Hobbies

Puzzle hunt games

I have been participating in puzzle hunt games since 2005, when I first tried to go through the legendary TMOU. The initial experience was as usual for a first-timer - we only managed to solve the second or third puzzle. However, the thrill of solving puzzles in the dark with a headlamp captivated me, and I became hooked on puzzle hunt games. Over time, we formed a stable puzzlehunt-solving team called NaPALM, with which I regularly participate in several puzzle hunt events each year. I also organize a puzzle hunt game called NaPALMně. An article in Rovnost newspaper discusses our shared passion.

Organizing the NaPALMně puzzlehunt game and especially inventing and creating puzzles is my main hobby. For me, inventing a puzzle means putting a secret message into a fun logic problem. To do this, you need to understand what information the players have and how they think and try to guide them in the right (ideally unique and fun way) towards the goal. This is to give them new information that they do not have and are looking for in the atmosphere of something unknown and mysterious.

There were many unforgettable moments at NaPALMně. For me, the most significant ones are the fourth year with two stops at Nový hrad (the New Castle) near Blansko and the final task on the basis of augmented reality, the seventh year with a puzzle in the planetarium of the Brno Observatory, the eighth year using a Lego kit with an unforgettable and one of the best puzzles of our game, the Trosky puzzle, and the ninth year using dice, for which the players showered us with the largest amount of positive feedback so far, the celebratory tenth year for which Czech Television filmed a special episode of the AZ quiz, the epic and atmospheric start of the twelfth year at the castle in Rosice (including their unique atomic shelter) and finally the thirteenth year, which was a reconstruction of Jára Cimrman's puzzlehunt game with an indispensable introductory seminar before the game.

Useful links

Juggling

In October 2010, during the Researchers' Night, I visited Dáša Heiland Trávníková's program on juggling with my children. Dáša works at the Faculty of Sports Studies and is also involved with the KUFR theatre. During a breathtaking popular science lecture, she claimed that juggling has a beneficial impact on brain functioning, improves coordination skills, is very simple, and that anyone can learn it... and at any age. That last one was the most interesting to me. Subconsciously, I longed to learn this skill (in retrospect, I remember watching little Vašek Peca in Bolek Polívka's Manéž in amazement and admiration). The day after the Researchers' Night, I made my first juggling balls out of millet, plastic bags and inflatable balloons according to the instructions we were taught there and started practicing diligently.

A few weeks after Researchers' Night, I mastered the 3-ball cascade and was eager to learn more. I taught myself using the Juggler's syllabary and YouTube videos. Later I attended several juggling workshops where I was taught by great jugglers (Vašek Peca, Daniela Paličková, Filip Zahradnický, Lauge Benjaminsen, or Bratři v tricku), and during COVID I was taught by Rendolf. In 2023, I know over 50 different tricks with 3 balls, ten tricks with 4 balls, and a solid 5-ball cascade. I can do a few tricks with three clubs or circles and enjoy passing with multiple jugglers and am not afraid to juggle with fire. I have infected my children with juggling and they have become members of Circus Legrando and understandably juggle better than I do. For my archer friends, we formed an amateur family theatrical juggling group called Chromá kobyla (in English the Lame Mare, because three of us can juggle and one, my wife, not so much). We even made several public performances during their annual archery afternoon 'O růži zámecké paní' ("Roses of the Castle Lady") in Kuřim.

Interesting and useful links

Great balls made and sold by Vašek Peca
Amazing performance by Chris Bliss
I discovered Street Juggling in Stockholm during COVID. When Wes Peden later performed in Prague, I had to see his show with my own eyes.

Sport

I belong to a generation that in my youth did not know mobile phones, let alone the internet, and computers were a rarity for them. Like most village kids, I spent my free time outdoors. We played football, tennis, hockey, ping pong, climbed trees or rode our bikes. When the Ice-hockey World Cup was on, we made wooden goals in the garage and played hockey in the street or on the pond. When there was a Peace Race (Závod míru), we raced bicycles. When Wimbledon was played, we played tennis on grass and sometimes on cinder :-) I just like sports. In college I fell in love with basketball, which I've played regularly once a week ever since, and it's my favourite of all sports. During the summer holidays I replace basketball with (beach) volleyball. I like to play squash or go jogging.

Chess

I started playing chess as a young boy. I remember how I couldn't beat my uncle, how I used to play with my mom's work colleague, and my first chess books. I was taught the basics of endgames by my high school (Gymnázium) classmate, great friend, then chess player and now mathematician David Kruml. During my studies I played several amateur matches for Gymnasium Jaroška B and under the desk I played chess with my friends during boring classes at school :-). After Gymnasium I didn't play much. It was only when my son started going to the chess club at ŠK Kuřim that I found that I was still attracted to 64 squares and that even in old age you can learn a lot. I learned the difference between chess tactics and strategy and started to learn chess again. In 2014, I took a coaching course and started helping ŠK Kuřim with teaching children (I could only do that for one year before I became vice dean) and playing competitive matches (district and regional team competitions).

The person who taught me the most in the field of chess was a great person, chess coach, excellent player and long-time chairman of the Kuřim club Jirka Majer Sr., who unfortunately left us in July 2023 at the age of 72. Jirka, I will never forget you. Thanks for everything you did for Kuřim chess and for me!