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Have any of you trained with or been to seminars with Surachai Sirisute? He refers to himself as Ajarn Chai but students usually use Ajarn and Master interchangably. Translation between languages is never a direct thing so you are really trying to find two words that discribe more or less the same concept. Does translating Ajarn as 'teacher' discribe the same concept. I would suggest that the amount of status and respect given to a 'teacher' in asian cultures would be very different to that given to teachers in western societies (unless your school experiences were all very different to mine!). So if you a going to give someone a title with 'maximum respect' in english, master is as good as any. I guess a lot of it also comes from us all watching too many Kung Fu movies + the fact that most of people who train in MT have trained in other traditional Japanese/Korean/Chinese arts previously! However people taking this 'title' on themselves is a problem as there is no Master entrance exam!
In terms of the grading thing, I dont have a problem with it. I think everyone knows that your fighting record is the true measure of ability but I think gradings are useful to help people to that level. At my gym you have to pass a "warrant of fighting" test before you can train in the fighters class. This makes sure that your skills and fitness are up to scratch and I think that it is a sensible move as far as making sure that you aren't feeding people to the sharks without being able to defend themselves.
So you can call yourself "Master" if you have a masters degree? Cool! From now on you must all refer to me as "Master Matman"! LOL!