Hello everybody! This is Carl-Åke Willberg checking in for a reflection on todays practive as well as a self introduction on this blog. It is very fun to have this honor and I will try to do it as best I can.
First things first: Reflection on practice
This morning I went to practice with sore muscles. I left the practice with even sorer muscles, but a smile on my face. It is clear to me personally that I need to work on my muscular endurance to be able to swim fast for more that 15 m, something I am committed to doing.
I really enjoyed the land practice, as it seems that my fast twitch muscles were the only thing that survived my jetlag. I also got a great abdominal workout from all the laughing, as we were doing our choreographed "boot camp"-workout. Picture featured below. I am looking forward to growing with this team.
-------
So, unto the introduction: I am Carl (which means "Free man" in Swedish) and Åke (which means "small farmer"). Here in Japan however I am known as Kari which is fun because it sounds a lot like the English word for Karen - so that's how i will remember it.
I was born on the 5th of March 1998, on a day where there was still snow on the ground in Täby (outside Stockholm). On the day of my mothers return from the maternity ward, my father (who is also named Åke) had filled the house up with "Påskliljor (pictured below). There were so many flowers that you could not even see the floor. This is probably why I am now allergic to pollen. However it was a very sweet gesture from my dad so I cannot find it in my heart to blame him in any way.
As far as swimming goes, I'm a backstroker and freestyler. I also play the saxophone on my own time as well as doing some rock climbing and stuff. Back home in Sweden I study Industrial Engineering and Management with a Machine Learning specialization at KTH (The royal institute of Technology).
I am really impressed by the warm welcome I've received from the swim team. Everyone is so nice and forgiving even though I forget/ mispronounce their names. The other day I couldn't even pronounce tonkatsu correctly which leads me to believe that there's a lot of development potential on my end.
I'm very thankful to have ended up here in Japan in general but in HandaiSwim in particular, and it was all because of me sending an email to the Swim Club and Shotaro answering my email in Swedish. hacked seeing as I saw that his name and contact info was not Swedish while his contents of that email were - but it turns out his amazing energy was as true as could be!
During yesterday's practice I learned something very fun and important: You should always say "Arigato" when things are tough and not "Sumimasen". I agree with this sentiment, as it is an honor and a privilege to be put to the test and go to bed with lactic acid in your viens.
I also quickly wanted to mention how things are in Sweden: I swim for a small club called Danderyd and we have five practices a week and they're from 4:00 pm till 6:00 pm However, seeing as I am doing a lot in school I seldom find time to go to all of them so I usually work out at the gym a lot.
With all of this said, I just wanted to say again how thankful I am to be a part of such a historic, welcoming and lovely team. I am looking forward to coming home to Sweden with a larger vocabulary of Japanese words, a set of larger muscles and some great memories made right here together with you, my wonderful teammates.
Sumima...I mean: Arigato Gozaimasu!
Carl-Åke Willberg