The Collapse of the "Sensei" System
Everyone in the Martial Arts who
is interested in the work of the United States Martial Arts
Association (USMA) should understand the rank promotion policies of
our Association. Three other USMA essays, “The Personal Touch in
Martial Arts Promotions,” “The Story of Martial Arts Rank Standards,”
and “What Martial Arts Ranks Stand For,” contain important thoughts
concerning ranks. Along with these, I hope you will study this
present monograph carefully.
The awarding of belt ranks is a
vital part of the Martial Arts. It should be understood and studied
thoroughly. It is especially important to know why the system of
giving ranks came into use in the first place. Traditionally, each
person has a teacher who is responsible for giving him his ranks.
This teacher is called a “Sensei” in Japanese. The theory is that a
student learns in his club, stays in his club for years, and is given
his ranks by his Sensei when he deserves them. One of the strong
traditions is also that the student never should ask his Sensei for a
promotion.
The group of Martial Artists who
train in a club are much like a family. The Sensei system is a
marvelous system, nurturing love, respect and character development
among its members. It is really only in this family atmosphere that
true growth takes place.
The tragedy is that this Sensei
system is dead in the water. The people of our nation are simply too
mobile for it to work. In America we have perhaps a million Martial
Arts club teachers (a web search recently brought up 1,050,000 clubs
for me). Each of these clubs should be a little Martial Arts family;
but tell me, who is the Sensei for these million club Senseis? Are
all the million club Senseis part of a larger family, with one Sensei
for all? Or even one Sensei for each thousand clubs? Unfortunately,
the answer has to be no.
Who is the Sensei of the leader
who got his rank in Taiwan and hasn’t seen the person who gave it to
him for 20 years? Who is the Sensei for the person who got his rank
in Miami and then moved to Peoria, Illinois to start his club? Who is
your Sensei if your Sensei dies or moves back to Korea or Thailand?
The incorrect answer sometimes
given is that a person’s national or regional political organization
is his or her Sensei. This is not only incorrect, it is impossible.
The Sensei system is based on personal knowledge of the student by the
Sensei. What political organizations have leaders who know, or even
attempt to know, all of the club leaders, nation-wide, in their
organization? Perhaps a few small organizations do this, but I
believe the USMA is the only large national group which makes this the
primary focus of its work.
So in place of the Sensei system,
rank promotions in many organizations have fallen into the hands of
politicians. If you go to political meetings and attend big events
and help the politicians, you get promoted, if you don’t, you are
ignored for promotion. That’s the way it is increasingly, and it’s a
sad situation which hinders Martial Arts development a great deal.
You see, the club instructor, the
teacher, is the Martial Arts. It is the teacher who
decides to start a club, it is the teacher who gathers the members, it
is the teacher who inspires them to work hard to learn. The whole of
the Martial Arts is this: A personal transmission of knowledge and
character traits from teacher to student.
When the teacher stops teaching,
the Martial Arts die. But increasingly, we find that referees, coach
certification officials, political presidents, secretaries,
treasurers, chairmen of all kinds, editors, tournament promoters,
movie actors, and a whole range of hangers-on around the edges of the
Martial Arts proclaim that they are most important. The Martial Arts
has become a strident battle ground between these officials, business
people, and politicians, each seeking some special position or ego
gratification. In this kind of atmosphere, the club teacher, without
whom the rest of the crowd could not exist, is often ignored.
Rebuilding tradition—recreating
the Sensei system. When we founded the USMA
in 1995 we were determined not to engage in politics, but rather to
struggle to correct this neglect of the club coach. We have started
to recreate the true Sensei—student relationship. First and foremost,
we want to help all of our individual club leaders to obtain the
technical assistance, administrative support, and promotions they
deserve.
I personally review the membership
records of every single member of the USMA as often as I can. It
takes me the whole year to do it, from A to Z. I go through our
membership forms, folder after folder. It is my great honor to do so.
So we have in this country one
organization at least which is attempting to make up for the collapse
of the Sensei system. People from all over the country call me to
discuss their problems. Some of them have
been hard working club leaders for 20 or even 30 years, and have not
been promoted above the student ranks of first, second or third degree
black belt during all that time.
Usually, I find this out by asking
them, not because they tell me. Following the tradition, they almost
never ask for promotion. Sometimes they call me because they want to
take advantage of our outstanding video and DVD program. Other
leaders are interested in having a USMA a seminar, or in joining our
USMA, and I ask how long they have been in the Martial Arts and how
long they have held their current rank. I am always amazed at the
number of dedicated leaders who have been unfairly neglected for their
rank promotions. The number of people in this country who are
over-ranked is tiny compared with the thousands who are badly
under-ranked, and we of the USMA must do everything we can to help.
This means we are doing something
new, something unusual: caring for the individual teacher. I
deeply regret that we are opposed and even criticized bitterly for
doing this. Returning to a wonderful tradition should not be
considered as new or controversial. Because we are doing the unusual,
we are bound to be criticized, but that worries us not at all. Our
USMA leaders will continue to support our individual club teachers in
every way we can. We will continue to fairly promote leaders who have
been grossly neglected for rank promotion. It is our highest duty to
do so.
Your servant and friend,
Philip S. Porter
Judan, Founder, USMA
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