Episode 1065 - The Use of the Title “Master” and “Grandmaster”

In this episode Jeremy and Andrew to sit down and discuss the use of the titles “Master” and “Grandmaster”.

The Use of the Title “Master” and “Grandmaster” - Episode 1065

SUMMARY

In this episode of Martial Arts Radio, Jeremy and Andrew discuss the implications and controversies surrounding the use of the terms 'master' and 'grandmaster' in martial arts. They explore cultural connotations, the subjective nature of mastery, and the relevance of these titles in today's martial arts community. The conversation emphasizes the importance of language and its impact on perceptions within the martial arts world.

TAKEAWAYS

• The term 'master' carries significant cultural implications.

• Many martial arts schools have moved away from using the term 'master'.

• Mastery in martial arts is subjective and ongoing.

• Titles can create barriers in the martial arts community.

• The term 'master' can imply a finality that doesn't exist in martial arts.

• Cultural translations of martial arts titles can be misleading.

• Master is gendered term and should be considered.

• There is a growing preference for using original language terms in martial arts.

• The conversation around titles is important for community growth.

• Feedback and discussion on this topic are encouraged.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction to Martial Arts Radio
01:21 The Controversy of Titles in Martial Arts
04:15 Cultural Implications of the Term 'Master'
08:10 The Subjectivity of Mastery in Martial Arts
12:13 The Relevance of Titles Today

After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Jeremy Lesniak (00:02.476)

Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Whistlekick. Martial Arts Radio. Jeremy joined here by Andrew. We're on the same couch. We haven't done this in a long time. You're kind of out of frame. we gotta, you gotta scoot. Here, I'm gonna push this back a little bit. Okay. And you gotta scoot a little closer, because we need all of you in the frame. There we go. Camera even refocused. If you're new to the show, be ready for some Tansons, because that happens. But you know what else happens here on Martial Arts Radio?

We do two episodes a week. talk about everything going on in the martial arts. We interview guests. Sometimes there's even a dog.

Jeremy Lesniak (00:40.728)

There's the dog. That's a dog. But on this episode, we are going to talk about my personal feelings, and I actually don't know where you lie on this subject yet, which is probably best. I really dislike the usage of the term master and grandmaster within the context of martial arts, and I'm going to explain to you why. It's probably not the reason that you think it is. Now, if you're new to what we do, visit whizzlpickmartialartsandradio.com. Check out everything that we've got going on there.

If you want to go even deeper because we've got all kinds of stuff. We've got free training days marshal summit apparel What else do we do? Maddick Maddick teacher training so many things that we do to connect educate and entertain the traditional work artists of the world You can visit with work.com. That's where we've got all that stuff. Hope to see you at an event sometime soon and with that Andrew let

Let's talk about the terms master, grandmaster, senior, grandmaster, anything with the word master worked into it. And I want to start by acknowledging that in a lot of arts, this is a term that carries a lot of predicaments. Yep, I would agree.

And there are lot of reasons why it is given out. Sometimes you don't have a choice. It is a title that expresses, I would say, seniority. this is where I should probably say, some people have an issue with this term because of, if there's a master, there's a suggestion that there is somebody who is subordinate.

often slave and in fact something that a lot of you may not know back in the day with computer card drive when you had two on a cane on a channel y'all remember your 40 pen ribbon cables some of you do the way you would address on the bus one versus the other was master and slave and that actually there was a large campaign that changed that

Jeremy Lesniak (02:55.534)

I'm out of the IT world now, but it also became a little bit irrelevant as things shifted in the technology. And so that's where I think a lot of people go. And I know some schools and individuals have pulled back on the term master because it historically, culturally, it connotes that there's a master, there is a slave. And we know that there are plenty of martial arts schools out there, but a shrinking percentage that will create

Students ironically enough the senior students as if they are the servants who? The head of the order. Now most of my experiences in Japanese art, but I've got more experience in Non-japanese non-japanese folk and I want art. I think than you that's correct. Yep. my perception has always been

that term is far less used in Japanese and Okinawan lineages. I would a thousand percent agree. In fact, I don't know... I can't think of many Okinawan or Japanese schools that use the term master or grandmaster. It's just not common. didn't first get introduced to it until... It's not the only school that does it, but Taekwondo schools often use it. And that's I first...

heard of the term. Yeah. So why don't I like this term? I don't like this term because when we think about the use of the word master in English, if you are a master, it suggests you have mastered. Mm-hmm. Yep. And very simply, there's more. If you've mastered something, it suggests, especially to people who have just started,

that you are not significantly involved in progressive. Yeah, that you have already reached the pinnacle. Yeah. Now.

Jeremy Lesniak (05:03.378)

Do I believe that most people who hold title of master, grandmaster, senior grandmaster, super supreme, grandmaster being are dumb training? No, I actually don't believe that. And that's exactly why I dislike the term. Because I think words should reflect actively. Words could describe the thing. And if we know that most people are going to use the term master, mastered, mastery,

to express that you have read the Pinnacle.

And that is not the case. That is not the right term. Yeah. Yeah. Let's take this out of martial arts for a moment. If I tell you that I'm a master electrician or a master plumber, there's a significant amount of time. There's testing that goes into that for those of you who are unaware. And it's a lot of hours. Now, I'm going to get it wrong. But I know it's many, many, many years. If I remember correctly,

It's somewhere on the order of 10 to 20 years. Could be, I don't know.

If I'm wrong, don't check me. If you're concerned, go look it up. There's a certain number of hours that you have to have in. There's a test you have to take, et cetera. And I know that if somebody comes to me and they say, I'm a master electrician and these are my, you know, my employees, they're journeymen, that guy over there is an apprentice. That gives me some idea of how things are run. And in my mind, the master electrician is

Jeremy Lesniak (06:43.21)

making sure everybody else does their job is teaching them. If you come to me and you say I'm a master Seth, I imagine that you are spending your time teaching other people, you are probably not taking classes with other people, you're probably not spending a lot of time in research. Does that? Yeah, yeah, I mean I think for me, Seth is gonna go, is not gonna...

fit in with the electrician and plumber. Here's what I'm thinking. Within plumbing,

Jeremy Lesniak (07:18.998)

there to a degree there is there's only so much you can know plumbing doesn't change a whole lot right once you know quote unquote i'm putting an air quote for people not walking once you know everything about plumbing you've become a master because there's nothing else to learn but we all know in martial arts there's never an end and and here's here's this is a good point here's the the the thing that i here's why i don't like the term

And it's same reasons as you, but I know many martial arts schools that once you hit fourth degree black belt, you are considered a master. Like Maquando Linia is that. And you are now master whatever. If that's the case, there should be no fifth degree black belt. Yeah, that's kinda how Like if you are a master, if you've mastered everything, there should be no, once you get to fourth and you're now a master, there shouldn't be a fair.

I know some schools that award it a fifth. I know some schools, I've heard of some schools that award it a third. They treat it kind of like the way you and I might use the term sensei in karate lineans. And so that's what I have a problem with it. know, whereas master electrician, master plumber, again, that's not to say the electrical field and the plumbing fields aren't growing and evolving, but the rate that it's growing and evolving is very small. There's never, the product change, the code changes. The physics doesn't change. Correct.

And it's not the same as with martial arts. going back to Jeff, you could make the argument, you could always be experimenting and learning interesting new things with Jeff. So I'm a little corn on that one. But in terms of martial arts, that's the thing that I don't get. And it becomes very subjective and arbitrary. Like, oh, here's your belt, you now have a title.

Jeremy Lesniak (09:13.999)

My theory on this, and I've dug a little bit and we've talked about this a couple times on Mark Hortz's video over the years with guests, in my opinion, in the same way that Sensei gets translated to Pico, which is to my mind a lazy translation, because it misses a lot of the nuance and where the summation of the translation that I'm happy with is

one who has gone before. That's correct. And that's a translation that I think more and more people are getting comfortable with and I think that's great because it changes the dynamic. Students and Sensei, I've been doing this longer. I've learned some things you haven't. I am sharing my information with you rather than a one-directional relationship because anybody who's spent time in the front of the room knows they're learning from their students. sure.

I, my completely unqualified opinion, no, it's a qualified opinion. I am, I am not an expert in the Korean language.

But when I dig into the terms, that's what seems to be happening. Now, if somebody out there knows more about this, please, I want to hear from you because I want to kind of put this to bed one way or the other in my own mind. But the terms that I'm aware of are kaboom, sabanim, kyosanim, like these Korean titles, and none of them that I've looked up really are, you know, this means master. It's more, this is the...

Senior instructor of the school. This is someone who was charged with instruction, right? Like Sabum seems to sort of translate more to like a sensei and Sabum then seems to translate more to

Jeremy Lesniak (11:09.698)

like ihan, maybe hanshi in Japanese. And you can see if you have a master and that person's awarded that rank at, you know, third, fourth, fifth degree and your rank system goes up to eight, nine, ten, fourteen, then you need something above that. So that's where we get grand master. That's where we get senior grand master and we get superior grand master. I've seen all of these. And to me, all the rest of the words around there, if we look at the literal English, seem...

redundant and maybe even contradictory. Right? I'm trying to come up with a great alternative outside of the martial art. Like, if I said, if I said you're the best...

Am I the best of the best? If you want to be. Okay. But then I said somebody else was really the best. Yeah. You're not the best. Yeah. You just put me down. I've leveraged in pecking order. And it's also as a similar, this is where the acronym that's become a noun, GOAT, I find frustrating, greatest of all time. These three are the greatest of all time.

Okay, but really that term is meant to be about one person. bonus trivia for you. You know who coined that term? El Loco-Ten. Title of an album. Greatest of all time. And it became a word from that. But when somebody says, you know, like, these are the goats. It's like, okay, so if you are a master, it suggests to me that out of

everybody that would be looking at that is doing that same thing you are the one who has reached the pinnacle of knowledge and there's really nowhere else for you to go till you share the information with everyone yeah now you could make a case that that is what is happening in a school if you have a master but if you've got 17 masters in a martial arts school

Jeremy Lesniak (13:19.95)

kind of breaks that idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we all know you can't like

The most highest ranked and the best martial artist of all time is Master Ken. And so how can anyone be Master, unless you're Master Ken? Unless you are Master Ken. Obviously that is a joke for those of you who have no sense of humor. So here's where I want to leave this. This is an opinion. It is not an attack. I have a lot of great friends that use this title.

Jeremy Lesniak (13:54.932)

I don't think any less of them for their use of the title.

To me it is similar to... I have great friends who eat terrible food sometimes. Food that we know is not good for them. I'm sitting right next to you. I still love these friends dearly. Sure. It doesn't change anything in how I look at you. wish you didn't do it, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. Yep, yep. Right? Same idea.

Well, and I think the other thing to keep in mind is that for a lot of these people, they are issued or given the title. They didn't have any say in the matter. They just are master whomever because their school said so. They didn't have a choice. And I think, you know, we're not saying that the title, like that you are a bad person for having the title.

I think this episode, if anything, is just meant to be more of a, as Arcaneo Hall would say, thing to make you go, hmm. That is an old reference. It is an old reference. But I think it bears some weight. Like, it is interesting. Like, why do... Is that a term that is still relevant today? Was it ever, really? I think the master-slave analogy is an interesting one that...

The guy I haven't thought of and as soon as you mentioned IT, I was like, yeah, okay, master. Like I remember that. I would, here's what I would love to see. I would love to see people pick up the foreign language terms that are appropriate for what you train and use those. Cause I think that...

Jeremy Lesniak (15:50.926)

Words have meaning. You don't always control the meaning of a word to another person. Martial arts could be for everyone. The use of that term could be seen as a barrier by some.

And at the end of the day, that's a gendered term. If you're a woman and you use the term master, I think that's silly. Why? Because what's the alternative? That's true. Yeah. And that's why we're not using that word, because that word has another meaning. No, you're right. Yeah, that makes sense. Yep. So just something, as you said, to think about. Would love to have your feedback on this.

And if you... I am always willing and would love to have my mind changed. So if you have things that you feel about this, please drop them in comments. We put these episodes everywhere. Find it on YouTube. If you're watching, you're probably watching on YouTube. If you are watching or listening to this in any variety of Spotify, take comments. Yeah, like let's do that. Let's get some conversation going. Now, if you simply want to say I'm wrong and stupid.

You're welcome to your opinion, but I'm not going to respond to that. Thank you everyone for watching, for listening to this episode. And remember, Whistlekick.com for all the things that we do, all of the events and the products and the services and the things that we do for cool to help cool grow, the things that we do for people to help people grow, and whistlekickmartialartsradio for the transcripts and all the other good stuff like that. Until next time, train hard.

Smile and have a great day. It's so much easier when we're in the same room.