Author page: Jan Macháček

We sat on the mats after practi­ce, resigned expres­si­ons on our faces. I think Hon­za bro­ke the silen­ce: ‘When is the next tra­i­ning? And where?”
On that Thur­sday in Novem­ber, the first snow fell in Stoc­kholm. The begin­ning of win­ter. We slept on the tata­mi at the Iya­saka Aiki­do­klubb (the­re’s an insa­ne­ly noi­sy air-con­di­ti­o­ning sys­tem run­ning at night) and got up at six in the mor­ning. An hour practi­ce, a quick chan­ge of clo­thes and a subway ride to Vana­dis, whe­re the­re was ano­ther mor­ning practi­ce at ano­ther club. Then we had bre­ak­fast at the cafe whe­re Ast­rid Lin­gren used to go (Pipi Lon­gs­tockking was writ­ten in the tene­ment across the park) and the lunch­ti­me tra­i­ning was star­ting, which of cour­se we also atten­ded. Three wor­kouts in half a day would­n’t have been too much, but we kept up the pace of 3–5 hours of exer­ci­se on our six­th day in Stoc­kholm… and we still had three more inten­se days to go.