November, Istanbul, Books, Questions and Answers

The month of November is a month of art and literature in Istanbul.  Every year in November a couple of important international fairs take place. The most attractive one for me is the International Istanbul Book Fair organized by TUYAP.  Contemporary Istanbul and ArtIst International Istanbul Art Fair are the two other important annual events.  And I was in Istanbul for the two weeks this November to enjoy and attend these important fairs.

I must admit my favorite event is the Istanbul Book Fair.  Has been since I was a child.  This year I had the pleasure and honor to attend the Book Fair as a writer. Although my books have been out starting from the year 2009, this year I attended the Book Fair as a writer for the first time.  During my childhood years, the Istanbul Book Fair has been one of the big attractions in Istanbul every year. 

This year the Fair is in its 34^th year and it is continuously expanding.  I have been told that this year 750 publishing houses attended the Book Fair.  In a very tough year for Turkey and the World, the theme for this year’s Fair was “Humor: Looking at life with a smile.”

Looking at the drastic events taking place in Turkey, in the World and with the latest Paris events sometimes it is indeed almost impossible to smile.  However, to be able to cope with all that is happening, maybe humor and laughter are the most important tools that we need to survive. The tools that we desperately need to find the power and courage to live, to keep on going.

The Book Fair was packed with visitors from Day 1. The first of my book signing days was on the first day of the Fair, on November 7^th, 2015.  The second was on November 13^th, 2015 which was the last Friday of the Book Fair.   During the Book Fair, I had the chance to meet some of the organizers of the Fair through common friends.  I learned that even though about 750 thousand people visit the Fair, only about 20 thousand pay an entrance fee.  Watching the entrance gates is enough to see that it is very true.  All students and teachers enter for free as well as many other groups.  The representatives of TUYAP emphasized that for them this Book Fair is a social responsibility event and has been since the beginning 33 years ago.

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Being among thousands and thousands of books for many days during the Istanbul Book Fair, I must admit that I felt strangely peaceful.  They seemed to offer the possibility of finding all the answers that we are and have been looking for.  They always seem to do that. Then again with my last fifteen-sixteen years of working with energy techniques like Reiki and Jyorei, following the path of listening to our heart and soul, I know that the true answers that we are so desperately seeking come from within.  Or rather from a connection with the whole, a connection with the Source that resonates within.  The answers are not exactly in the books. Yet, the words of many authors whether in fiction or non-fiction, through the stories that they tell, help us identify that which we find in our knowingness.

I do not know the exact number of books that I have.  Probably around five thousand or maybe more. I have never counted. They are scattered in my different libraries in about four different locations.  Many that do not fit in the shelves are in boxes.

I feel good around books. I feel at home around books, wherever I am.  I love the possibility of being carried away and also the possibility of being carried into different moods, emotions, thoughts and the different possible worlds of the real and the imaginary.  I loved reading. Well, I still do. I spent years reading non-stop. 

For years, the books that I had were never enough.  To be honest, until quite recently.  Every new topic of interest brought the desire and the need of reading about it.  I felt best in book fairs and libraries.  The amazing libraries of Cornell University in Ithaca New York still amaze me as they used to do during my college years.  I remember feeling sad for studying engineering because there was not enough time from school to explore the unlimited world of books at Cornell. 

And to study engineering was my choice since I just adored math since I was five or six years old.

As the years progressed, even though I could not resist the temptation to buy new books, I found myself re-reading a selection of less than a hundred instead of continuing to read on as I used to do.  There have been times when I read books continuously one after the other. Sometimes a book a day. 

I also discovered that I am able to read fast, not using a known reading technique, but I seemed to be able to do it. Reading fast made it possible to keep the pace of reading. However, it started to slow down.  My interest turned into returning to read a favorite selection.  And introducing a more carefully selected new ones rather slowly.  The desire and the actual act of buying books unfortunately have not diminished as much.

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My pace and my choices of reading books seem to follow a strange correlation with my questions in and about life.  As my questions diminish and/or as the answers to my questions emerge more naturally or easily from within or from sources that seem to appear and find me, I seem to read less. I read more slowly.  I wait between books. I take my time.

I do not judge the various phases of my own story with books during these last 35 years. It was in fourth grade that I realized their importance for me. The importance of having a book, reading a book, getting lost and found in a book.  It was like breathing and without books I usually felt as if I could not.

And today in Fethiye, I feel thankful.  For having had the chance to meet with the worlds of  many through books. Thankful for having had the chance to quench that thirst. Thankful for knowing that what we need to know seems to have a magical way of reaching us.

I now use my personal libraries more to lend books to friends, students and clients that for myself.  

What the next step in my connection with my books will be, for now I need to wait and see.

With love and light.

Zeynep

Affirmation of the Week:

From Louise L. Hay

“It is my Divine right to take my own direction in life.  I am safe. I am free.”

Quotes of the Week:

“Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.”

Anna Freud

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“Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.”

Nadia Boulanger

To Be a 'Karate Kid' at the Age of 45

The movie “The Karate Kid” that came out in 1984 was the reason many kids like me got interested in Karate.  One of my cousins, Erdogan had started to learn, but learning Karate as a 14 year old girl was not so common and easy. And for that reason, my desire to learn Karate was dormant for over 30 years.

In 2010, this time Will Smith and a couple of other producers made the new version of “The Karate Kid.”  This time with Jackie Chan as the unusual karate teacher and with additional touch of Chinese Kung Fu.

I had been so busy with work and also with NGO activities with Lions Clubs International, with Down Syndrome Association and many more that, although I had never totally forgotten, learning Karate was a dream which would always stay a dream I had thought.

Well, maybe life had other plans for me.

It was a few months ago, after over 30 years, when the topic of Karate came up again and I found myself talking with my cousin Erdogan, telling  him that I wanted to learn Karate.  He immediately had an answer for me. He told me to find, to go to and talk to Mr. Omer Habes in Habes Sports Centre, in Calis, Fethiye. 

I had not known that there was indeed a World and European Champion Karate Instructor in Fethiye.  In turns out, Mr. Omer Habes, who is 7^th Dan in black belt, had won countless National Championships in Turkey in both Kata and Kumite braches of Karate.  He had been the captain of our Turkish National Team for many years, who is also known as one of the best technical Turkish sportsman in Karate. And had become World and European Champion.

One Monday evening I found myself sitting at the corner of Mr. Omer Habes’ Karate training place * his Dojo. The word Dojo in Japanese literally means the “place of the way.”  Watching his class for adults that Monday, I decided to put my fears aside and do something that I wanted to do since I was a young girl.

After my first day of training on that Wednesday, I had become sure that I had made a very good decision. Having wanted to learn Karate for many years, of course I was motivated. I was scared and motivated.  And as some you might know, I have a favor for things Japanese. I am a Reiki instructor and have to Japan many times and I have worked with Japanese NGOs and Foundations.  However, what I found in Karate from day one is beyond what I expected.

The way of Karate is a path. It is told to be a life-long process of self-discovery. However, again from day one I found myself in a wave of energy that energies the body and the soul. I was also amazed, and still am, how Shihan (Master Instructor) Omer Habes follows his students in training.  How he knows the limits and the potential of his students.  Kids and adults alike. In a training, at an unexpected moment you may find him call your name from a distant corner of the Dojo telling you to not give up and do your best at a punch or a kick, just to realize that you were indeed about to give up and wonder how he realized it before you yourself did.

Apart from the classes for adults, I had the chance to watch some of the classes for kids as well.  Tiny kids who are four, five, six years old in yellow, orange and green belts practice Karate in such beauty and discipline, you may find yourself just wanting to keep watching them. I also am very proud to see that there are many young girls of all ages learning and practicing Karate in Mr. Habes’ Dojo. 

Shihan Mr. Omer Habes practices and teaches the “Shotokan” style of Karate, developed by Master Gichin Funakoshi from Okinawa, Japan.  Master Funakoshi was born in 1868 and has passed away in 1957.  Although Karate has very ancient roots, Master Funakoshi was the person who brought Karate from Okinawa to main island Japan, to Tokyo.

On the evening that I visited Mr. Omer Habes’ Dojo in Calis, I ordered some of the books of Gichin Funakoshi online.  I usually feel the need to connect through reading and for Karate I felt the same need.  Of course until the books arrived, I continued to attend the three-nights-a-week classes for adults.

When the books arrived, I started to read “The Twenty Guiding Principles of KARATE” first.  My first impression was that, although the words were not uttered, these 20 principles were very alive and present in our Dojo and in our classes.

One of my other interesting discoveries was that Karate is, when taught honest to its roots, is very “nonviolent.” It is not easy to explain how.  We probably expect Karate to be about power, using power and we expect it to be even dangerous.  I probably did.  The power used in Karate might be dangerous when used with a negative intention, however, the real lesson behind it all seems to be about discovering our inner strength and discovering our weaknesses that we hide even from ourselves and making peace with them, as well as turning them into strengths.

I am lucky because I had the chance to unexpectedly find a world class instructor in Fethiye.  I felt even more lucky when a few trainings later I found myself training in Fethiye with World Champion Scottish Sensei Alistair Mitchell from Great Britain.  We may call Fethiye a small town in Turkey, however Fethiye seems to be able to offer the World to many.  Well, as for Karate, it turns out many World Champions, teachers and masters visit Shihan Mr. Omer Habes, and students like me find the amazing chance to meet these other Karate Masters in his Dojo in Fethiye.

My dream of starting to learn Karate came true after 31 years. 

May your dreams and desires come alive as well.

With love and light.

Zeynep

Contact for Master Ömer Habeş:

Mr. Faruk Habeş / Mrs. Elif Habeş

Fethiye Karate Habes Sports Centre

Habeş Spor Merkezi

Yerguzlar Caddesi No.73-1, Fethiye, Turkey

+90 (543)357 48 00