Don't call yourself sensei!

DWx · KF Sensei

Great video from Jesse Encamp about the term "sensei". What are your thoughts on this?

I'm very lax in our school with titles and such. Possibly wrong but even my youngest students can use my first name and I go by "Miss Danielle" most of the time rather than use a title. I see a lot on Facebook and the like using their titles as part of their name which always seems strange to me... as don't your non-martial arts friends also interact with you on those platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pBt_wSAI0Q

As a teacher, how do you prefer your students to address you?
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sensei8 · KF Sensei

Bob. That's it. Bob. Just Bob. Plain Bob.

When it's formal, just Sensei. No Sensei Bob or Sensei Mitcham. When Soke and Dai-Soke were alive, it was Mitcham Sensei...which was quite funny to hear them say my last name...often because of that, it would be just Sensei, or quite a lot of pointing and gesturing.

Great thing about the name Bob is that no matter how you spell it...forwards...backwards...upside down...sideways...it's still Bob. I think my parents were trying to tell me something.

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ashworth · Purple Belt

I genuinely don't think I get called anything, I run small classes and its obvious when someone wants to talk to me... occasionally I may have been called Sensei and I'm pretty sure I have just been called Ash a couple of times.
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Bulltahr · Brown Belt

bushido_man96 · KF Sensei

In class, I prefer just Mr. Walker. I don't necessarily want any title attached to my rank put in front of it. Our organization is pretty strict on not allowing first names to be used, but outside of class, I prefer my first name, or at the least, just my last name with no title.
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Spartacus Maximus · Black Belt

It depends a lot on the culture of the dojo one belongs to. Outside of Okinawa where the dojo culture is quite casual, many dojo’s have a very quasi-military style. Japan’s militarism at the time karate was introduced there and the fact that most first generation non-native instructors were also military men explains why it is so common for titles and rank to be insisted upon.

Personally, using “sir” always seemed unnecessary and misplaced without being in the military. The only forms of address in and out of the dojo was whatever they were in plain English or whatever language was used. A school teacher and a martial arts instructor were called the same thing: “Mr” or “Ms”. Anyone close to one’s age, used first names. I have trained under mostly Okinawan instructors and they have always been very casual with titles except for the regular forms of address “last-name+san” in Japanese. In Japan and Okinawa it’s normal, but in other places it’s normal to use what is usually used there in the local language.

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