With care

I have to be careful.

In martial arts there is a seniority system inherited from the Japanese. If someone has been a higher rank to you, they are your senior forever. You might pass them in rank, but it will always be shaded by their earlier seniority.

This is why, at Karate, Black Belts with rank higher than mine often step aside and insist I stand on the higher-ranked side of the line.

In our Jiu-Jitsu class, I am one of the least senior members. When I started almost everybody had already been training for a while. A few have joined since, but not many.

By almost perfect attendance, and by taking extra lessons I have advanced more quickly than my group, and started my Blue Belt test over a month ago. Over a dozen people who are senior to me are still not ready to begin their own exams. Likely my belt will turn Blue months before theirs do.

I will outrank them, but they will still have the legacy of seniority over me.

Already I find myself seeing things my seniors are doing wrong. I don't want to offend anybody by seeming a know-it-all, so I usually don't point these things out. If I do, I only do so with people I am sure won't mind.

Sometimes, they ask me questions. If they do so, I share.

So is it a matter of rank, or of seniority? It is both, and more than both. The fact that I am a Black Belt in another art also matters. It also makes a difference that I am an old guy, and that some of them are teenagers. It also matters to the teenagers that I'm a High School teacher.

I don't know how the Japanese keep track of it all.

Every possible pairing in Japan has a relationship of senior and junior. They handle this with ease, as it is the same in all aspects of their lives. It two students join a Dojo at the exact same time, they will already know who should be considered senior from other cues. They are only really confused by equality. When such a thing happens, it is as if they are waiting for the disquieting situation to resolve itself by one or the other getting promoted or some such thing.

In Canada, we can handle equality, and also can handle rank. Layers of status can be the confusing to us.

In any case, I have to be careful who I try and help. Will they be offended?

Don't want that.