문정웅 무에타이 체육관

 Wait, what??? Why is the title in Korean? Did you just randomly decide to type in Korean because your keyboard at work is in Korean? What does this mean??

No I am not fluent in Korean, although I am taking Korean classes and improving steadily (although at a very slow pace). However these words represent a key component to my life here in Korea!

Soooo.....have you guessed it yet? What if I show you this picture...

Hmmmm...working at a furniture store?  Good guess!

Still no? Well that is the walk to the place that I go to every day.

Ok, what about this...(Its almost the same words as the title of this blog post!)

Hint: Look at the picture.

Alright now it makes sense! This is the name of my Muay Thai gym! Moon Tiger Muay Thai.

From the doorway, mitts, thai pads and jump ropes on the opposite wall.

Around 5 months ago now, I tagged along with a friend of a friend to her Muay Thai gym. She told me that I could participate in one intro lesson and then I would have to decide if I wanted to join the gym or not. Right then and there. Pressure was on!

Junior, the No man.

At first they had me at the beginning mirror. Then I slowly worked my way through with many "No"s, compliments by Junior, the younger of the two instructors. The older instructor- Who we three foreigners affectionately call SAM, short for teacher/uncle- is very kind and likes the laugh. Often at me as I do strange things or pull weird faces because I have no idea whats happening. Every class is structured along the same line, so this is what I do on my average evening after work!

1) Stretch (practice counting in Korean)

2) Jump rope sets (3 of 3 minutes each)

3) Some kind of group or partner activity, such as monkey in the middle, frog jumps over everyone else in the gym, sprints, burpees, or anything to get the blood pumping.  Unless its Thursday, then we generally skip to number 4.

4) Shadow boxing at the mirrors. We just practice the most recent combinations we learned or warm up. It's pretty lax and depending on what we're learning we can use the punching bags in the back, or use it as an excuse to chat and get water.

It's nice to have a fan.

5) Combination work- we either work on a specific combination or punch/kick. Everyone of all levels is in in one class (as the gym has one room), so SAM just tell certain people to do certain things. It all works out well, and everyone is very good about demonstrating a move if I don't understand exactly. Usually SAM will come up and explain at length in Korean with movements. I just nod along and look serious so he feels that I understood, and then I promptly turn around to a foreigner and say, "ok, so he said I should do this...right?" He laughs every time.

6) Practice rounds! Time to get with a partner and punch it out! A fun learning adventure, I have learned how to say, "good" and "more power," my Korean now is very use oriented. I still get my lefts and rights confused, but that happens in English too, so I ignore that minor fail (except when I forget that I'm left handed and start my jabs with my left hand...oops).

Hard training!!! SAM on the far left.

7) Final strength training (For Thursdays ONLY). Depending on who runs it, it can be brutal. Thursday's are usually the toughest days. At the very least it will be 50 squats, 40 sit ups and 30 push ups, repeated four times.
 At most it can be....handstands? Intense rounds of burpees, jumps, rolls and punches? Push ups on a fellow class member's sweaty back? Tabata rounds? Sprint sets combined with fast punches at the bag?  Hard to remember all of them, but those are the highlights. At the end of stamina traning,as we call it, this is what we look/feel like.

Charity, another American, exhausted after SAM puts us through our paces. 

On a field trip to watch a match in Ulsan, our guy won!
From LtoR: SAM, Charity, Me, Rizza, Captain (not his real name)

I got new mitts, and they're pretty!

What's fun about this gym is that it is small and made up of mostly Koreans with us three foreigners thrown in for variety. The students are all different ages, ranging from 10-60. We stand out, of course, but all the regulars know who we are and don't mind our spontaneous mid-workout dance sessions (Really, dancing and Muay Thai have a lot in common, SAM

Pretty boy and Rizza, trying to out-do each other...again

doesn't really agree, ah well). Everyone is very friendly and helpful and we are all comfortable with the language gap. Some are better at English then others, and it makes for some very interesting conversations that take place in a mix of English, Korean and pantomimes.  It's a fun way to release any tension from the day and get a good workout! Even though the class structure is generally the same, the people, instructor and workouts change, so it makes it interesting and fun to go to!

Some people say I gym too much, but I think its dedication. It's also really fun to just laugh when someone gives you instructions in Korean, you both pause, and then say in the respective languages, "Well that didn't work at all!" And try to communicate all over again.

The gym has become more than just a place to workout; its become a safe zone to relax and experience Korean culture without feeling self-conscious about being foreign. Often-times its hard for foreigners to get to know Koreans on a more than superficial level and its been great to break that barrier with so many Koreans at the gym. I know that whenever I trudge up the four flights of stairs, listening to the timer and the sounds of thuds and sometimes yells, I know that its going to be fun and interesting time. We tend to give our friends at the gym English names, and generally speaking, they hate the names. But, its funny and otherwise we don't remember their real name (Incredibly insulting, I know), but they are good natured about it. Here are some examples of our friends, out at a BBQ restaurant to celebrate my birthday not too long ago, yummmm.

New additions to the gym group, Chip and Dale (two friends, Dale always makes faces)

Charity and Sanghee (or Jessica, she's the only one who gets to keep her Korean name for the most part)

Pretty boy- for some reason he really loves vegetables!

Sanghee, Ahgi (which means "Baby" in Korean), and Chic. 

This is my gym in a nutshell! It's been a really big part of my first 6 months in Busan and I hope that it continues to be.