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 3^rd 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 3^rd, 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 3^rd, 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,

Karate, What Are You Telling Us? - A Translation

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 3^rd 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 3^rd, 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 3^rd, 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:

Link-1:  http://blog.milliyet.com.tr/karate-sen-bize-neler-soyluyorsun-/Blog/?BlogNo=537979

Link.-2:  http://zeynepkocasinan.blogspot.com.tr/2016/08/karate-sen-bize-neler-soyluyorsun_4.html

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