My daughter’s karate instructor goes by the title shihan instead of sensei. Can anybody tell me what this means?
Sensei is a rather general “teacher.” Doctors are also sensei, as are famous comic book artists and politicians. So obviously things are a bit fishy.
Shihan and shishou are more specifically martial arts teachers–though technically the characters just mean “teacher”–and both are used. I come across shishou more often in comics.
It might be regional or that certain martial arts prefer a certain one–I’m not sure. Shihan sounds more Chinesey to me, but that might just be the “han” ending (Chinese being the Han people in Japanese), and seems more respectful. I could also swear that there is also shihandai which is what you call the 120 year old master who can jump 80 feet in the air–but my subconscious might just have made that up; it is not in my dictionaries.
“Shishouuuuu! Shinanai deeee!!!”
Sorry, just had to say that 
According to the handbook at my kid’s dojo, Sensei is teacher; Shihan is master teacher. Shihan dai is Master teacher’s assistant. My kid’s teacher holds Shihan certification but he prefers to be addressed as Sensei by his students.
I finally verified the characters used for “dai.” It just means “replacement” and would probably be used quite literally that way,
But as to Graycat’s research: Probably best to listen to her for what to say in the US.
However, I am highly doubtful that in Japan would attaching any sort of ranking to these words make any sense to the locals. They are just everday words. That’s not to say that there aren’t implied meanings of different status–but what meanings are there are very particular to Japanese.
A asks B about their teacher:
Is sensei well?
A asks the teacher directly:
Shihan, are you well?
A asks B about the replacement teacher (an understudy they know):
Is Takahashi-san well?
A asks the replacement teacher directly:
Takahashi-sensei, are you well?
A asks B about the replacement teacher (a visiting teacher):
Is sensei well?
A asks the replacement teacher directly:
Shihan-dai, are you well?
Things wouldn’t necessarily end up like this, dependent on the individual and how used they were to using the specific title instead of the generic term. But in general, something along these lines would be quite natural. When talking directly to the teacher, you will refer to them by their title–though the understudy is really just another student, so they could be a lot more familiar in their talking to him if they know him well. While as when just generally talking about the teacher in the third person, just using the word sensei across the board would not be odd–though they may use the specific title if they are used to saying it a lot or it was a particularly strict environment.
On a sidenote, when I was in college my Kendo/Judo/Archery/Taikyokuken teachers were all “sensei.” This would just be a matter that before being martial arts instructors, they are college teachers–who would not be called “shihan” or “shishou”–and this takes precedence in that setting. For a private school they might use these terms, but I haven’t attended any so I can’t comment.
Traditionally, these two words would have indicated a fairly strong one-to-one link of teacher and student. Dojo were not just an after-school/work thing you did, but rather a place where you would learn a philosophy of life and the reasons that you fought the way you did. Some dojo were indeed full schools where your one teacher would teach reading and writing on up–but I believe these ceased existence with the beginning of the Meiji restoration. In a large sense, to the students of such a school their shishou would have been very much a surrogate father. …Admittedly I have no idea how prevalent these were in real life–though Yoshida Shoin’s school was instrumental in bringing about the Meiji Restoration (a civil war which led to the Emperor returning to power and the modernization of Japan.)
“Shishouuuuu! Shinanai deeee!!!”
Is a cliched snippet you hear every once in a while. Shishou loses a battle, and all of his deshi wail, telling him not to die.
Anyways:
For the US best to do as they do.
And I’m not a native speaker–so I might indeed by totally off. But I don’t believe so.