On August 3rd, I wrote an article about the Karate conversations of two Karate Masters, Shihan Ömer Habeş from Turkey and Shihan Alistair Mitchell from Scotland. The article appeared on my Blog page in MilliyetBlog and on my personal Blog page. Of course it was in Turkish.
I write in Turkish and in English. However, up until today, I had never really translated any of my writing from Turkish to English or English to Turkish. This is a first. And I realize that this is difficult. And this translation is for Shihan Alistair Mitchell. To be able to share as correctly as possible what I wrote in the article in Turkish. Maybe some of it could have been said better in English in another way. I tried to do my best as fast as I could.
Dear Shihan Alistair Mitchell,
I wish and hope that I was able to reflect your thoughts and feelings correctly. I am feeling grateful to you and my Shihan Mr. Ömer Habeş for giving me the chance to listen, to learn, to share this experience. Thank you so much.
*
Karate, What Are You Telling Us?
Last year, to be exact on
August 31st, 2015, if you had told me that in a about a year’s time I would be
sitting next to two, one Turkish and one Scottish, World Karate Champions, that
I would be doing Karate with orange belt, and maybe more importantly, that what
they talk about would sound meaningful to me, of course I would not believe
you.
However, in 2016, on August 3rd
in Fethiye, on a night that seems to be cooler than the nights before, I am sort
of baffled by and positively surprised at myself as I am sitting on a stool
next to these two Karate masters at the end of the training, at my Karate
teacher Mr. Ömer Habeş’s Dojo. I had
just completed a training where I was both taking part in the training and
translating for our visiting Shihan from Scotland, Mr. Alistair Mitchell. Me,
Zeynep. Although I was feeling that I was
not even close to begin to comprehend what Karate is, which was a point that our
teacher had pointed out at times and that I could only agree with, I had
started to do Karate which I had loved since I was a kid for some reason. I was doing it.
I was doing punches. Different kicks. For example, I was able to lift my legs like
I could never before in my mawashi geri kicks.
The list of the names of the techniques that I know was getting
longer. I was beginning to comprehend
the existence of Karate’s way ‘Do’. I was
reading the books by Master Funakoshi, who is known as the person who made
Karate known in the World as Karate. I
was listening to my own Shihan, my teacher Mr. Ömer Habeş attentively. I was realizing that Karate was making me
stronger as well as calming me down while strengthening me.
Last year on August 31st, a
new page called Karate opened up in my life.
And since that day on, almost every day, I am grateful that Karate is in
my life.
*
On the night of the August 3rd,
as I was translating for my Master Teachers, Shihan Ömer Habeş and Shihan
Alistair Mitchell, I felt myself again in a movie scene. This was not my first time to translate for
them. When Shihan Alistair Mitchell was
in Fethiye last May, I had had the chance to translate a few times in and out
of Dojo. In this new visit in August,
the two Shihans were having long conversations and this was giving me a chance
to peek in through, the sort of mystical, doors of the world of Karate.
I probably would be needing
more time to be able to go through those doors, yet, to be able to listen to
two Karate people who have given their lives to Karate, to be part of their deep
conversation in a sense, was such a great luck.
I was feeling maybe more lucky than ever as I was translating. It was as if I was watching a movie and I was
so close to that movie, as if I was watching it from inside the scenes.
*
What did the Masters, the
Shihans talk about?
First of all, they were two
people who understood each other very well. Even though they were speaking two
different languages, even though they belong to different religions or nationalities,
they were two people who very apparently understood each other very well. They had represented their own countries at
the very top level, earned medals, became World Champions as sportsmen;
however, there was something that they almost shared in every conversation that
I had translated. They were not Karate
sportsmen. They were Karate men. They were people who did Karate. This was a very very important distinction
that needed to be understood to be able understand them.
Shihan Habeş said that what disappoints
him or makes him sad the most is having a student leave the Dojo, leave Karate,
or continue to train with another teacher. “It makes us sad,” Shihan Habeş said. He told
that it is as if one leaves his father to go to his step father. He told that this slows down one’s training,
one’s path. An even if they unite
afterwards, there is this heartbrokenness that cannot be totally mended. Shihan Mitchell was feeling similar
things. That it is not possible to win
every student, but that they hope and work for this.
As they were defining what
being a good teacher is, Shihan Habeş talked about the importance of being a
good person. Shihan Mitchell emphasized
many times that they are working and trying to be a good person. They agreed
that a good teacher should surpass his own teacher and also should raise and
train students that will surpass him. It
was difficult to be a good teacher. But
maybe it was even more difficult to find a good student.
At the end of the training in
our Dojo on August 3rd, Shihan Habeş had mentioned something that he had shared
with us a few times before. “Maybe very
few of you will continue to do Karate.
Maybe one in a thousand will continue.
And maybe that person will someday pass on the knowledge that we share
to others.” He was sharing that most of the students that a
teacher spends a lot of effort to train would be leaving the path of Karate.
So were all the efforts wasted
then?
“Efforts are never wasted,” said Shihan Habeş. Shihan Mitchell shared a story from his own life. About 15-20 years ago, two young boys aged 14, 15 who were students of a friend of his, came to his Dojo. Of these two boys, one went on with his Karate training, had a good career in the army and had a good family. Yet, the other kid got into alcohol, drugs and gangs and went into dark time in his life. Shihan Mitchell told us, “I said to myself, we lost him. We lost this kid.”
Well, years pass and one day
Shihan Mitchell receives a message in Facebook. From that kid that was lost. He introduces himself and continues to tell
that for three, four years he had done really bad things and were in the
dark. However, this kid when he reaches
the age of 18, remembers Karate. He
remembers what did with Karate, the principles and teachings of Karate that
Shihan shared with him. And he decided
to leaves this bad life; he decides to change his life. He moves to Japan, does Karate, marries a
Japanese lady, has a great family, becomes a Karate teacher, opens up a Karate
Dojo and works to train his and other kids as champions.
What affected Shihan Mitchell
the most was what this man now in his thirties said. He said, “Karate saved my life. I remembered
the things that you said, the things that you taught. I tidied up my life. Thank you.” His sharing this so many years later was
obviously very meaningful to Shihan Mitchell.
“I had thought that we had lost
him,” Shihan Alistair Mitchell said. “But we hadn’t. We were successful.” Shihan Ömer Habeş added that he had similar
stories, similar examples in his life as well.
To help children and young
people become good people, help them improve themselves, being good role models
for these kids were their common goal.
These two kind and calm, peaceful warriors had so much life experience.
Shihan Alistair Mitchell said with his calm gentle smile, “We had to give so much
effort to learn. Wish we can find a way to pass on our knowledge, what we have learned
over thirty years to the younger
generation, so that they do not lose the time we lost.” Shihan Habeş was saying “We learned by trial
and error. There were only a few good teachers around the world and how would we
get the chance to meet them.”
They were sharing that it is
now possible to reach all top level Karate information through a smart
phone. “There is no excuse for bad
Karate” Shihan Mitchell said. Indeed, in
their times, under their circumstances, to be that successful, to live and to do
Karate as successfully as they were able to do, they must have really given it
a lot of effort.
*
That night I had the chance to
listen an important story about the life of my teacther Shihan Ömer Habeş for
the first time. As he was telling it to
Shihan Alistair Mitchell. Actually they were talking about being a good person,
doing goodness, trying to keep others especially students from bad examples,
pushing them, leading them towards the good.
They were talking showing the direction and also that each students has
to walk the path himself. Then, one
topic led to another and we learned that Shihan Ömer Habeş, while he was living
and training teams in Germany, for over ten years, he gave seminars on weekends
and with the fees of these seminars we helped support many different organizations. Some were for the rehabilition of alcoholics
and drug addicts in Germany. He sent
donations to different causes in Africa.
He tried to support many people from many different backgrounds.
He continued to explain, “I
did not know about racism, but saw it in Germany. That’s why in all my
seminars, I started by saying that ‘No Karate person around the world is racist.’
That was my headline.”
Shihan Ömer Habeş gets to see
and experience racism in many different forms as a Turk living in Germany. With that personal life experience, he spends
a special effort to if U may say obliterate racism. He helps people from different walks of life
and backgrounds.
So much that, one day the
chief of police of the state that he is training the Karate Team of gives him a
call and tell Shihan Habeş that he has a letter from the President of
Germany. The chief of the police
department, who is also a friend and a student, makes an official visit to
Shihan an gives him the letter that is inviting Shihan Habeş to the capital
Bonn to visit the German Parliament and the President. In about three months, on the day invited
Shihan Habeş goes to Bonn with the members of the parliament from that
state. The head of the German Parliament
welcomes him to the Parliament and he gives a speech at the Parliament. At the end he is exposed to a what he calls a
sad question by a journalist who seems to be racist. A question that is unfortunately applauded by
some in the crowd. Yet, Shihan continued
to tell us “We Karate people need to think fast” and told that he gave a reply
that made the members of the Parliament give a standing ovation.
The question is really a sad
question. The journalist asks, “As a Muslim aren’t you sad for the massacres of
Usame Bin Ladin?” It is hard to grasp
what kind of thought leads one to ask such a negative question because of his
religion, to a person who has been invited to the German Parliament for his humanitarian
work for people of different nationalities and religions. However, the question is indeed stated. And
Shihan Habeş, with that quick thinking that he was mentioning gives this reply,
“As you feel very sorry as a Christian for the massacres done by Hitler, I also
am very sorry. Yes, I am very sorry.”
Shihan said that for about five seconds there was no sound in the Parliament
and afterwards came the applauding and the standing ovation.
*
In Fethiye, on August 3rd, on a night that seemed
to be slightly cooler that the nights before, coming out of our training in my
teacher Shihan Ömer Habeş’s Dojo, I did a translation for two World Champions.
They understand each other
very well, they really respect each other, and make it known through their
words as well as through the unspoken that is reflected in their eyes, they
have very similar life adventures with their unique stories. I am feeling very very lucky to have had the
chance to get to know and to have as role models these two good and valuable
people,
*
Links to the articles in Turkish:
No comments:
Post a Comment