Autobiography - 1: Early Years and Sand Wrestling

Q: Can you tell us something about your early years?

A: Let me start by saying I was born in Malaysia, in 1949, in a small city called Saraman, a rural area place called Rasa. I was the youngest of three children. My brother, who was the middle child, has passed away. My sister, who is over 80 years old – I think somewhere around 86 or 87 – is still alive with her family in Malaysia. So I was brought up as the last child and I was a very chubby, very fat young boy. We were a middle-class family. Before I went to school, my father worked as a truck driver, and later for the British army. Malaysia was under British colony at that time, before that it was under Japanese colony. The Japanese took over Malaysia and later the British took over.

My father was influential in martial arts – a little bit, not very much. He mostly practiced wrestling, which we call sand wrestling, or gusti, its real name. It comes from India. He would dig a big place, soften the sand by sprinkling water on it, and invite the neighboring children to take part and teach us wrestling. So I used to do this sand wrestling, or gusti as it was called then, and still is today. We wrestled to defend ourselves, and I was usually the winner because I was overweight and fat, giving me a big advantage. I was doing that when I was around five years old.

Q: What were your first feelings about martial arts, about sand wrestling?

A: I wasn't thinking much about martial arts. I didn't know what martial arts was all about. I was only thinking about defending myself, learning how to fight, and trying to win over the other kids.

Q: What kind of child were you? You said you were fatty, not very athletic. Were you shy? Were you quiet?

A: Oh, I was a very quiet guy, not very active. I enjoyed eating food more than doing anything else. Playing around with other kids wasn't much of a possibility because we didn't have many other kids nearby. So, at that age, the only thing I really did was this wrestling. I never did any other sport activities and I was not an athletic kid either.

Q: But you were eager.

A: Yes, I was eager to learn something and to practice to win against the other kids. There were just two or three neighbor children around, not many others. So we didn't have much else to play around with other than this.

Q: Can you say that your father was training you?

A: Yes. He used to show us some techniques, and then we wrestled around on the sand. This didn't last for very long because we were always moving from one place to another, shifting our home. So, it was a short time, maybe about a year or a year and a half, that we practiced until we moved to another house and we didn't have this opportunity to wrestle on the sand anymore. That was the end of my career until, say, about six years old. I started at five, maybe six or six and a half, and at seven I started going to school.

And this would be the next chapter for another clip. Thank you very much.

Interviewer: You're most welcome.

A: I'll be eager to tell you more about my later years. So, the first martial art which I engaged in was gusti. That was my…

Interviewer: Thank you. Thank you for the nice interview. See you soon.

A: See you soon.

Interviewer: If you, dear viewer, have any questions about Sensei Miazara's life, feel free to write them in the comments. Thank you very much and goodbye.