How do you address your instructor and why?

[Skeptic 2004]

All of my training with Viol Sensei is in the weponry arts that sorround classical bujitsu training.

That makes sense. I did some refresher research, and discovered that the menkyo kaiden was awarded to praticioners of classical weaponry and not just kenjutsu; the focus of my research earlier dealt strictly with kenjutsu. I looked at your avatar thingy and noticed you had chuan fa, bjj, jjj, and shotokan listed (all empty hand), so I assumed that one of those instructors was throwing around the "Menkyo Kaidan" title, and it sounded shady to me. Thanks for clearing it up.

Hopefully you convinced your friend that the title is less important than his function, and that "sensei" is actually the best and most honored of titles: think about it, you as a sensei are responsible for leading and guiding your students while continuing to walk point on the path.

[aruder]

at my school, the head Karate instructors are both Sensei, the TKD instructor is master. The first degree assitant instructors are Joshu... is anyone else familiar with that title? or is that unique to our stlye?

also, Sensei names a high ranking kyu as Sempei, usually the next in line for Shodan testing

[johnnymac]

i call my instructor Doshu Mertz. Doshu is a title that means leader of the way. Kind of like Soke, but a little higher.

[Skeptic 2004]

I don't want to sound like a negative-nancy, but I've never heard of doshu outside of aikido.

"doshu" - "master of the way." Literally, the kanji reads "road master." If I'm not mistaken, they started throwing this title around after Morihei Ueshiba died, calling him "doshu." They also used this title to delineate his blood descendents who have inherited the style and run the Aikikai; i.e., his son and grandson have been called "doshu." It's a very honorific title if I'm not mistaken, but the purpose is the same: to identify the founder of the style and his blood descendants who inherit the style.

Given how erai a title like doshu is (especially when the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear it is Ueshiba), it just seems funny to me to see a "Doshu" Mertz. I'm not passing judgement, and I'm assuming that he founded a style of some kind (Saishu Ryu I'm guessing from the avatar?), but it still comes off a little weird to me.

[srv]

We have a variety of teaching titles which are awarded to people based on their training and the level of teaching that they do. Essentially similar to a previous posts list of titles. ie Hanshi, Kyoshi, Shihan, Renshi, Sensei, Dai Sempai and Sempai. In the dojo we use people's teaching ranks as a form of respect but outside the dojo that is not required. As far as getting wcolded for being called the wrong title - no that wouldn't happen and in most dojos (as far as I'm aware,) only the title of sensei is used - as a form of respect to the head instructor

[ps1]

I don't bother to write Sogo bujitsu in my "style list." It was a mandatory part of my instructor training. The Sogo bujutsu course I studied focused on staff based weapons (Tanbo (hanbo), Jo, Rokushaku Bo, & Tonfa) we then moved onto Kama, Sai, and Tanto. Lastly, we began the study of Kenjutsu. The goals were to learn, not only how to utilize these classical weapons, but also to better understand the junretsu (permutations) that are necessary to train, learn, and teach classical martial arts. Viol Sensei also gave us a very strong understanding of Japanese Culture and its influence on why a classical martial artist does what he does, one of my favorite areas of study.

[JimmyNewton]

i call my instructor Mr. McIntosh, Sensei McIntosh, or sometimes just plain Sensei.

any of the 3 are acceptable.

nin tai...i may be training with you this summer.

i'm a Shorinkan studnet in Charlotte, training in Shelby

[RichardHangHong]

In our club all the instructors are called Sensei whenever in the dojo. But once the gi's are off and we are outside the dojo, they are called by their name.

I train with 3 different senseis from different styles and 2 of them I call sensei in the dojo and their name outside the dojo, the 3rd for some reason I can't explain, I ALWAYS call him sensei. I can't bring myself to call him by his first name, even in an email. Does that mean I respect him more than the other two senseis who teach me just as much. He is a 7th dan and the other 2 are 5th dans. Maybe one day I'll feel comfortable calling him by his first name, but for now, I'll stick with sensei.

[JimmyNewton]

yeah its like even when i played basketball in highschool, we always called the Coach, "coach" or mr. peeler.

first name basis is too casual to me, but outside of class, we can call our classmates by first name. Mr. and ms/mrs during class

[aefibird]

At karate the main instructor is "Sensei" and other people who teach classes (which 99.9999999% of the time is me) are "Sempai". Outside of class, we call each other by our first names.

At TKD we call our instructor "Mark" (cos that is his name ), except on rare occasions when he is "Sir" or "Sa Bom Nim".

Wing Chun is either "Sifu" or "Mr Akhtar", but outside of class we call him by his first name.