Most, if not all, people who are involved in the martial arts will come across some strange words given to those that teach the martial arts. Names like Hanshi, Soke and the most well known names of all Sensei and Sifu. These somewhat strange names are Japanese or Chinese terms in the main by the way.
The thing is however, is that these names are martial art teacher names based on the level of experience, time involved and in most cases to do with their students becoming teachers themselves and passing on such teachings to the next new generation of students. However those strange titles have nothing to do with grade ranks awarded to them. For example, there is a difference between a Sensei and a 5th Dan Black Belt. A ‘Dan’ grade award is a belt level of technical and physical standard while a Sensei is a teaching title level. You could be a highly trained 5th Dan Black Belt, for example, but that does not mean you are a Sensie or a Sifu. To gain those teacher titles you first have to prove your skills at teaching and of course be an active teacher to your own students. A proven track record, so to speak, as a teacher of worth. In some parts of the world such titles can be Chief Instructor, Senior Instructor and so on, if an English based class that does not follow such Chinese or Japanese terms for example. In fact those Japanese names mean the same thing but are simply spoken in English. Many of those teacher level names tend to be awarded based on merit and as such they are honorific titles. Honorific meaning of course honourary in nature. Being awarded such grand titles however is in the main something that a student would say to the teacher and not something the teacher himself would add to their name, unless a point of reference of course. In the case of a style founder such a title would be used but these days so-called style founders are often people who make up a style name or mix style names together but without really developing something new at all. In fact some do such a thing to simply bypass grading tests and give themselves a top rank automatically. For a related article click >HERE< Comments are closed.
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