The senpai (先輩)/kouhai (後輩) relationship
Notice me, senpai!
I recently wrote an article about the meaning the word 'Sensei' (先生). As I discussed in that article, the word sensei is one of the most widely recognized Japanese words by non-Japanese speakers. After posting that article I received messages on various platforms from martial arts enthusiasts asking me about the word 先輩 (Senpai).
This article will start off by explaining how the word senpai works linguistically, followed by how it is actually used (both in society and in martial arts contexts).
Please note that in order to explain the word senpai I will also need to go into some details about the word kouhai, which it is often paired with.
先輩/後輩: Romanization and pronunciation
The Japanese characters for senpai are 先 (sen), meaning before, and 輩 (pai), which is used to denote fellow people or companions. Note that the sen in 先輩 (senpai) is the same as the sen in 先生 (sensei). The generally accepted meaning of the word senpai is senior.
You might notice that I am spelling this word as senpai. Not sempai. There is no single letter ‘m’ in Japanese, which is why I put it into roman characters as senpai, not sempai. When an ん/ン (n) kana character is followed by a ‘b’ or a ‘p’ sound there is a subtle difference in pronunciation where the ‘n’ becomes more like an ‘m,’ but the difference is so subtle that I (and many native Japanese speakers) can’t distinguish much of a difference. (There is a Wikipedia page going into the particulars of this). So it is for this reason that I put into roman characters as senpai to accurately reflect the kana: せんぱい = se-n-pa-i.
Now I have introduced the word senpai it is a good idea to introduce the word 後輩 (kouhai). Kouhai is made of the characters 後 (kou), meaning after, and 輩 (hai), which, as we previously discussed is a fellow person or companion. The pronunciation characters are こうはい (ko-u-ha-i). The generally accepted meaning of the word kouhai is junior.
The positions of senpai and kouhai in schools
Japan is a society made up of contextual, structured hierarchies that are taught from a young age. The system is introduced to Japanese children at school and is present througouht their education. High schools in Japan have three grades (just called 1st year, 2nd year and 3rd year), so I’m going to use a high school as an example. (The system is introduced earlier than high school but because high school has three grades it makes it straightforward).
When you enter a class everyone becomes a member of that class at exactly the same time. People who are in the same class are referred to as 同級生 (doukyuusei), which means ‘classmate’ but is literally translated as ‘same class life.’ (Note that the sei is the same character as the word 先生 (sensei), which is someone who ‘lived’ (生) ‘before’ (先) you).
If you imagine the perspective of a second year high school student, the concept of a senpai and a kouhai becomes quite simple:
3rd year students: 先輩 (Senpai) - Fellow students in the same school. Entered the school before you. As a 2nd year student, 3rd year students are your seniors.
2nd year students: 同級生 (Doukyuusei) - Classmates. Living the same life in the same class.
1st year students: 後輩 (Kouhai) - Fellow students in the same school. Entered the school after you. As a 2nd year student, 1st year students are your juniors.
The senpai/kouhai relationship exists regardless of what people call each other. In a school situation it would be common for 2nd year students to refer to 3rd year students senpai, (or -name- senpai), using senpai as an honorific (see previous article). You don’t refer to kouhai or doukyuusei like this. So you wouldn’t call someone kouhai '(or -name- kouhai). The relationship just exists. (You generally use the words kouhai or doukyuusei when you are talking about people, not to people. For example, “I need to help my kouhai with something.”)
The positions of senpai and kouhai in general society
When you look at society outside of the formal education system the senpai and kouhai relationship gets a bit less clear cut. But it is still something that exists and is well understood by Japanese society. If you start working in a company and someone else starts working in the same company a year later then you would be their senpai and they would be your kouhai. It’s pretty much as simple as that but obviously it’s a bit more dynamic because you are dealing with individuals on a case by case basis rather than big groups of people in clear cut classes. (This situation extends to pretty much any group you join).
It is important to point out that just because someone is your senpai doesn’t mean it’s a requirement to call them senpai. I’ve trained in dojo that never use the term and I’ve also just called people senpai on a whim if they have clearly been around longer than me and I need to ask them for advice as a senior.
Some examples
Outside of Japan the senpai/kouhai relationship has a tendency to get confused age and even rank. Let me give you a few examples that I have witnessed or have impacted me directly:
Hidenori Ashihara (芦原 英典) is the head of my karate style. People who trained with his father in the style he is the head of are his ‘senpai.’ It’s not unusual to hear him call people senpai at events where people call him Kanchou. (He respects the senpai/kouhai relationship, others respect his position as head of the style).
I am currently a shodan in Ashihara Karate. When I joined there was a gentleman who gave up on grading. (He’s old school Kyokushin and just says he doesn’t care to grade anymore). He’s a blue belt (7th kyu) but I am a shodan. He is my senpai because he has been around longer than me.
Some time ago I trained in Wado Ryu Karate and iaido. I had a senpai I did karate with who started iaido after me. He was my senpai at our karate dojo, and I was his senpai at our iaido dojo. (This is a rare case).
I have heard people bring up the word 同輩 (douhai) to mean people of equal standing. This is not a term I have ever seen used in my time living in Japan. In schools entire classes of people are inducted at the same time (which keeps hierarchies in classes simple). But in society, the senpai/kouhai relationship can come in the form of registering for something minutes apart. (My Wado instructor told me that if two people walk in to the dojo and signed up to join on the same day, the one that completed the paperwork first would technically be the senpai. This isn’t anything that should be taken too seriously, but can be thought of as being issued membership cards with the one signing up earlier being one number earlier).
Non-standard use of the word senpai in martial arts
As I discussed in my previous article on the meaning of sensei, some words have been taken on in the English language and now have a life of their own. Senpai is one of those words that has become like this.
Please note that I am characterizing this as ‘non-standard use,’ and not ‘incorrect use.’
Senpai as a kind of instructor
When I was training at the 勇真会 (Yushinkai) dojo in Fukuoka Prefecture I was given the position of 指導員 (Shidouin : instructor). The head of the dojo (会長 : Kaicho), when taking to junior students (usually the kids) would refer to me as Anthony Senpai, but only in the context of “Anthony Senpai is going to run this drill.” He didn’t call me that at any other time. That did not mean that my title or rank was senpai. It just meant that the kids should call me senpai when talking to me (because that was the system at that dojo).
It could be that in the past this kind of interaction was observed when foreign instructors came to Japan and as a result they assumed, “Senpai” is a kind of instructor title. Many dojo in the west bestow the title of senpai on people as a sort of junior instructor below a sensei. This doesn’t happen in all dojo but I have seen it quite often.
I find this to be a little unusual because in a dojo you will be surrounded by people who are senpai and kouhai. But if ‘senpai’ is reserved to people who have been specifically given the title ‘senpai’ then it is prioritized over the general usage hierarchy system. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this used in Japan.
Personally, I would not use senpai this way. But that’s because I’m based in Japan and live in a world where this system is everywhere.
Senpai based on rank
In Japan, once a senpai/kouhai relationship has been established between people it pretty much doesn’t move. It progresses in the same way that time does, which means there’s no way to change from being someone’s kouhai to being their senpai unless what it means to be a senpai/kouhai is fundamentally changed.
In general you would expect people to climb up the ladder of rank as they practice. It’s not unreasonable to expect someone with 10 years experience to have a higher rank than someone with 5 years of experience. But people (for whatever reason) don’t grade at the same speed.
At my Ashihara dojo we often do paired drills together after lining up in rank order. With the higher grades being in one line and the lower grades being in another line facing them. My instructor usually asks the ‘kouhai’ to attack the ‘senpai’ first, but this is not meant to be taken literally since the lines are separated roughly by rank. To be technically correct my instructor would need to say something like 「帯下の人」(obi shita no hito: person with a lower belt) instead of kouhai, but 2 syllables are much easier to say than 7. Therefore, kouhai is used.
Situations like this may also be a cause for some conflation between rank and the senpai/kouhai relationship in some dojo. If standard practice is followed, someone who is your senpai will remain your senpai even if you pass them in terms of rank. When making broad statements like “kouhai attack first,” that is not time to start considering how well you know someone. It’s just an indication that the line made mostly of less experienced people are going to attack the more experienced people first. It’s not an indication that higher grades are universally the senpai to the lower grades.
There may be dojo out there that have a system where higher ranks are referred to as senpai by lower ranks. I have no experience with this system so I can’t comment on it. This is however a non-standard use of the terms.
Final thoughts
As I mentioned in my article “The meaning of 'Sensei' (先生),” because languages have a tendency to evolve over time it might not be worth stressing too much about this if you are in a dojo when western or non-standard usage of the terms are being used. But if you are interested in stressing about this kind of thing I hope this article was somewhat useful.
To be honest, people in Japan don’t really seem to be too hung up about being called the term. I’ve been living in Japan since 2006 and I’ve never come across a person who demanded I call them ‘senpai.’ So with that in mind I’ll leave you with a quote:
Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world - Miyamoto Musashi
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Osu!
"Notice me senpai"
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