I was pretty surprised to learn that people actually major in Judo over here. One of my teammates used to be a professional and actually majored in Judo in college. Now, he teaches to children and teenagers full time. My friend wrote a blog post about a college Judo development program here in Busan at Dong-eui University here in Busan and took video of practice: A fellow judoka and friend here in Korea introduced me to one of the large college judo development programs in Busan - Dong-eui University (dong oo-ee). It's a prep for high schoolers and part of the curriculum for college students studying Physical Education. It also showcases some top tier talent in the city. I had a chance to work out with them and see what it was all about. I brought my video camera and got some good clips of the facility and the training and made the video below. Class was an hour and a half and was straight up randori - both standing and on the ground. These kids are seriously strong and talented.
HBO Realsports had a feature on female Korean golfers recently, and it almost seemed like they were majoring in golf.
You can major in Judo, and you can also become a 선수 which means an athlete. A lot of my friends here majored in Judo and some of them were professionals. One of my friends was on the high school team with Wang Ki-Chun, the silver medalist for 73 kilos in 2008. Korean Judo is WAY better than American Judo. My game leveled up leaps and bounds working out with the guys here.
Oh, and high school age here in Korea is 17, 18, and 19, so these guys are little older than high school kids in the U.S.
They are the same age as U.S, but Korean age is a bit different. You start off as 1 year old when you are born and you age all together in the New Year. So for a guy like me who was born in December, I'm pretty much 2 years a head of my actual age.
Someone that starts high school here is generally around 16 or 17, so that means they are actually fifteen or sixteen. I totally forgot about the whole being one when you are born thing.
