Honza, get up! (Honzo, vstávej!)

The game Honza, get up! (Honzo, vstávej!) is one of the most popular Czech children’s games. It can be played virtually anywhere: on a meadow or in a forest, as well as in the city, on a sidewalk or on a playground. The starting line is first drawn on the ground, along which all players form up except for one, who is selected by lot as the caller. That player stands near a base 10 to 15 metres away and blindfolds him or herself with a scarf or turns his or her back towards the others so as not to see them. There the player calls individual players with the words:

“Honza, get up!”

The player whose turn it is to play asks: “What time is it?”

The caller replies, for example, by: “Four storks.”

The called player then has to make four steps imitating the named animal, in this case a stork. The caller then continues by calling the other players and arbitrarily naming animals, which the players then have to imitate. It is important that they not only imitate the movement of the named animal but also to maintain relative step length. For example, the elephant’s steps are the longest that a player can make, while the ant’s steps are the shortest – one quarter of a foot or half an inch. The kangaroo’s jump is imitated by jumping with closed feet, the stork’s step means jumping on one leg, the frog’s leap is jumping by squatting, the crab’s steps are taken sideways and crayfish’s steps take one back to the start line. When the caller has called all the players on the start line, he or she returns to the first one and the game continues until one of the players gets close enough to the caller and the game begins anew, from the start line. There are many different versions of the game, not all of them imitating animals’ movements. One of the more popular ones includes, for example, the additional element “babička páře”, which returns the player to the start line.