"Professor"

Please consider this a spin-off from the Alan Thornton thread. (Or not, if you don't care)


From time to time you see the title professor being used in the martial arts world. Now, I spend part of my life in the academic world where I'm very familiar with the title, and aspire to it myself one day but not got there yet (maybe this year at last, but that's another story).

What does it take to be a professor in the academic world? Typically something like:-

- A first degree in their field (3-4 years of full time study)

- A doctorate (same again, making an examined original contribution to the sum of human knowledge in their subject)

- A track record of successfully supervising other people's doctorates.

- A publication record usually of 20-100 peer reviewed research publications, usually with at least a third of those as the lead author. As a crude rule of thumb, 3 research publications is equivalent to a research doctorate.

- An international reputation (as in, people from all over the world are actively using their work and seeking their advice)

The fastest I've ever seen anybody do this is about 20 years from leaving school: so let's say about 50,000 hrs of dedicated effort; most (of the small proportion of academics who ever get there) take double that.


It wouldn't be all that hard to provide an equivalence to that within martial arts practice: something like, let's see

- Dan grade through 1000-2000 hrs of training
- At least that much more personal training again.
- Have trained and graduate double figures of dan grades examined by other people
- Significant international teaching experience
- Running a reasonable sized organisation
- Be able to demonstrate to a panel of very senior peers that they have developed and improved their own art significantly.
- Have written authoritative texts being used across the martial arts world.


Do many of the people adopting the title "professor" in the MA world come at-all close to that? Does that matter?

Is it just an anglicisation of the French "professeur", or "teacher", and we shouldn't get precious about it?

G

 

I've been following the other thread, but to tell the truth, until I came to MAP, I'd never heard of MA instructors calling themselves professors. It still sounds odd to my ears. Even more so, now that I'm in academia.

Your last sentence is interesting because, though I tell people outside of the art that a mestre in capoeira is equivalent to being a master in other arts (and i haven't heard of anyone becoming a mestre in less than 20 years in capoeira angola), the word does literally mean teacher, not master. I've no idea how the title of master came about in Asian MAs.

 

probably a mix of misuse and self-aggrandizement. it's done with the asian terms as well ('soke' being the worst offender). the latter option would depend highly on the language (for example in argentine spanish it's used casually just to mean 'teacher' even though it also has the academic connotations, and it is the default mode of address for high-school and university teachers (more often than not shortened to the very casual term 'profe'), as well as teachers in various non-school environments (up to and including dance teachers and gym trainers) and as such may be used by some people to refer to martial arts instructors.

 

also, mestre does mean master in portuguese, same as the spanish 'maestro', also often abused by spanish speaking MA teachers and overused by laymen (amusingly, female schoolteachers at the preschool and elementary school level are called 'maestras' here in argentina). i believe the etymological connotations would refer to "mastering" those over whom one has authority (a subsequent wiktionary search points to the latin 'magister', meaning both that and 'teacher' as well. as an additional fun fact, the spanish verb 'amaestrar' doesn't mean 'to master', but rather 'to tame'). no idea what the usual terms for schoolteachers et al are in portuguese, though.

/ramble

 

I'm of the mind that somebody who should get a prestigious title in any martial art should simply be able to kick your ass. I'll listen to that guy any day. :dunno:

 

When I was teaching in Italy my younger students would call me professor as well. It simply meant teacher, like what FoD says for Spanish. I imagine that it is the same in Portugese. When I went down to the soccer fields I sometimes heard them call the coach meastro and always for the fencing. But most of the time I heard maestro was from the opera singers.

 

"Professor" is the best English-language translation of the title (rather than just the word) "sensei." From that perspective, it's fairly easy to see how it would come into use, say, fifty or sixty years ago, when the meaning of the Japanese term would have been unknown to most people.

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor


Im pretty sure its use is legally protected in the uk, not sure about the us.

It seems mostly used by two different groups, Portuguese speakers, and soke frauds.

Interesting wiki

 

Apologies, I should probably have added the stipulation, "in America." It's not usual to refer to schoolteachers as anything other than "Mr/Ms" there, and at the same time "Professor" is a much less protected title.

Mostly, however, I agree with you: no matter how you look at it, it's a bad translation.

 

In Kajukenbo, Professor is commonly used for 8th degree black belts. I don't really know the origins of why we call them that, but I do know we've been calling 8th degrees that a very, very long time.

 

Being of a sceptical disposition I am inclined to believe it is more to do with self-promotion as mentioned at the start.
In French 'professeur' is any teacher/instructor. You could say ,"Mon prof' de karaté." = My karate instructor. But there is no glory whatsoever in that, relative to all the other black-belts. Professor is a university title in UK English, if you are using UK English that is how you expect to be understood... martial arts degrees are taught at university in the UK so it is conceivable that the title might exist in that context.
"Soke" has already been mentioned. Another hype title is 10th dan "Grandmaster" - in KM which is supposed to be a basic army close combat system that has only 5 technical dan grades and even the founder did not use that title, I think it is even more ridiculous than in the TMAs. But maybe I'm being harsh.

 

Self promoting egotism ...

I believe I could buy the title from a soke council ...or just start using the title ...

Not on your nelly

Smurf :yeleyes:

 

Fixed that for you.

 

Don't even get me started on UK Physicians being allowed to use the title Doctor.

 

Sensei isn't the same as sir/mam(which would be -san in general usage), though in the context you describe it equates to that. Sensei is an honorific that is used for those in positions of respect, so your doctor, teachers of traditional arts, and of course school teachers(all people who have some kind of advanced degree in their field). If you have gained some acclaim or have a career in some technical field, you would be a sensei to those beneath you but not necessarily to those outside that field. However, you wouldn't call a sensei, x-san unless you were their peer. A bit complicated, but often foreigners use it to mean whatever they want, same as soke.

 

Interesting, in the US we call our doctors physicians(perhaps wrongly). No bonnet on my head or my car either.

 

Most physician don't have doctoral degrees. But I notice that within the medical profession "GP" is much more the usual term.

G