What what what?! Apparently Korean archery team-building exercises involve the podium-level squad hauling charcoal briquettes up a hill in some anonymous, not-particularly-salubrious part of town somewhere – and for charity, by the looks of things. In winter (temperature today around 3°C / 38°F). You see, that’s clearly what’s missing from a lot of elite sporting training programmes. Tedious, exhausting exercises where you get filthy and help other people. Wanna win? Go somewhere cold and depressing. I mean, it worked for this guy, right?
(via Korea Archery Association)
If my ten years in ITF Taekwon-do are anything to go by, I’d expect it to be along the lines of developing ‘courtesy’ and ‘indomitable spirit’, some of the Korean core tenets in the martial art. We did stuff like this too back in the day when I still practised – it was community based and of course hard work!