Beginning of class-where to stand

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[Guilty Spark]

I was curious what the etiquette is in other dojo's.

When students line up in the beginning of class, how does the order of seniority go?

Obviously white belts on the left moving to black belts on the right but hat happens when students are the same belt? Does it then go by precedence of who is older or who has been in class longer?

[Pauliina Lievonen]

Obviously white belts on the left moving to black belts on the right but hat happens when students are the same belt?Not obviously. :) Our club happens to line up according to rank left to right but I've also trained in places where people just lined up in whatever order they happened to be in. Does it then go by precedence of who is older or who has been in class longer?In our club basically the person who has been training longer is senior, but it's not a very strict rule.

kvaak
Pauliina

[Demetrio Cereijo]

In our club seniority in rank is by date of rank awarding and, if the date is the same, by age (the older is the senior). Time of practice does not count here.

[Bob Blackburn]

We do not line up by rank. We start at the center of the floor and work out way out so the line is even.

Other dojos I have been at work by rank, time in grade, age etc.

When in doubt, I line up as the junior person. Especially when visiting a dojo.

[lbb]

Seniors to the left! Seniors to the right!
Stand up, sit down, fight fight fight!

We line up by rank, and by seniority (meaning time training) within rank, from left to right. YMMV.

[Nick P.]

Our dojo: wherever you want, no difference.

At a seminar once where I was not of the host dojo's affiliation I kept getting ushered up to next row (there were three, and I simply sat at the back); before I knew it I was like 3rd or 4th from the "top" ranked students, and I knew those "below" me had one or two more decades of practice than myself.

An exercise in keeping one's ego in check for everyone involved, I guess.

[Tambreet]

In our club seniority in rank is by date of rank awarding and, if the date is the same, by age (the older is the senior). Time of practice does not count here.

We do it this way, but instead of age, the last one would be time of practice. We're not terribly strict about it within a given rank, though.

[Guilty Spark]

Mine is left to right seniority. It started out that whoever reached a belt first (in the case of multiple students with the same belt) was the senior but changed to whoever is older.
Personally I'd rather everyone line up where they wanted to stand.

[crbateman]

As you can see from the variety of answers above, the protocol varies from one dojo to another. When in doubt, don't be afraid to just ask somebody.

[Chris Farnham]

My old dojo was by rank then within each grade whoever had been training then longest. Also, I believe from talking to one of my sempai, if two person are the same rank and the kohai tests for say Ikkyu first, that person is now sempai, but if they test for Shodan together, the original sempai is sempai again. My new dojo lines up by rank but I have not been here long enough to learn the subleties. Of course, I have also seen dojos where people line up in any order, and at one dojo where I occassionally train, the dojo cho lines up behind everyone when he is training not teaching.

[Nick P.]

This has got me to thinking; how does one go about determining seniority without it becoming a lenghty Q + A about rank, age, duration of training, etc?

Of course in a dojo where everyone likely knows most everyone's else's training history/rank this is not an issue, but in larger dojos with enough members or at seminars, and the etiquette of ligning up by rank is expected to be maintained, I am not sure how a speedy line up could be accomplished without it turning into everyone spouting off their rank, date of rank-exam, and age (though that would be a sight to see).

I subscribe to the theory that asking someone their rank is not exactly rude, but not exactly polite, either.

Maybe a bar-code tatoo on one's forehead would facilitate the sorting...

[Pauliina Lievonen]

At seminars in our affiliation, the line up is basically hakama wearers together, white belts together, people without keikogi together (if there are any). So the main principle is as long as the line up looks neat it doesn't matter that much where you sit. Though mostly everybody knows the highest dan grades, since they tend to be the instructors in the different dojo, so they tend to end up far right.

kvaak
Pauliina

[mwible]

In the form that i study, it goes as you say white belts starting on the right through black belts on the left. And the "same colored ones" sit as who was called first during testing.

in aiki,
morgan

[seank]

We follow the idea of higher graded students to the right and front row, followed up lower graded students. As a few people have mentioned students get to know other students and can work out between themselves as to who kneels where.

Interestingly though I once had a sempai say he wanted to start in the middle of the row so that he was closer to sensei and could better see what was going on... I think he may have been on to something there :p

[Guilty Spark]

We follow the idea of higher graded students to the right and front row, followed up lower graded students. As a few people have mentioned students get to know other students and can work out between themselves as to who kneels where.

Interestingly though I once had a sempai say he wanted to start in the middle of the row so that he was closer to sensei and could better see what was going on... I think he may have been on to something there :p

Failing everyone taking the mat at random I would have the most advanced students on the far right and left with the most new in the center