Dear Sensei George,
How are you and the Family? I hope that you're healthy and strong and practicing regularly. This article, for your site, is for those individuals who may seek another perspective on all the "Masters" floating around given the extreme commercialism today in the MA. Manny
You’re a master? Sorry, I don’t think so.
By Manny Neves, 8th Dan
A few weeks ago, I attended a Master Gushi Seminar at the Hartford Dojo. My student and I were a little late for the Saturday class, so as not to interrupt anyone, we sat in the back of the room and watched the instructions for a while. As I was sitting there, Mr Harriman, 7th dan and promoter of the seminar turned around and asked me, “Why don’t you like to call people Masters when they’re 6th dan or above?” I started to respond to him when my student said that Master Gushi wanted us to gi up and be part of the program. So I was never able to finish my conversation with Ernie. I’ll share my thoughts with you here, with the chance you may dislike me more than you already do for whatever reason.
To me there’s one underlying principle that should be followed for you to call yourself a “Master”. It’s what I refer to as “creating something from nothing”. Most practitioners are basically followers of someone or something. Albeit, some may be very youthful, powerful and earnest and have more energy than others, possibly displaying excellent technique, but they’re still followers. For instance, those of us, who seek depth to our training, by seeking the “meaning” of our kata are still “following” the path of the creator of the original kata. Also, there are those individuals who bastardize the original kata and create what they call “their” way of doing the kata and call themselves masters and may even promote themselves to high degrees. I look at individuals who achieve the rank of 6th dan and above as dedicated, generally older individuals who found a way to make their kata continually be effective even if they are 45, 50, 60 years old and possibly older. Those high ranks, as most of us know, are tied to character, age, time in grade and the ability to still do kata correctly. But are they Masters? I believe they are not. What about the individuals who are or were great fighters, the one’s who, in the past, dedicated their youth to beating up all comers? The notion that you’re a master because you won a few matches, or even many matches, in a contest is absurd. Everyone and anyone can be beaten on a given day given the right circumstances. Also, the contrasting view applies. You can beat anyone in a contest on a given day with the right circumstances. Those of us who’ve competed know what those circumstances generally are.
That being said, my point is to be humble. Don’t call yourself a master to feed your dominant ego. Be earnest in your training so that you can open up to inspiration that may help you create “something from nothing”. One caveat, make sure that “something” has significant value and is time tested (at least 50 years or longer).
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We have all heard the story of Mr. Uechi and the teacups. I never got the point of this story until I saw someone set up a series of about ten softdrink cans across the floor of a dojo and then walk across the room on can-top, without crushing the cans or knocking them over. Needless to say, none of us could do this, and no teacups were damaged in the episode.
The term of address we used when talking to this man was not "master", but the word which when translated into Engish means "teacher."
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