles are effective and which are not. He called up a local boxing studio by him and the person who picked up the phone on the other end answered by saying "Master so and so" followed by the gyms name. My brother was a little surprised since it was labled a boxing gym, but he promptly laughed and hung up.

 

Dogs have Masters, not people.

[DLopez]

Dogs have Masters, not people.

 

 

I think you are misunderstanding what is meant by the title of "master". It's not master as in a master-slave relationship, it simply means he has mastered the material - and until you have mastered the same material, you are simply not at his level.

 

Who knows, your brother might have missed out on the opportunity to learn some quality boxing skills from that instructor simply because he can't deal with giving someone that probably knows a heck of a lot more about boxing than he does, the respect that that commands.

 

[TheDevilAside]

My sensei is called master... and he orders us to sit... and "bark" whenever we punch or kick.. sometimes.. he even makes us play dead...

 

...hhhmmm...

 

Naw, actually we just call him Sensei or Sir (in the dojo.. I don't know the instructors well enough, though, so I still call them Sir) ..but all the rest is true. Wuff!

[Legion]

my teacher is called sifu

[Budderfly]

We call our Grandmaster, Grandmaster Jung or Sir.

 

and his son, who runs the school now, is called Master Joe (Jung) or Sir

 

and all the other assistant instructors are called, Instructor . We also can call them Sir (or Ma'am to the female assistants)

[renketsu]

Going along with the general consensus here...

 

Sensei in the dojo and first name out of the dojo (staying for a drink in the bar where we train or in the local shops etc).

 

I dont see it as cowtowing (sp?) to people using "earned" titles... IMNSHO its like calling your school teacher "sir" or a football coach "coach" (US more than UK I would imagine from watching soooo many bad films! ).

 

We dont use sempai or any of the fancier titles (renshi, kyoshi, hanshi etc) though and although my instructor is a 6th Dan (apparently "Master grade") we dont call him Master.

 

Andy.

[Mart]

In MT the instrustor is called Kru (say it as crew)

 

But no one uses it. You use their first name.

[Drunken Monkey]

hmm, but i would say that you don't use the title in the muay thai gym because of the nature of the training.

 

in muay thai (as well as kick-boxing, boxing...), i would say that there is more of a mutual, level training between all people.

 

skill is based on actual hands on experience and the more skilled guys who are teaching, teach by example so to speak.

 

it's more like they don't teach, they show.

 

the more traditional arts (and you all know how much i hate that term...) tend to be more teacher/student in terms of the relationship.

 

in some cases it can even be much deeper than that (father/son).

 

i've mentioned this a lot before but the term sifu or sensei DOES NOT mean master.

 

i've said a lot on this already in other threads so i'll not bother here (someone find the links...).

 

just so you know.

 

when refering to my teacher to other students, i would call him sifu.

 

when talking to him in context of the class, i would call him sifu.

 

outside of the class i still call him sifu.

 

don't ask why, it's a chinese thing....

 

equate it to calling someone doctor.

 

when refering to him, you would call him doctor

 

in the surgery you would call him doctor.

 

outside of the surgery you could still call him doctor (although due to the much less formal social regards towards a doctor these days, he would probably prefere to be called by his name).

 

(should point out that the chinese have a habit of calling a doctor by that title in every situation, in fact with most jobs with titles, the title is used...)

 

whether inside or outside the surgery, he is a doctor.

 

the same applies to a teacher be it of math, english, astro-physics or even the art of intercepting face.

[Mart]

Spot on drunkered about MT

 

Each system has its way