Guide to Dojo Etiquette

Introduction

Part of the fun of studying an Asian martial art is being introduced to a different culture’s ideas about proper personal comportment and a different set of standards about how human beings should properly interact with one another. As you learn these standards, please understand that though they are usually in line with the broader culture of which they are a part, they are peculiar to the martial subculture of that broader culture. For instance, I will shout out “One, Two, Three..., etc” in Japanese with a clipped cadence that is peculiar to PE classes and martial arts training. You would not find an Asian martial arts master using such a cadence to count fruit. He would save the clipped cadence for the training hall and count normally at a fruit stand. So don’t over generalize from what you learn about Japan in our club to modern, routine Japanese life or culture. On the other hand, what you will experience during training will be in most respect authentically Japanese. Just keep in mind that it is authentic Japanese martial arts behavior and comportment and etiquette, not some quintessence of Japanese culture as a whole.

Hierarchy

Japan falls into the Chinese cultural orbit. Just as we in the West owe much if not all our norms and prejudices, as well as our writing systems and legal codes, ultimately to Roman Law and Greek Philosophy and Semitic Religions, the Japanese owe their writing system, legal and political philosophy, and a good chunk of their religious traditions to the Chinese, or, rather, to the many and only occasionally united Chinese kingdoms.

Of the many aspects of Chinese culture that came to influence the Japanese, the four major ones were the idiographic Chinese writing system, the importation to Japan of Chinese versions of Buddhism, the influence of the mystical Taoist religio-philosophical system, and various versions of Confucianism. As you first begin your training, it is the influences of Confucianism upon Japanese ideas of social order that will be most immediately apparent.

Confucius flourished five centuries before Christ, and was more or less a contemporary of Socrates and Gautama Sakyamuni (the historical Buddha). Each of them was to bring about massive cultural changes. Socrates would end up making the West very skeptical and scientific, searching for explanations to natural and social phenomenon in objective natural or physical laws. Sakyamuni would end up leading a good chunk of the world’s population to believe that the world we see is only an appearance that hides true reality and that this truth could not be grasped by examination of appearances as in the Western tradition, but in an intuitive understanding of the true nature of things. Whereas the Western mind would look for truth outside, the Buddhist mind would seek it within. Socrates and Sakyamuni, however, shared a desire to understand the true nature of the universe. Confucius was quite another sort of man all together. Confucius was a failed bureaucrat.

Like any good bureaucrat, Confucius treasured order. And in his case, he looked to the past for good examples of what he believed to be the only institution that could deliver it, a strong and stable government. He lived in a one of China’s many Warring States periods, when different petty kingdoms were in perpetual states of war with one another. And he traveled from one kingdom to another seeking out work as a mid-level bureaucrat. His qualifications for such work were those of a gentleman scholar of that time and place, which is to say that they consisted of a thorough knowledge of the Ancient Chinese Classics. These were a motley collection of “historical” documents about the goings on of various ancient kingdoms, as well as an assortment of books about Chinese shamanistic and divinatory practices.

In the Confucian tradition, the basic way of thinking about good government was that kings could possess the Mandate of Heaven by which Heaven would give its blessing and support to a king who ruled in accord with the dictates of proper Order. As a bureaucrat coming from this tradition, Confucius thought order and hierarchy to be one and the same. As such, his Confucian tradition was to spawn the idea of the Five Relationships: King superior to Subject, Father superior to Son, Husband superior to Wife, Older Brother superior to Younger Brother, and Friends more or less equal to each other. In all but the last of these relationships, there was necessarily a dominant party and a submissive party. Authority flowed down, in sequence, from Heaven, to the king, to the subject, and finally to the subject’s wives and children. This was not a doctrine of universal rights or equal treatment under law. Each person had his place and was to treat others according to their positions relative to him.

These ideas became deeply imbedded in the Chinese and later Japanese sensibilities regarding justice, fundamental human rights, the relationship of individuals relative to the state. But most importantly for us, they became embedded in the day to day lives of each person, especially in the use of titles and bowing. Confucius was a fastidious pedant when it came to etiquette.

Terms of Address

You will address me and every single visiting black belt (no matter what style of martial art they study) as Sensei, which means teacher in Japanese. This word is composed of two Chinese characters, the first meaning “before” and the second meaning “born.” That is to say, one of the major organizing, hierarchical principles of Chinese and Japanese life is how old you are, or, rather, how old you are relative to everyone else. Anyone older that you was presumed to be wiser and more knowledgeable than you, and therefore to be your teacher.

When addressing someone using the title Sensei, use their last name followed by the word Sensei, as in Flynn Sensei or Tanaka Sensei. Please understand that the Japanese use personal names much less often than we do, so that you should address me as “Flynn Sensei” rather than “Sean Sensei.” You may also address me just as “Sensei” because in the hierarchical world view, the person is his title as the title defines who he is insofar as all that matters is where he fits into the hierarchy. Consequently, it makes perfect sense to address a person using his title rather than his name.

You will address any of the students in the club who outrank you using the term Sempai, which means senior, as in senior to you in rank. For instance, “Becky Sempai showed me a really interesting technique yesterday.” Or, “David Sempai, am I doing this technique correctly?” Notice that the second example is of direct address, whereas the first is an example of referring to the person in question in the third person when they are not even around. Referring to people in this way is totally normal in Japan. Use it with each other. Also notice that as a minor concession to the fact that Americans use their first names much more often than their family names, the examples preface the term Sempai with a first name, rather than the family name. If you are ever in Japan, make sure to use family names unless explicitly invited by a Japanese to use their first name or a nickname. That is you would say “Suzuki Sempai” rather than “Ichiro Sempai.” (If you don’t know who Ichiro Suzuki is, learn more about baseball.)

Bowing

To approach the Chinese emperor you had to get on your knees and crawl--the better part of a city block in some cases. You approached in a complete bow, feet and knees on the ground, palms on the ground, head to the floor. You were totally prostrate.

Perhaps this custom derived from the human propensity to curl up in a fetal position when overwhelmed mentally or physically. But in any case, bowing has survived in the East as a gesture indicating respect to a much greater extent than it has in the West, where as recently as 1962 the Catholic Church ended the 1,500 year old custom of receiving the holy sacrament of communion on one’s knees. The Church eliminated kneeling because cultural norms had changed. One no longer needed to bow, even to God.

In Japan, however, the tradition has not died and people bow constantly. It is the most common gesture of politeness and deference that you will see in that country. We also bow in our club, but for us it serves the added purpose of calming adrenaline and indicating benign intent.

In Aikido, as in any other martial art, you will be doing things that are inherently dangerous and which were originally designed to inflict great bodily harm or death. It is absolutely imperative to continually give your training partners social signals that you mean them no harm and that you are safe to work with. Given that much violence in life stems from the desire to impose one’s will on others, we must strive to show that we have no such intent. Bowing serves this purpose as it is a gesture not of subjugation, but of submission. It is also a gesture of respect and gratitude, which you should feel towards all who help you train and improve.

Using honorific forms of address serves the same purpose. So be dedicated to them, by both bowing and using terms like Sensei and Sempai. Along these lines, you should know that anyone whom you outrank in this club is your Kohai, or junior in status. However, you should NEVER address anyone as Kohai. That is, while it is good form to show your submission to others through bowing and respectful forms of address, you should never directly indicate to anyone their inferior status to you. After all, doing so would be exactly the thing we are trying to avoid as we do not wish to make anyone feel that they are having to practice dangerous techniques with anyone who is out to bully them or humiliate them or hurt them for the pure sadism of it. Even the sycophants and the schemers show respect to their seniors. Decent people prove themselves by the respect they show to their juniors.

Silence For Sound

In a noisy room, you cannot communicate well. The precursor to communication is no communication. The precursor to communication is silence. Given a background of silence, a single voice can be heard distinctly, and can be immediately understood. So if I or a senior instructor or a visiting black belt instructor begins to talk, circle up, sit down, and listen quietly. In addition to making communication easy, sitting down and listening quietly shows respect and gratitude. For most martial arts instructors, respect and gratitude are their only rewards for bothering to take time out of their lives to teach you. Give them the little that they desire.

Sacred Spaces

Buddhism, horses, and metallurgy arrived in Japan in the first few centuries A.D. The Buddhist monks brought learning and literacy with them. But they never succeeded in displacing the indigenous, animistic religious system, Shinto. Rather, Buddhism and Shintoism are often practiced side by side.

Shinto is not much in the way of a religion if you want theology or Byzantine debate. It is too simple to support abstract minutia. Natural forces and objects have spirits that often have to be propitiated by sacrifices (mostly offerings of foods and sake), and there is ancestor worship as people when they die become deities. Most families have shrines at home and leave fruit or rice or goodies for their ancestors.

But Shinto also has a strong element of ritual purity. Some areas (temple grounds, or even entire sacred areas like Mount Fuji) are pure. To say that they are holy is also true, but purity is a very spatial idea in Japan as the spirits in which Shinto believes live in particular places or objects or trees or rocks. So temple grounds are pure and you must ritually wash your hands before entering, so as not to defile them.

Purity and impurity are major cultural norms in Japan. The Japanese, perhaps more than any other people on earth, are extremely fastidious in personal grooming and bathing as well as household and workplace cleanliness. Kirei, the Japanese word for beautiful, is also a word that means clean and unsullied. Both meanings are in daily use, as both meanings of the word are intertwined in the Japanese mind.

Martial arts training halls are often considered sacred, pure places. In some cases this is manifestly true, as the training halls are literally Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples. But even in public gymnasiums in Japan, there is a sense of respect for place that is lacking in the West. But we will do our best to adhere to such a feeling here at Vassar.

Leave your shoes outside our training rooms. Shoes are dirty and we won’t casually dirty our training hall. Bow before entering the room. Open the door, face inside and bow with your hands at your sides, bending at the lower back. And also bow as you exit the room, also facing the interior, so as not to be rude the place by turning your back on it while bowing. When inside the room, remember to leave your troubles behind you. The impurities of life should not enter the place. The room is pure, and purely devoted to Aikido. Keep it pure, so that you may enjoy its purity. Finally, bow whenever stepping on and off the mats, in either case facing the interior of the mats.

Hygiene

Aristotle wrote that the goal of a good education should be to produce “A sound mind in a sound body.” It is unfortunately the case, however, that the works of Aristotle that have survived down to the present day are what amounts to his lecture notes. They are overly brief and often hard to follow and one is usually left with a great desire to hear his full lecture, rather than just what we have in his notes. In the case of his aphorism on education, I would like to think that the full version would have been, “A sound mind in a sound, well-bathed and well-dressed body.”

Don’t come to class stinky. From time immemorial, and aided by the presence of innumerable natural hot springs, the Japanese have been daily bathers. If this aspect of Japanese life seems foreign to you, it is time to asabsor b something of the East.

Don’t come to class in a stinky uniform. Aikido uniforms are wonderful growth media for bacteria. In a single practice, they become drenched with sweat containing a flotsam of dead skin cells and decaying body hairs. If left in an even moderately warm place, the damp uniform will quickly fester. It will be anything but Kirei. Wash it after every single practice.


Time

In Japan, in may martial arts, is it simply forbidden to begin practice late, as it shows great disrespect and a lack of seriousness not to arrive punctually. We will not be so draconian in our club. However, if you are late getting to practice, bow and enter the room, and then wait for the instructor to indicate that you may join the practice. He will likely indicate for you to begin warming yourself up, going through the entire warm up sequence by yourself. If you are only a bit late, he may allow you to join in the group warm up, as you have only missed a little. But expect to have to warm yourself up and do the sequence yourself. Do it in the back of the room, in a corner, quietly. When you are done, wait for the instructor to tell you to join in whatever is by then being taught or done.