Ugur ARPACI, I was born in 1990, 26^th February, in Istanbul. Since then, I have been living in the same city. It is the same as name but there has been huge differences in Istanbul since then.

    I understand now that, I spent almost all childhood times by discovering people and try to understand the way of how world behaves. I was pretty much active boy then, completely away from studying and school. I usually find myself in trouble with my friends such as once, half of my left ear was torn in a game play and fortunately people did manage to catch me to hospital and I did had a operation. As I say, I have numerous event which are maybe dangerous and funny most of the time. Maybe I should open a new section and write about them :).

    In 1996, when I was six, there was a election about basketball which was organized by Galatasaray. Galatasaray sport club is one of the biggest and important sport club in Turkey and mostly it is know by being the only Turkish team which awarded UEFA championship cup. Galatasaray is known mostly football, at that time, its star was higher than today. It was, obviously :). Anyway, as I said I was an active boy, my family supported me to try once at least to apply for that election. I did not know how serious that could be, and finally I was selected as a player and I begin to trainings in child class of basic trainings. I spent 3-4 years really tough, in rush, no time for rest, mostly on the way between school and Galatasaray Metin Oktay sport base. I can never forget, 2 years, my school finishes at 2:00 pm then I ride a pretty long way for training which starts at 5:00 pm and ends at 8:00-9:00 pm. I come to home around 10:00 pm and days used to follow themselves like them. Isn't that great for a 10 years old boy? :). I don't boast but I want to tell how hard that was.

    As time goes by, trainings become harder and harder, double trainings in a day. Finally, around the year 2000, I signed a license agreement with Galatasaray sport club and I become a basketball player, officially. I had several tournaments, several supporter, companies wanted to support us (these young boys :) ). I do not remember the exact year but probably around 2002, there was some financial crisis in Clubs accounting, and they 'froze' our section in basketball for a while. At that time, many of my college in that team, go for other clubs for a while. Me; myself, it was my last times at Galatasaray sport club. I moved my license agreement to Efes Pilsen sport club for one year. Around these times, I needed to decide about my future. There was an examination which I have to attend I want to be accepted by a high school. At Efes Pilsen, I had some 'adaptation' problems with my coaches and team-mates. (Yes, there is no place like home -Galatasaray :) ) so, I go for education. In fact, it was quite difficult decision for me. Before, there had been no study in my life. There was mostly physical efforts and restless times for trainings. While the examination deadline approaches, I seriously thinking about joining Turkish Air Force. In order to be accepted in a public school, you only need to pass one examination but when the subject is army, they are looking for a nearly 'perfect body' and enough physical abilities. I passed writing exams for military school with a really high mark, but it was detected that I had myopia, which is an disability in eye. Of course they don't let be fly a jet combat airplane without two perfect healthy eyes, so there was no more option except attending Besiktas Sakip Sabanci High School.

    At the end of first year in high school, it nearly had been 2 years left without any sport activity. It was really strange for me to spend time without running, push-ups or any other physical activity; on the other hand, things that I would want to do in the future comes clearer in my mind. Because every day, I broaden my skills above mathematics and physics; and they really excite me in any way. Especially physics. Later on, I became a physic addicted boy who was willingly join any kind of competitions about physic, and whenever anybody wants to know anything about mechanical or electrical physic, I used to try to inspire them as much as I can. Moreover, modern physic excited me more than other part of physic which requires more complex mathematical analysis and different sort of 'ideal thinking' which I did not have at that time so I stuck there...

    Any time I share my skills with other people, in competition or in any part of actual life, I observe that peoples behavior and anger limit themselves. Competitions only makes people more wild and stands as an obstacle in front of them. That's the reason why I stopped to run my skills in any kind of competitive area. Physic really taught me about 'anger' and human relationship; “people want things, but they don't go for it”.

    Meanwhile the time I spent for physic, I was looking for any activity that includes physical training mostly. I was like a bomb that could explode in any moment without perspire :).

    Around the time when I wanted to join army, I had used to gain some skills about surviving in limited source of food and water, fighting in combat-empty hand or gun fight-, educating mind for stressful moments, using knives, bayonet etc. There are many martial art that I could train and more I research about them, there was one that actually explains almost every single detail that is related to universe and human relations between them or gives all 'base truths' and let you to find 'your own truth'. This one is found by Morihei Ueshiba and called Aikido. Aikido is a Japanese martial art and based on Ueashiba s martial art studies, philosophy and religious beliefs. The meaning of the word 'Aikido' is the way of harmonious spirit. This is more clear and obvious in techniques, practitioners can defend themselves while protecting their attacker from injury. In fact Aikido practitioners tries to show an 'another way' to the attacker who is headed to wrong way... He is attacking to you, he is in a wrong way, isn't he? :).

    If you are interested and want more details about Aikido, and martial arts, all you should do is google it. But I strongly suggest you not to try any of these techniques related to any of martial art because they are fatal sometimes and definitely they are not how they seem.

    Since this is a way of understanding the 'one soul' of universe and implementing this to real life, a very well Sensei ( In Japanese, Sensei means teacher, master, doctor etc. ) should be chosen. Meaning of 'well' is pretty much related to how he looks to life, what does the sensei really want to teach to their students and in my opinion more importantly, does he really dedicate himself in this way? And I am really happy to find him, ( I think I am pretty much lucky at this point :) ) and I appreciate him so much to be a student of him. My great sensei is Mehmet Lemi Bağdatlılar. God knows how many years he has been training Aikido, but obviously it is more then 35 years. He is one on the 5^th Dan Black Belt Degree among a very few people who live in Turkey. His greatness and profession in teaching become obvious when I try to implement his ideas in my life. More information about Mehmet Lemi Bağdatlılar.

    The effects of techniques and spiritual bridge of its philosophy between personal soul and universe itself, really locked me itself, and since 2005, I have been training it and I am carrying 1^st dan Aikikai Black Belt degree. I want to thank Lemi Bağdatlılar to be like a friend of mine and I appreciate for the effort that he is spending on all of the student to have an “aware personality”.

    I spend my last 2 years in high school by improving my 'human relationship' and trying to find good communication ways between people... And I think I made hell of a progress...Now this is my 2^nd year at Yeditepe University at Computer Engineering department, trying to improve my skills in this area as much as I can so that, I can be a 'useful' college for all the people around me.