Meeting your instructor in the street

[Tony]

Well because we call our sifu by his first name its not so hard to use it when we see him out of training. BUt we all have respect for him and respect isn't always about calling someone by their title.

 

[Zarnyk]

you should be able to talk to your instructor outside of class the same way you would speak to any other acquaintance.
i think it is a ridiculous display of ego when a martial arts teacher wants to be referred to as sensei or master outside of class, yes, this does happen.

Very true and totally agree. I so glad that my Sifu doesn't have an ego problem like that. And because he doesn't, he'll always be Sifu in or out of class.

 

[Hand Sword]

From my experience, I've only run into my instructor outside the dojo 3 times. Each time I walked over to greet him with a smile and a respectful nod of the head, or quiet hello. From there he would take over the conversation, introducing me to his friends, or asking "how are you?" etc...

 

[funnytiger]

My experience seems a bit different then a lot of the responses I read. Okay, well actually the ones on the first couple pages, 10 pages is a lot to swallow at nearly 9:30 in the AM!

I call my sifu, Sifu. In class, out of class wherever. Its kind of like calling my mother 'mom'. I would never call her by her first name because I think that's disrespectful. He has never actually said, "Call me Sifu outside of class." We just kind of do.

I see Sifu out of class all the time. He likes to hang out with us when we go out to eat after class, or have a party.

We don't always salute in public, but we do so on occassion depending on the situation. My school goes by a family structure. So everyone is a brother or sister. We don't call each other 'brother' or 'sister' even in class, but we still show the respect we would as if we were in class. The term 'Sifu' does translate to being "father/teacher". I guess we take that pretty seriously.

And, scene.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

Having been an instructor for 8 years I find a weird paradox in my own thinking on this.

First, I'm quite informal off the mats. If I meet somebody on the street, I shake their hands. I feel vaguely uncomfortable if somebody bows or even uses my title -- like I'm putting on airs.

On the other hand, if I bump into one of my instructors on the street I'm bowing all over myself and saying sir this and sensei that. I've known my instructor for 14 years and still can't bring myself to call him by his first name.

On the other other hand, I also realize that even though formality is unimportant to me, it's often quite important to my students that they greet and treat me formally.

No conclusions here today. Just thoughts.

Peace & Strength,

Jason Brick

 

[stone_dragone]

My instructor and I have more of a Father-adult son relationship than a teacher-student relationship. Whenever I return home, I render him a formal seated bow and when I leave...in between, such as when we go out on saturday nights, there is a slight bow, almost a nod, and then either a friendly punch or hug...and then we proceed to get fershnickered as our wives talk like a mother-daughter relationship and make fun of us.

 

[Martial Tucker]

My instructor and I have more of a Father-adult son relationship than a teacher-student relationship. Whenever I return home, I render him a formal seated bow and when I leave...in between, such as when we go out on saturday nights, there is a slight bow, almost a nod, and then either a friendly punch or hug...and then we proceed to get fershnickered as our wives talk like a mother-daughter relationship and make fun of us.

On the mat : Sir, Yes Sir.....

Off the mat : Hey, have time for a pint or two?...

 

[bluemtn]

Thanks everyone on your responses! It's wonderful to see how a lot of you have a close "relationship"! My instructor just touched (again) on this subject last week. In public, a simple handshake and Mr... does fine. Boy, does he talk! I say that because I'm not the most talkative person in the world (not shy, just semi- quiet).

 

[Swordlady]

Maybe I'm being a *little* too formal, but if I ever met my instructor on the street, I would still call him "Sensei". He is still my instructor whether we're in the dojo or not. Some of my dojo mates call him by his first name, but I'm simply not comfortable with that level of informality.

 

[IcemanSK]

I teach at the community center where I work. On the mat, I tell them they call me Mr. Jensen or sir. Off the mat, its Tom because everyone else at the center is called by their 1st name. I tell them that this is not the case for many MA instructors.

I call mine Grandmaster Sell or sir, all the time. And that's ok with me. But, now that I think about it, he always calls me Mr. Jensen, also. He certainly knows my 1st name, but he chooses to show respect to me in this way. It may be formal, but its reciprical (sp?).

 

[matt.m]

With my dads black belt students who I have known since 2nd grade or jr. high, I am 32 now...just threw that out as a point of reference, I will call them by name when not in class. That is the way it has always been. However, dads peers I will call Mr. or Mrs. etc.

It is just a point of reference.

 

[Brandon Fisher]

i think it is a ridiculous display of ego when a martial arts teacher wants to be referred to as sensei or master outside of class, yes, this does happen.

There are way to many like this and I won't give into that that unless I have a great respect for the person. I just sent a email out to my students parents talking about the use of Master and how it really makes my skin crawl.

 

[trueaspirer]

If you know your instructor well, do what you think he would like you to do. But if you are not sure at all, try a small bow. See how he takes it. You can always shake his hand afterwards. That still works fine after bowing. Also another idea is to bow while shaking. That's what we do for semi-formal things at our dojang.

G'luck

 

[fnorfurfoot]

It would depend on what kind of person your instructor is. For my first instructor, I would just call him by his name. That school wasn't overly formal. My second instructor was called Kyoshi even by his own children and his wife, so calling him that seemed natural. I prefer to be called by my own name with my adult students. The children either call me Mr. French or Sensei.

 

[BigMike]

In my experience, my American born teachers are pretty casual. They don't like to advertise that they're Artists, so I don't call them Sensei or Sir when people are around. I've done it outside of class when nobody is around though. If I have people with me, I'll introduce them as Mr. so and so and leave it at that.

I couldn't refer to my Japanese born teachers by their first names. (One because I didn't know how to pronounce it.) But it never occurred to me to try. They were just Sensei, and a bow of the neck was par for the course when we saw each other away from MA activities.

Big Mike

 

[Cirdan]

If I met any of my instrutors outside the Dojo I would call them by their first name. An exception being if I met the national head of the Kobudo school I trained with earlier. Then I would definately use Sensei unless told otherwise.