Description:

The term Sifu was borrowed from Chinese by early Han Sef practitioners in order to hide the Japanese roots of their karate, and became the general word in Common for a martial arts instructor. It is treated as a general world and people don't concern themselves with the correctness of the usage. In Modern Common it could apply to anyone from a registered Han Sef instructor to a traditional karate inspector to a Western boxing coach.

Sifu can also be used as an honorific head term, in which case it is not capitalised, e.g., na Javier Sullivan sifu who is credited with founding Han Sef.

It is unusually only used in a noun context, but in a verb context, it can be used as a transitive skurun verb meaning to teach (martial arts).