Leisure Time

Sports

Turkish people are devoted to sports in general and to soccer in particular.

Though soccer is still the dominating sport in Turkey a number of other sports such as basketball, volleyball, handball and the ancestral game of oil-wrestling are important and has many followers. Specially basketball is the second most popular sport, has been incresing its popularity as Turkish players Mirsad Turkcan, Hidayet Turkoğlu, Mehmet Okur started to Show up at NBA.

In addition, Turkey has had considerable success in athletics. One of the most successful Turkish athletes is weightlifter Naim Süleymanoglu who has won the Olympic Featherweight Competition 3 times, has set 58 world records and is among the only 7 people in the world to lift 3 times his own weight.

Besides the more modern sports the Turkish people indulges in some more traditional sports. Of these the most well-known are two different kinds of wrestling; Oil-wrestling and camelwrestling. The national championships – and, in effect, the world championships – of oil-wrestling take place every June in Edirne near the Turkish-Greek border.

Schools generally offer different sport opportunities. Most of the schools have their own sports hall and students may use indoor and outdoor facilities. Of course this varies from school to school.

Schools compete especially a lot in basketball, handball and soccer. This also brings a huge competition inside the school to get into the school teams.

Besides school, sport clubs and sport schools are the options for doing sports, however, some of the sport schools and centres may require membership and additional fees.

Music And Dance

Music: The popular Turkish music is very much influenced by the traditional music. Many modern artists use old beats, instruments or voices in their modern music.

Most parts of traditional Turkish music is played by the instrument “Saz”, a sort of longnecked guitar, however in rural areas more popular are flutes as “Zurna” and the sheperd flutes “Kaval” and “Ney”, as well as the “Davul”, a small hand drum.

During the 18th century, European composists were very fond of Brassinstruments and drums of the Turks and liked to implement it into their music, as Haydn did with his “Militäsinfonie” and Beethoven in his “9 th Sinfonie”.

Today there is a large number of Turkish artists – Djs as well focused on traditional music. In the radio there are seperate stations for both European, modern music, and traditional music.

Due to the fact that Turkish students are over busy with exam preparations for the university you should be ready and motivated to find out and attend social activities outside the school.

Dance: Dance clubs and activities have been developing a lot in schools. Traditional folk dances have always been existing in schools. Besides folk dances, salon dances, hip-hop groups and many sorts of dance opportunities would be available within the school depending on the facilities and the interest of the students. There are also some dancing clubs and schools outside the school territory.