South Korea Interviews Hong Seul Ki
Hong Seul Ki
After the interviews with the students of the school, I'd like to offer the point of view of the teachers. This is a chance to understand their feeling of this school and the students, and I think it's very interesting to hear their stories to understand why baduk is part of their life, and their will to teach and spread go around the world. The first one is Hong Seul-Ki (홍슬기), a very strong amateur player, quite famous in Europe, but let's hear his story from his words.
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Leonardo: What about you and how did you start to play baduk?
Seul-Ki: I'm Hong Seul Ki from Seoul. When I was a child I was a football player but I hurt a foot when I was 12, so my parents told me about baduk and I started to play. For the first year I played in a baduk institute 2 hours a day and it was not very serious, but my parents wanted me to calm down so I went to a big baduk academy to study and when I was the strongest after another year I became yeongusaeng (연구생 in Korean, insei in Japanese) when my rank was about 5 dan. I liked to study but not too much, so I played game but also met friends, and after 5-6 years as insei I failed to be a pro. In 2002 I went to Myongji University, I learned how to teach, and in the summer I took part to the European Go Congress in Russia and it was very funny: I meet a lot of people and I understood I'd like to spread baduk around the world. I visited a lot of European countries, and I decided to share and meet people. After that I had to do two years of military service, where I met many people and had fun. Then I went to Germany and I took part o some tournament and gave lectures, I like to travel and the culture and architecture.
Leonardo: How did you become a teacher in King's Baduk Center? What do you think about the school and the students?
Seul-Ki: In this winter I came back to Korea and I was contacted by King's Field to teach at King's Baduk Center. I like this school, it's possible to meet a lot of people, enjoy the time and different cultures. I was a little bit worried for the people to study hard, but everybody was good and we had no problem at all. I got no difficulties to teach the students. How much improvement after studying in Korea depends on the talent, but surely everybody improved.
Leonardo: Can you help us to understand how the westerners can become stronger at home, what kind of opportunities for foreigners are available now in Korea and the future prospects between Korea and Europe?
Seul-Ki: To improve go in the western countries the best would be to teach go in elementary schools, so they can create new go players and teach. Too many people don't know much about go, so the players should try to advertise more, because I know that if people know go, they like it. To improve it's very important to play a lot of games, and find stronger players and review lost games; very important is solving problem books, in Europe there are few books, and quite old 70s Japanese, many players have good shape and nice style but they are very bad at reading, so it's better to practice readying-skills to improve. A good advice is to create a schedule for yourself, maybe weekly, and follow it. For 20-25 years old players it's difficult to become a professional player in Korea because it's very hard, but they can still learn a lot and become strong as the strongest European players, and if you're older maybe it's difficult to concentrate, probably you'll have to do many other things in your life. There are some Korean players in Europe, and now a new era can begin and in the future more people from Korea will go to Europe to teach, so there will be more chance to increase the relationship. The Korean Go Association now understand the importance of this, so they realized they have to teach.
Leonardo: Plans for the future.
Seul-Ki: I don't know exactly, I'd like to continue to teach, maybe also go back to Europe, but not until the next year. I'll continue to stay at the King's Baduk Center, then I'll see. But I'd like to continue to teach foreigners. My goal is to teach go, I've experience to adults and kids, and I'd like to share the most in more and more countries. It will be very good for kids, so maybe some of them will become professional players.
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