Honor thy father

               

                The title Sensei is a Japanese term that has come to mean Teacher, the actual term however translates as “one who came before”.  The character is the same as the word Xiansheng, which is the title for a man of respected stature. In a Karate club the Sensei is often seen as the “Father” of the club, regardless of age. They are the Patriarch, or matriarch of the club. Not only are they the founder in most cases, but they are the leader and as such they command a certain amount of respect.

                The Bible, and I don’t quote this book often, says that you should honor thy father and they mother. Some interpretations say “honor” means to love and respect them, others see it as providing for them and others mean to protect them and “hold” them close. In the Karate Dojo when the Sensei says to do something the only thing that they should expect is “Yes” or “Ous” and then the student does it…within reason. However this blog is not about just blindly doing what I ask if you are in my club or what you need to do if you are in class and your instructor barks orders or asks you to do something. It’s about how others behave towards the leader of the club/organization sometimes.

                Many years ago I started seeing changes in my instructor, he forgot things, had physical issues with just standing for an hour. He would be teaching Karate and forget what he was saying. They were little things but they began to concern me. Later he would show up for class and not even change out, he would sit and watch class while I taught, I had no problem with this as my instructor was not just my instructor but a pioneer of Karate in Winnipeg. He had opened many clubs, taught me Karate for 20 plus years and he had grown his group to a huge size before he started seeing issues come up. His physical and mental abilities began to change and he was not able to teach anymore, but I honored him and respected him a great deal and continued to teach for him and run things for him. I was unwilling to commit to the inevitable and put off making any moves to ask him to step aside, even if it was becoming more and more obvious that he needed to find a new place in the organization.

                When it was time for him to step down I pushed back against the seniors that were saying he needed to retire. I fought with my wife about it and refused to cave even though I saw it. It took a few seniors coming to me to state a change was needed and we had to make for the group to be viable. One of my seniors, who has passed since, sat down with me and we had a heart to heart about my Sensei. He told me that if we did not ask him to step aside he would be tarnishing his reputation and make the whole group suffer and slowly die out.

                None of this helped me however, I was stuck! I forgot that sometimes honoring him meant being straight with him and protecting him from himself. When it was finally done I had the whole group back me up and a letter was sent to him, I honestly still could not face him to see the sadness in his eyes, it killed me a little bit to realize that he was past his ability to teach. However I knew that honoring him meant asking him to retire.

                The way things went down, I am not proud of it. I honestly hoped that he would have stepped aside himself and still visited as long as he could. Or better yet just teach till he was 110 and then stopped teaching to relax for his last 20 years of life….wishful thinking I know. But being as Sensei is a stubborn man and a very proud man, we ended up asking him to step aside and which hurt his pride, not the intended results. While this hurt me a great deal to see I take solace in the face that we are pushing forwards teaching the way we were taught by him and keeping his organization alive. But losing him that way hurt more than anything. I told my wife I had to leave Karate, but she, and a few of the seniors, convinced me that we needed this and we needed to keep his memory alive by pushing forwards. And we needed to continue to respect him and his hard work by redoubling our efforts.

                I told you all this because I want you to know I am not perfect, heck not even close! But I have a beef with some people and its simply something I have to express. I don’t like people who don’t respect their Sensei. I have been around far too many of my instructors old students who don’t respect him. They kiss up to him, they buy him things and then they stab him in the back when he is not looking. Or they Crap on him and then run up to him calling him “my sensei”. The honest truth, not once has this happened and my instructor did not comment about it to me later.

                We went to a meeting a few years back and some of his old students were present. One particular guy ran up to him and hugged him and said “oh, my sensei, how are you” and when I say hugged…I mean an octopus could not have gotten a better grip on him.  My instructor asked me right away if I could see a knife protruding from his back. This is a common thing with my instructor however, he has so many Ex-students and they all “love him” but left him and most of them speak ill of him all the time.

                One such occasion I met an ex student of Sensei’s as my wife and I went out for dinner. The student uncomfortably sat down at a table near us and began talking Karate, something my wife LOATHS when we are out on our “date night”. I was polite and greeted the person and then proceeded to focus on my wife. However as the dinner went on the ex-student began talking Karate again and soon the conversation turned to Sensei. The comments turned to how “bull headed” he was and then it got ugly. I was polite but honestly I simply wanted to leave…or punch him in the mouth. We said our good byes at the end of the night and I left steaming mad that someone could train with Sensei for so long and then be so rude to him behind his back. I know Sensei is not perfect but I honestly could not imagine doing something like this to him.

                A while later I was with Sensei and we ran into this student, who was sucking up to him and saying how much he missed the old days and respected him. I have a few people I simply hate, I know hate is a bad word to some but these people are not worthy of my time, they have done horrible stupid things and don’t see it. I don’t loath them, I mean they are not Hitler, but they are not good people and honestly I would leave a room if they were in it. One of the ways to get on this list is to disrespect someone I love and respect, then deny it and suck up to them, not just be nice, but suck up to them. You just lowered your status with me1000%.

                One other thing I don’t like, and Sensei and I used to laugh about was people who suck up to authority to get ahead. As a leader in Karate in Canada my instructor used to get people who sucked up to him. He once said to me that he liked the way I treated him because I respected and loved him (he was like a second father to me) but I did not suck up. I helped him run several clubs over the years and I shared a lot of time with him over the years, but I was real with him. I saw seniors come in, buy him things, suck up, and then expect things like rank advancements, students having an easier time at grading or a “seat at the table” when it came time for him to change the board or other things. I never expected anything like that and once told him that I never wanted to run things or be the boss, which is why he wanted me to run things.

                Sensei used to say the loathed people that schmoozed their way into things, and felt false friendly people were a plague in Karate. Far too often the leadership of any given organization is filled with “used car salesmen” who want to politely stab people in the back till they get ahead and then they demand adulation. They are false people however and honestly do not deserve the attention. I am lucky in that my new organization is run by level headed people with a passion for Karate and their students and not a bunch of glad handing jerks that will be nice to you, but disrespect you when you are not there.

                It is easier sometimes to do as the others do and just go around trying to work the system and politically glad hand your way to the top and disregard those that helped you make it to this point. AND its far to easy to use your instructor for the political gains you think you can get from them and not respect them enough when they are not present.

                So, how do you actually honor your instructor? Well first don’t stab him in the back! Second, be honest with him. I really hope that when I am unable to teach and need to step away that I have prepared a replacement for my teaching spot and they respect me enough to ask me to take a seat.  Also, when your instructor is not present don’t say things about him you would not say TO him!  Don’t treat him/her like a whore and pay for them to show up so you can use their name! Respect them enough to just have them around, visit them and have them out to the club. Teach what they taught you and remind students that your instructor is part of your lineage.

                My goals for honoring my instructor include teaching his Karate, honoring him in my lineage and preparing the next generation of Karate people so that they can take over and continue on teaching his Karate. I am not going to use his name after I left him or kicked him out. And I am going to grow and continue to evolve as an instructor and remember to get back to the basics, which is what my instructor preached to me daily when I trained with him. That is how I am going to honor my Sensei!