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[elfgrove]

Martin-sensei...
butchered his Japanese terms...
Must... restrain... urge... to.. kill....

him: Sempai means... um erm... "Assistant Instructor".
(He calls HIS assistant "Sempai" like you would say "Kate", except he misprnounces sempai so that I barely recognized it the first time he said it. )
Dojo means... "gymnasium"....
me: *sputters* *grimmaces* *restrains self* *plasters face with an irritated smile*
him: Ends every other sentence with "Osu"
(pronounced with the u silent, I'll admit, I don't know if that's correct or the correct usage, but I thought "osu" was an informal greeting between male friends?)

I don't know why, but it irritated the hell out of me.

Seriously though.
Karate isn't going to suit me too well. I can see it now. I'll be able to do it, but... The moves are a little forced and rigid... especially compared to the flowing style I learned in Eagle Claw (that came naturally).

Comments

[dustyx.livejournal.com]

Osu can be an informal greeting between male friends, can also be used for "Yes Sir". Lee often answers Gai-sensei with an "Osu!"

But, I'll admit, it'd probably annoy me as well.

*hands L-chan a bokken of bad Japanese correcting*

~dX

[elfgrove.livejournal.com]

Oh, he says osu can mean anything the way our "okay" does. Its a question, an "i'm feeling good" "I'm feeling bad" and like I said he tacks it to the end of his sentences like Kenshin with De Gozaru.

Arrrggggg!!!

[dustyx.livejournal.com]

Nope, just can mean "Yes Sir" or pretty much, "Yo" in Japanese. *sigh* Mendokusei people who think they can speak Japanese.

Maybe I'll send Okuyama-sensei down there to correct his Japanese and give him a lesson in ninjutsu (well, he doesn't know ninjutsu I think, but his ancestors were ninjas!)

~dX

[jokeyxero.livejournal.com]

"Osu" is a JIKC thing, started by the guy who founded the school in Hawaii. It's basically a catch-all that shows you're paying attention and/or agree. "Hai" would be much more applicable in many situations. Actually I've slipped a few times when we first started doing called kumite and acknowledging with "hai" instead of "osu".

Don't know if he did the kiai with your class yet, but he tells everyone to make an "A" sound. Eventually it just gets turns into a quick, focused grunt from the back of the throat.

It's much more comradery with the other students than it is nippon tradition.

[lias.livejournal.com]

One of the craptacular realities of American martial arts is that it is largely unregulated and unlicensed... After the Karate Kid was a hit there was an explosion of Karate businesses by people looking to cash in on the unending supply of kids kids wanting to learn to beat the crap out of each other, and parents demanding their children learn to defend themselves. By the time I started College, it seemed everyone and their brother had at least a green or brown belt. Problem was that most of the entrepreneurs had no clue what they were doing, and a lot of the brown belt students I met at FAU would have been just as well off learning from a picture book. They knew plenty of moves, but the philosophy, mental training, and applicability that comes from training under a true Kempo Sensei... they were clueless. A second Kyu student from a real dojo probably could have beaten most of the "brown belts" I saw in College.
As an offshoot of all this crappy training, it's now extremely difficult to find trainers that actually know what they're doing, as the hardcore people are usually not as good at marketing themselves as the half-assed.
Here's to hoping that your Sensei just sucks at Japanese, and not the rest of his repertoire

[jokeyxero.livejournal.com]

i warned you his japanese was horrible.

if it helps he does know what the terms mean (or something close to it) usually, he just chooses a similar meaning and dumbs it down for the class. i've heard him say the same word means like 5 different things depending on who he's talking to. he also doesn't care to try to use an accent because he feels pretentious doing it. he's very american. the only thing that really annoys me is sensei being used as a prefix, but i guess it's acceptable if you fully translate to english, since it'd be Mr Martin instead of Martain-Mr in English.

I just ignore his Japanese, just try to learn the terms I need as he says them in the way he says them. I've busted him several times on garbled pronounciation but just let it slide.

Karate is very rigid, it's a very strong and straight-forward method, not really my style either but it is effective. Mostly keeps me active so I'm fine with the bits I don't like. Roy-sensei (shihan) takes it all serious so he makes up for it when he teaches class. I just try not to take it all too serious, Sensei knows it's a college class and treats it like one. It's a different story if you go to one of Roy's classes.

Anyway, I felt the same way you did when I first got in there but I'm pretty easy so...hey ;oP