© Anoush Abrar und Aimée Hoving via Schirmer/Mosel
May 16, 2023
Oliver Lüder
Charles Schumann, at 80 years old, still works all day in his world-famous Munich bar. A conversation about sports and the world.
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For exactly 40 years, Charles Schumann has been running his bar in Munich, which he named after himself, and which has been repeatedly voted among the very best in the world for just as many years. He wrote a book that is still considered the bar book par excellence in New York and Tokyo today. He models. He loves Japan. He now also makes beer and tea - green tea from Japan, where he runs his own plantation. The now 80-year-old still stands in his establishment day after day. Better: he walks through his Schumann's with inimitable grandeur. His sporting activities are also legendary - as a boxer, footballer, surfer, swimmer.
Charles Schumann, actually Karl Georg Schuhmann, originally comes from the Upper Palatinate, but he has long been what you would call a Munich original. He likes to grumble. He sometimes insults those guests the loudest whom he likes the most. He acts rough but is still sensitive when a regular guest has not shown up for a while. "You don't need to come anymore," he then calls across the room, meaning: "It's nice to see you again."
Mr. Schumann, have you ever checked on your phone how many steps you take daily at work?
No. But I estimate that on a normal working day I easily walk ten kilometers around the bar.
How often do you exercise?
Every day. Four times a week I run for half an hour. Now after Corona, the nights in the bar are longer, so I can't manage to run in the morning anymore. Today I only went out in the afternoon. Five kilometers, very slowly at a snail's pace. When I go running in the morning, I also reward myself with a coffee in between. But if I only sleep five hours, I'm too tired to run and only go out in the afternoon. The last few days have gotten harder, there are more people out again. Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights cost us a lot of energy. I do boxing training once a week, I hope to manage that more often in the summer: But Andreas, whom I train with, actually only has time for me once a week.
What are you training there?
Something very important: gymnastics, warm-up exercises, for half an hour.
Stretching or strength exercises?
Not strength exercises at all, more like a kind of dance gymnastics with relaxation exercises. After that, thirty minutes of movement exercises follow, also with pads, that's what they call the plate-sized gloves that you hit. I hardly do sparring anymore. No one competes against me anymore, everyone is afraid - no, nonsense. We will do ten minutes of sparring again at the end, now that the situation in the gym has normalized again. Sparring is the reward for the effort before.
Do you still surf sometimes?
In the summer. On the Atlantic. Surfing would be an exaggeration, I only rarely take the board with me. I now tend to swim - never alone -, just lie on the waves. On vacation, I start with the Sport however, a bit later. At seven, half-past eight I first go running for an hour and then swim for another ten minutes in the Atlantic. In Munich, during Corona, I went running at six in the morning because it was so quiet and there were so few people around. Of course, also because I didn't need as much sleep during the lockdown. I wake up two or three times at night. I used to always learn Japanese vocabulary when I couldn't sleep. Now I just get up early.
You are eighty years old. Why do you exercise so excessively?
Because I feel better. And because otherwise, I wouldn't manage my day, certainly not. And because I'm vain. Besides, I also think it's important for the psyche – a healthy mind needs a healthy body.
Is exercising that much fun?
I always enjoy it because I feel good doing it.
During or rather afterwards?
During and afterwards, because I'm not torturing myself. I would never do a hundred push-ups to make a hundred and fifty in the end. Never did that.
Until a few years ago, you also played football. Did the doctor advise you against exhausting yourself?
I never did that anyway. I never did sports to the point of exhaustion, very rarely, maybe two or three times. Sport has always been fun for me. In the early years, Schumann's was only open at night, so I even went to jazz dance classes in the afternoons. Only with women, no men were there. Except for Holger, who was working as a bartender with us at the time and was preparing for Hollywood. He didn't quite make it. But Holger thought, anyway, that acting also includes a decent dance education. I went along for two years and felt really great. I still benefit from it today, I move well during warm-ups. If the weather is good, then I feel wonderful. It shouldn't be too cold for warming up.
"I owe the fact that I can still move so well today solely to boxing."
Running ten kilometers on the job and then running another five in the morning, and you want to feel wonderful doing it?
I'm running really slowly. When I think of other people I meet in the Schumann's day bar in the morning, they sleep an hour longer and then sit all day. Some even smoke thirty cigarettes, then you're done at some point because the body can't take it anymore. My mind doesn't work either, so I keep myself fit. On the other hand, there are also many people who do too much sport they're done at thirty too because they overstrain their bones.
You smoked for a long time yourself.
Yes, but I quit. And I started again at seventy because smoking belongs in a bar. But now I've quit again.
Have you never had sore muscles?
Not anymore. When I jump around like a fat beetle while playing soccer in the goal, I can feel my bones, of course. But when running, I adjust to my rhythm, and the same goes for swimming.
Breaststroke or freestyle?
Always freestyle. But I'm not a good swimmer. Unfortunately. Not everyone is suited for it. There are swimmers who swim against the water and those who swim with it. I'm somewhere in between. My son Marvin was born for swimming. He quickly became a better swimmer than me. He was also in a swimming club, where they were really pushed hard. At some point he said, 'I don't feel like drinking chlorinated water anymore.' But for me, sports are not necessarily about performance, but about keeping my body in motion. If I don't do gymnastics for a whole week, everything hurts and I get tension from work, and then come the back pains. I do ten to fifteen minutes of gymnastics every evening after work, unless I'm too lazy. In boxing, I'm encouraged to do gymnastics, and Andreas knows exactly what I need to do to loosen up.
Have you never had a classic sports injury?
Never. Once I had a torn ligament or something like that. I went to one of those famous doctors where you sit in the waiting room for hours and see footballers from all over Germany get treated before you.
You were at Müller-Wohlfahrt's?
This one time. He found that one leg is a bit shorter. Well, you kind of know that. Then he sent me to various people, for whatever reasons. And then he said: America! He wanted to send me straight to America for surgery. I asked him if he's a bit crazy. I'm not a professional athlete. Then he said I should go to Straubing for the surgery. I almost went there, but the day before, I happened to meet a masseur who told me: Come to me, we can handle this. But he couldn't help me either. Then I thought to myself: Forget it! I left the crutches at Müller-Wohlfahrt's door with a note: That was it. And then I walked on one leg for half a year, even during sportsand it really hurt. But some things heal best on their own.
That was it? No other injuries?
Once, a goalpost fell on my head, it bled, but I didn't even notice the hole in my head at first. My girlfriend Maria then said to me: You are a human made of wood.
Never broke a rib or nose while boxing?
No, never, I'm too fast. Okay, the nose was slightly broken once.
"Whoever is chosen last has to be the goalkeeper. It was the same for me."
You grew up on a farm in the Upper Palatinate. What kind of sports do kids do there?
My brother was a very good athlete. He discovered it for himself; he's not tall, maybe 1.70 meters, and yet he could jump 1.75 meters high from a standing position without a coach. He trained while herding cows. His daughter was even Bavarian champion in something. But athletics wasn't my sport; I played a lot of soccer when I was eleven or twelve years old.
Did you stand in goal at that time?
No, I was even worse back then and wasn't really interested in football. It was only later that I took it a bit more seriously, when I was already working at Harry's New York Bar in Munich. When we had the sports club, I ended up in goal. Whoever is chosen last has to stand in goal. That's how it was for me too.
What kind of sports were there at the Jesuit school?
There was no sport at all; it wasn't planned. We weren't even allowed to run. We played a bit of soccer in the garden. But no one discovered me, like my niece. That's why I never really did sports. After the Jesuits, I went to the Federal Border Guard, I was 18, and I took my final exams much later. I had to leave school. They realized that I would probably never do what they had in mind. Of course, they wanted me to become a priest, but I was a naive kid from the countryside and was fascinated by women. So they advised me to leave after middle school.
What did you envision?
I didn't know. Sixty years ago, hardly anyone knew that.
Wasn't being a federal border guard your dream job?
Of course not. I wanted to leave and couldn't think of anything better. Anyway, everyone had to do sports there. Cross-country running, a few people actually collapsed there. We tried to avoid it, but I was an above-average running talent, even though I hadn't had the chance to run with the Jesuits before. Running was also a form of liberation for me back then. At some point, I was transferred to the southern border command in administration, where we had a sports field in North Schwabing, very nice, it's still there. I was maybe 22 and very fit. There were the first races around Lake Starnberg, we ran them effortlessly. It was still a popular sport, not a competitive sport with timekeeping, we had checkpoints to reach. We were so fast that many checkpoints weren't even set up when we passed by. It took us four, five hours or so. And because we were so cool, we played soccer for another two hours afterwards.
When did you start swimming?
Very late, I already had my own bar. I thought: Damn, you can't just lie in the water like a dead fish. So I hired a former swimming coach. He taught me how to swim better and stay better in the water, the coordination, the movements. Then I spent a lot of time with Marvin, but he soon stopped swimming with me because I was too bad for him.
How did you get into surfing then?
By chance. Back then, not everyone bragged about being a surfer. Marvin originally wanted to become a marine biologist, and for that, you have to be able to swim and dive well. The boys had seen all those diving movies like Deep Blue. At 12, 13 he wanted to get a diving license in Lanzarote. But they told him he had to wait because he was too young. A year later we went to Sardinia. The Italians also said: No way! But because he was so nice and the Italians are so child-friendly, they took him out to sea. At some point there was a storm, they didn’t want to dock in the harbor, but preferred to leave the boat outside and swam ashore. The next day the diving instructor came and said: Anyone who can swim like that is also allowed to dive. Then Marvin kept going to the Atlantic with Sport Scheck by bus for two years, 24 hours with two drivers, I was terrified. And because you can't dive all day, he signed up for a surf course.
Did you sign up with him?
No, I didn't want to surf, I wasn't interested. But Marvin was 14 or 15 at the time and was whining: I'm homesick, I don't understand anything! They only spoke French. And then I had to join in and translate. That's how I came to surfing. Marvin forced me. I was already over forty.
You don't do that anymore today?
If I'm in Biarritz and feel like it, yes. If I lived there, I would certainly surf more often.
Do you have your own board at home?
No, just three wetsuits. I have one in the bar that I've never used. The three times a year I go to the Atlantic, I rent everything. From a local friend. I actually don't pay anything, instead, I invite him to dinner.
Running, surfing, swimming aren't necessarily about winning, but football is.
Was that important to me? Nobody likes to lose, but I didn't complain after defeats. Only when I was bad in goal, which often happened.
You didn't start boxing to win either?
No, I never saw boxing as a fight, but to stay fit. I wouldn't have been a good competitor. I saw it more as dancing. The fact that I can still move so well today is only thanks to boxing. If I had been running extremely, I would certainly have knee and joint problems now.
The good reflexes as a goalkeeper – did they also come from boxing?
I think so.
Football is a team sport, some of Schumann's waiters have also played with you.
That was really great. But we can't do it anymore because now everyone is softened. We now have more boxers on the team who want to be strong and beautiful.
© Enno Kapitza
Sure, please provide the text you would like to translate from German to English.
© Schumann_SchirmerMosel2021_07-scaled
Reading Tip: Charles Schumann – Homage to a Chef. Schirmer/Mosel Verlag, 176 pages, €19.80
© Enno Kapitza
Sure, please provide the text you'd like translated from German to English.
