by ramon dacawi

Former world karate champion Julian Chees arrived here recently for an Igorot memorial in honor of his late mother, Emilia (Camfili), who died last year. Before traveling to his native village in Maligcong, Bontoc, Mt. Province for the traditional rites,he did a personal ritual that had marked his previous homecomings.



A day after he arrived, the newly promoted martial artist under the Japan Karate Association was at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center to arrange the measurements of a body brace badly needed by a 17-year old girl to prevent worsening of her scoliosis.

Just before coming home, Chees, now 49, read on the internet the appeal of Rosanna Divino, a freshman architecture student at the University of the Cordilleras. Her doctors advised having her on a brace to check the progression of her spinal deformity

The second of four children of a carpenter, Rosanna admitted her family could not raise P17,000 for the brace, much less the estimated P400,000 for spinal surgery as permanent solution to disfiguring, painful ailment.

After setting her appointment with the brace maker, Chees shook hands with the patient, bidding her good luck. He explained he may not meet her again before his return to Germany where he heads over 50 shotokan or traditional martial arts schools under the Japan Karate Association.

From the brace shop, Chees moved up to the pedia surgical ward to find three-year old cancer victim Edlyn Joy Dacanay asleep in her bed. Later, he set aside some funds for a humanitarian worker hospitalized for kidney ailment.

Like what Rosanna needs, Edlyn Joy had been fitted with a brace, also to prevent the onslaught of scoliosis. She needs to sit now and then, to prevent bedsores from eating up her back, so Edgar made a triangular seat out of inflated plastic IV tubes..

The three patients, here, together with others in Maligcong, were the latest in a long list that Kinderhelfe, a foundation established by Chees and his martial arts students, reached out to over the years.

This time, the out-reach served as Julian’s way of marking his promotion to fifth-dan blackbelt the other Friday, just before he traveled for home. Shihan Hideo Ochi, the 69-year old eighth-dan chief instructor of JKA-Europe, also based in Germany bestowed the rank.
Chees wore the fourth dan belt for nine years before taking the tough promotional examination, and only after Ochi hinted it with the subtlety of the language of masters last January. Last March, JKA-Germany president Bernd Hinschberger again told him it was time – and long overdue.

Students of traditional karate rarely pronounce their readiness to advance. Chees admitted his reluctance was also because his former teachers, Edgar Kapawen and Shihan Kunio Sasaki, never took their promotions. Kapawen, chief instructor of the Northern Luzon headquarters of JKA-Orient, is at fourth dan while, Sasaki, 71, who established JKA-Philippines in the early ‘60s, remains at sixth dan.

“My teachers’ promotions are long overdue,” Julian said, thanking them for what he had become. .

“As his former teacher, I’m proud of him,” Kapawen said. More so, he said, as his former student had completed a grueling five-day teaching task in a mass seminar just before his exams. “He had no rest and practice which his fellow examinees had before they came for the exams.”

For his final kata in the promotional, Chees chose sochin, the same advance formal exercise expressive of strength and calm, and which served as his winning form in capturing his third world title in the 7th World Championships last June in Forth Lauderdale, Florida.

His first world title came in 1993, when he topped the kata event in the World Shotokan Championships in Saarsbrucken, Germany, followed by his victory in the same event two years ago in the World Karate Confederation tournament in Bergamo, Italy.

An Igorot dreaming of becoming an army officer, Chees entered Germany as a civilian staff in a U.S. Army base. Soon, he was winning tournaments and caught the attention of the German national team. It drafted him, the first non-German to join the national pool.

The “kleine Philippino” (small Filipino) was unbeatable in international competitions in Europe. Among others, he topped the England International three times and Dutch International three times. ** CMO-PIO