Know Your Place:

Ted Turner said “Lead, Follow, or Get out of my way!” I love this statement. What is being said here? It is saying that you need to know your place or you are useless.

If you are a leader you must lead. If you are a follower you must follow. If you are neither, you are lost.

In a dojo we have Seniors also known as Sempai and Juniors also known as Kohai. The balance of these two is what makes a dojo work or not. Everyone needs to know there place at any given time and act accordingly. We are not always Sempai or Kohai. Depending on who we are working with we can be either. It is important to recognize the knowledge you have and the knowledge others have to offer. This is what lets you know your place as Senior or Junior at the time.

When it is your time to lead you must be the Sempai. You have to appreciate your task as a leader of those who have les experience then you. More experience does not equal privilege. It equals responsibility. To many take a leadership ship role and abuse it.

Coming up thru the ranks I have had good and bad trainers and Seniors. Most took advantage of my enthusiasm and used it for their own game. A few understood that my enthusiasm was something that needed to be developed for both our benefits. In North America, Seniors tend to haze and abuse junior students on the rise. The juniors are put in a position of taking care of their seniors and have the responsibility of most menial tasks.

The big eye opener for me was going to Japan and seeing the Sempai/Kohai relationship in its country of origin. Juniors had a heavy work load and were put on a hard road of learning. But the Seniors cared for the Juniors in a way I had never participated in before. The Senior might make the junior do his wash but he also took the junior out for dinner and put a few dollars in their pockets when they were having a tough time. Seniors tended to be hard men but fair.

In North America I was part of systems that had juniors picking up the tab when out and the chores being piled on by lazy seniors. It was a system of privilege where the “reward” of rank was juniors being subservient. This is far from the eastern origins of the system. Don’t get me wrong. Positive and negative examples exists on both continents. I have seen some horrendous abuse from Eastern and Western Seniors.

After being a part of many systems I chose to create one that fit a more positive model. I am not Japanese and most of my students are not either. I cannot ask an American to be what they are not the same way I cannot ask a Japanese. I have taken from my experience the positive aspects of both ways and worked them into my dojo. The REAL way of doing things is about knowing your place. Knowing when to lead and when to follow.

I believe in leading from the front. This means I will not ask of anyone something I am not willing to do or have never done before. I have to lead from my experience, not someone else’s. I promote this within my students as well. This keeps us all sharp and honest as training partners and leaders within our community.

At no point can we allow ourselves to look at ourselves as better then those with less experience. We were them once. Experience shared earns respect. This is the respect we should strive for. Respect earned over respect demanded. Our actions should be such that respect is naturally given. Respect demanded creates contempt and breads a negative pattern that will be followed.

I have made my mistakes. When I was younger and less experienced I felt that I needed an iron fist to keep people in line. In time I came to realize people will follow more truthfully if given a choice. I put myself out there to let people know what I am about. They can either follow my way or not. We all need the freedom to choose what we want. It is my job to make sure that the choice is educated and informed so the choice is truthful on both of our parts.

In the end I have a student base that honestly wants to participate in my system. They have actually turned it from my system to our system. I feel more honest about what I do and comfortable with my student base. I have the satisfaction of knowing we all believe in a similar ideal and are working together honestly towards a shared goal.