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Old 03-01-2009, 07:06 PM   #2
Brett Charvat
Location: Pullman, WA
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 64
United_States
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Re: Respect/Lack there of.

Mr. Gorski,

I was in attendance last Wednesday evening at the dojo in question. I must say I'm disappointed (though not surprised) by your post here. I can assure you that every member of our dojo treated your guest with nothing but the utmost respect. Perhaps the "disrespect" you thought you witnessed was simply the admittedly awkward situation in which we found ourselves. Indeed, the instructor in question did not ask our guest to teach. I'm sorry if you find that offensive, but in my ten years of training, both here and in Japan, I've never once witnessed a guest at any of the dojo I have trained at expect to become the teacher for a class, unless prior arrangements had been made. As we were unfortunately without our dojo-cho that evening, the appointed instructor did what he thought was proper. I personally would be mortified if I was at a dojo to train as a guest and simply had the class thrust upon me.

Again, I apologize that our treatment of your friend offended you, but I strongly disagree with your assesment of Wednesday evening's instructor as rude, annoyed, and lacking in etiquette. Rest assured that if our instructor had understood that your guest's intention was to teach the class, it would have been gladly given over to him.

Brett Charvat
Big Sky Aikido
Bozeman, Montana
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