Can I kick it?

I haven't told anything about it yet, but about a month ago I joined the Taekwondo-club of Waseda. At Waseda University, there are numerous clubs (called saakuru) that engage in all kinds of activities. I think there are at least a thousand of such saakuru, reaching from political discussion groups to the ultimate frisbee sportsclub, and from one of the many karateclubs to the magic-trick saakuru. I wanted to do a sport, and in France I really liked doing Taekwondo, so I decided to join that club. Maybe it's a bit strange to practice a martial art from Korea while I'm in Japan, but I just don't feel at ease with Japanese martial arts. They're all interesting, but I don't like the way they emphasise the standerd patterns of reacting to your opponent. Those standard reactions are only usefull if you've trained on all the possible movements your opponent could make and mastered all the reactions perfectly. Also the kata's, a standard series of movements that you wouldn't really use in a fight, seem a bit useless to me. I think it's better to practice the basic movements and then learn to improvise in using them. This is also what I like about Taekwondo: it leaves quite some space for improvisation and the basic movements themselves are great: spinning kicks, flying kicks, back-kicks and lately I've learned a flying punch. So much fun! I must admit we also practice kata's, but they are only a small part of the training. The biggest part consists of practicing kicks and punches, or series of kicks and punches that actually can be used in a fight. Sometimes we also have short spar fights, but I've only done that twice until now.
The club at the university consists of only students, of whom the best ones teach the others. They train in the 'student center', which is always filled with clubs everywhere practicing whatever they do (there are quite some singing clubs practicing in the corridors each time) because there's not enough space. We practice in a room called 'student lounge' at the 6th floor (with a view on Shinjuku's skyscrapers), but it's good enough. I go there on Wednesday. On Friday I go to a sports center in the direction of Shinjuku, where 'real' teachers (black belt, 6th dan if I remember well) teach the people who come there, only a small part of whom are Waseda-students. The others are students of other universities or employees, so it's quite a mixed group. The training there is more intense but fun to do.
One interesting thing a got to learn about at the circle is the sempai-kouhai system. This is especially strong in sport-clubs, but it actually functions in all aspects of Japanese society. When entering the club (or a company or school), the newcomer or kouhai is a kind of subordinate to everyone who entered before him. Because of this position, he has to treat his 'seniors' or sempai (also when they're not older than him) with respect, adressing him with polite language etc. Actually, at the taekwondo club this is not very important, but it's funny to see how it works. The kouhai always take the practicing materials to the room and afterwards bring them back to the locker. The sempai lead the training and ask for the salute at the beginning and end of the training. This is actually just a general sign of respect, but someone has to give the signal so that everyone says it at the same time. This results in a funny situation when the 'oldest' sempai is too modest and reluctant to take this role. However, he is always reminded of his position by his kouhai. My sempai (there are many, but one guy in particular helped me at the beginning since he's the guy who maintains the contact between the student's club and the sports center) is also quite modest about this and he only occasionally comes to have dinner after the training. First I didn't really know why, since many kouhai do have dinner afterwards. But when he came along one time it became clear to me: because he is the sempai, he had to pay for all of us, even if we say he doesn't have to. I also witnessed a nice example of this last friday when I went to an English pub close by. I was talking to some Japanese guy and asked him if he wanted to have a drink. He said he first had to ask his sempai (they were from a tennis club) who was sitting at another table. The sempai then gave him money to buy a drink for both of us! Not such a bad system after all!
In general, I try to be polite enough and behave in the way that seems the best to me. I don't mind showing respect to my fellow club-members. They are all my sempai, so I don't really have to treat any of them differently. I don't really know how to use polite language in this case though, but they probably don't mind because I'm a foreigner. I actually asked that one sempai about this whole system and he said: 'don't worry about that, just enjoy the training'. So why not follow his advice?