Japanese Kendo Cultural Advise please...

[nodachi]

I need advise so I do not offend anyone at a new dojo I am planning on attending. Please offer advice if you are familiar with the Japanese and the proper ettiquete in this situation.

I went to this new dojo in Japan. There are many teachers and many students. Today was my trial class to see if I wanted to start coming to classes. I did tell them that I wanted to keep coming, but here is the situation:

It is far too soon for me to wear bogu and practice in shiai. I have only been doing Kendo for 1.5 months. However, one teacher said that he would lend me some of his. I mentioned that it is probably to early for me to be wearing bogu since I am not experienced yet. He didn't really respond to this. He is expecting me to call him soon so we can arrange when he will have me try it on and lend it to me if it fits. Also, later one of the students pulled me aside to tell me to be careful and warn me that this teacher is not very good. He told me that I should make my own decision, but that he is not a good teacher. He said that I should make up my own mind, but to look at how many students practice with each different sensei. The other sensei have many students and this possibly bad sensei has very few.

Offer suggestions for me so I do not offend anyone,

If I do borrow his bogu because he is expecting me to, does that obligate me to choose him as my teacher?
Is it possible to accept the bogu, but not choose him as a sensei and not upset him or be rude?
How can I politely refuse the bogu because I am not ready yet, but so I do not upset him or be rude?

Sorry for the redundance.

Any advice along these lines would be helpful. Thankyou, I do not want to anger or be rude to anyone when I will see them every week at practice. I am not familiar with Japanese ettiquete very well yet.

[cklin]

Welcome to the world of kendo politics.

Sounds like time to find a new dojo. Since you're in Japan, that's not too hard.

[KhawMengLee]

Hmmmnnn...why is he a bad sensei?

Find out first why one of the students said this. If he is not popular, then maybe he will try harder to teach you and also have more time for you.

Also, he seems(correct me if I am wrong because I am not there) nice enough to want to help.

It took me about 2.5months before i got into bogu. Note that at that point I only trained once a week. If you train more times eg 2 or more I think you should be fine with 1.5months. It'll be hell the first few sessions but then it all becomes better.

Don't quit because of this. Everyone can teach us something in life. Even if this Sensei is "bad" you can still learn a lot from him. Maybe from his faults...I say give it a chance.

GOOD LUCK
MENG

[saki_wooah]

After 3 months (3 times a week) I started practicing in bogu. Maybe your sensei expected from you to have a good solid experience in kendo, even if you only practised 1,5 month (after all, you're in Japan). Why not trying to train with him? After all, maybe he isn't that bad... I agree with Meng.

[nodachi]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I am going to try him as a sensei. I know I don't have to officially choose a sensei right away. I am just really concerned that there are going to be some sort of expectations from him that I will be choosing him from the start if I borrow his bogu and I do want to have the chance to try all the senseis lessons and stuff before making that decision.

Keep the advice coming. This forum is really helpful.

thanks

[ben]

Hi Nodach',

I concur with all the advice above. Even if he is "bad", you don't know what the definition of "bad" is in this case. Chances are it probably means he is not terribly focused on training for shiai, or he makes his students do a lot of kata: both unpopular things with younger Japanese kendoka. Who was it said he was "bad" anyway? What are they like?

Ordinarily I would say yes, if he lends you his armour, then you would be obliged to train with him IMHO. However if he's not the only sensei in the dojo, how can you be exclusively his student anyway? As Meng says, he's probably just being helpful. Take it at face value. That's my 2 cents.

I had a similar experience which I will relate briefly. A while back I studied aikido in Japan. As I was part of an official Int'l Culture Exchange Program I was quite a visible student (this was a bit of a backwater town - gaijin were not in abundance and were kind of a status symbol to have hanging around). Anyway I started training with an aikido school that had quite a few members and the head dojo in a nearby city. Then one day this sensei turned up, who, after warm-ups and basics, would take me aside and show me different techniques to what the rest of the class were practising. This went on for several weeks. In time he told me that we would be changing location completely. I had by now realised that he had no connection with the first aikido school whatsoever. Not just that, but that he was headmaster of his own aikido school. But by now I was totally obliged to this sensei and so had to leave the first school. This pirate sensei turned out only to have a handful of students and often made up techniques as we went along. Was he dodgy? Oh yes. Did I care? Not really. Other than feeling bad about leaving the other school with no chance to say thanks. But they didn't care. They had lots of students. This guy only had a few. He was a freak in his late sixties who wore bad wigs, white shell suits and rode a 50cc scooter like a schoolkid, but I learned more under his guidance in a few months than I would have in a large class. As they say in the classics "I will never be able to repay his kindness".

In other words I just went with the flow because I didn't know any better and it all turned out alright in the end.

:)

b

[munenmuso]

Well what do you know? I agree with all of them.

Though you might say that he is a "bad sensei" but qualified to teach it doesn't make him an incompetent teacher.Probably the quantity of his students might compensate for his quality of teachings. You might land on a good sensei but imagine that your doing kendo at the same timewith 20 students with the same sensei, he might not give each one of you an ample time to correct those basic waza.Compared with a not-so-good sensei but with only two or three, assuming that is the number he has. He is still a sensei though not that good compared to the others, he is still capable of teaching you what you must learn. Or are you only assuming that he is a bad sensei? It doesn't follow that if you have a bad sensei you will also turn the same.Non sequitur. Kendo is not like a an old Kung-fu movie where if you can beat the master you can mop the floor with the student. Like any other teacher teaching his student, a sensei is just a person who shows you the door and you decide your way.Good or bad teacher,ultimately, it's you who's in the receiving end.


____________________
Do not seek to follow the footsteps of old men; seek what they sought.

-Basho

[Haowen]

This choosing a sensei business sounds a little like choosing a graduate advisor ;) I don't know anything about choosing martial arts sensei (since here in the US I think the choice is usually which-dojo rather than which-sensei) but since I happen to be in grad school I know a bit about the nerve-wracking process of choosing someone to learn from for a few years.

From my experience in picking mentors, basically, I would say choose the person whom you feel the most comfortable with, regardless of their skill level, reputation, or other technical statistics -- provided some minimum standard is met.

This is because regardless of what each party brings into the relationship, the mentor-student relationship is first and foremost an interaction of personalities.

Having clashing personalities with your teacher is a very BAD thing, it will give you a feeling of dread or uncertainty whenever you step up to train, and generally spoil your confidence in your skills and your motivation for learning. On the other hand having someone you feel comfortable with makes it a lot easier to discuss your performance, or try new things and make mistakes in the process of learning.

Morale is critically important for any endeavour lasting several years. Make sure you talk to your options and get to know them before you make a commitment :)

As for the etiquette thing, since you were not raised in Japan I think it will be quite safe for you to extricate yourself from any social gaffes by pleading "western barbarism" ;) Surely they will be a little more understanding in your case. Also, if you picked a good sensei and this other one is annoyed because you didn't pick him, your new sensei should be on your side in terms of moral support (otherwise he/she is NOT a good sensei and you should pick someone else!).

So you should be ok even in the worst case :)

[chidokan]

go for it! With only six weeks under your belt you cant lose. Meantime think of how many people over here would like to be in your position, you lucky so and so.... Worry about getting a good teacher later on if this guy turns out to be no good. Youll get to practise with everyone else anyway after a bit.

Tim Hamilton

[hamish]

Agreement with what everyone has said above, but I have to ask, why choose a sensei?

The good thing about training in Japan is that you can pick and choose who you train with in a dojo, so its not a case of having to choose a sensei for anything longer than a 5 minute ji-geiko session.

At your stage of kendo (any stage, actually!) you need as much training time as possible, so choosing to train with the sensei with fewer people lining up in front of them makes better use of your time, particularly if they're willing to help.

Maybe line up in front of one of the highest ranked sensei once a practice, but you should be training with at least 5-6 different sensei every session anyway.

Ganbatte!!

Hamish