View Single Post
Old 08-15-2009, 09:57 AM   #43
Josh Reyer
 
Josh Reyer's Avatar
Location: Aichi-ken, Nagoya-shi
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 644
Japan
Offline
Re: 5th Kyu Shihan

Quote:
Ryan Szesny wrote: View Post
You are correcting people on the use of Senior Student over Sempai in a dojo...
What Ron really said:
Quote:
Ron Tisdale wrote:
Just a note, I believe the word you are referring to is sempai...and personally, I tend to avoid it outside of a strictly Japanese context.
...followed immediately by....
Quote:
Ron Tisdale wrote:
No arguement from me Mary. I was just pointing out the mis-spelling of the word, and some of the complexities of using it outside of its original culture.
If Ron wants to correct people, he's the worst correcter in the world. All he's done is state his own personal preference of not using "sempai/kohai" in the dojo, and explained why. I'm not exactly sure why you are looking for an argument here.

Ron believes that in Japan "sempai/kohai" carry a lot of cultural baggage, and rather than deal with that baggage he's decided not to use those terms.

You believe that in Japan "sempai/kohai" carry a lot of cultural baggage, and rather than deal with it you choose to ignore it as not relevant to your cultural context.

Ron's happy with what he does, and perfectly happy to let you do as you want to do. Why not extend the same courtesy to him? Are you not perhaps transferring adversarial vibes from Szczepan to Ron?

And FWIW, here's my take on Japanese in the dojo.

Last edited by Josh Reyer : 08-15-2009 at 10:02 AM.

Josh Reyer

The lyf so short, the crafte so longe to lerne,
Th'assay so harde, so sharpe the conquerynge...
- Chaucer
  Reply With Quote