Our first visit in Slovakia at our Slovakian friends got a really interesting time which I will never forget.
Although we had a really exhausting trip to Bratislava and we saw the half of the town while we tried to find our meeting point.
In the evening we had a relaxing dinner and were introduced to Slovakia's best football-dog, which continued playing till the darkness.
The next sunny morning began on a big playground 15km away from the city of Bratislava, where a huge barbecue was organized.
But even the big amount of food could not prevent us from a football match on the first day of the European Championship.

Directly after this event we had to drive to Žilina, where the first part of the seminar was held. The Karate part focused on Kihon and the transition to jiyu waza.
Transforming the Dojo to a meeting room just after the training was very special for us as visitors, as we are not used to such conditions, but we enjoyed this special atmosphere.
The morning came very soon and my throat was still a bit hoarse from the singing altogether, but with the beginning of the training this feeling disappeared.
Similar to the first training we focused detailed on basic elements and learned some new combinations of renzoku waza in the end.

Unfortunately our time in Žilina has finished just after the training and it was time to say good bye to some of the people who could not come with us to Bratislava.
There many people waited for us and we instantly continued with the training. Most of the participants continued with the Ninjutsu training.
We spent our last evening with tasty food in a Chinese restaurant and watched the football match between Germany and Portugal on a mobile telephone.
As the German team won, nearly everyone was happy and so we went to bed early to be ready for the trip home on the next day.
Before we went home we learned the Kyudo form together, which was a new experience for most of us and watched a demonstration where real arc and arrow were used.
With a heavy heart we started our 10 hours trip back home and were happy to be back home again, but also enjoyed the exhausting but exciting weekend in Slovakia.

Nikita Benikov
Budokan