Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bobbyhanlon]

hello...
i've joined gyms here in seoul a couple of times in the past, and found that there would always be someone who wanted to show me 'the right way' of using this or that piece of equipment. also there'd be those who'd be a little too, er, curious about my hairy waygook body in the shower, or those who wanted to practice their english on me when i just wanted to work out and be left to my own devices. so i suppose my question is, do any of you know a gym where anti-social people like me hang out? or at least, a really unpopular one?

[fezmond]

Mapo Arts Center near Daeheung station.

Nobody bothers me at all in there except the odd kid in the changing room wanting to practice 'hello'.

Never had anyone tell me about the equipment or what I'm doing wrong. Bit run down though. 50,000w a month

[markness]

I know that feel OP, and that annoying crap isn't exclusive to Korea either, I have had those gym "gurus" who have annoyed the hell out of me in Canada too, well.. one in particular. "Hey you know you can get more of a burn if you do it this way", "You'll get more gains this way... you're doing it all wrong", etc. It was enjoyable at first but then I realized this dude was just a hot air balloon. It's nice to get tips and stuff, but sometimes I rather do my stuff my own way (that I know is correct) with my buddy spotting me then have some clown come around and critique everything that I do. Also, gym sessions that can take 30-60 minutes that end up taking 90-120 minutes because of the people who go there to talk instead of actually work out.

[Captain Corea]

I train at BodyStar near Dongdaemun. No one says jack to me. No one has ever walked up to me and tried to give me pointers. The gym is solid.


That being said, no one says jack to me in any gym I've ever trained at. I mean, people say hi and such, but I can't recall a stranger walking up to me and saying "no, you're doing it wrong."

[Mix1]

Ah gyms: I like when the "trainer" tries to tell you how to do something and it's some horrid technique straight out of the 1950's that could probably hurt you more than help.
Then you've got those shaker machines that really ARE out of the 1950's. (I kinda like them once in a while though.)

A "no fuss" gym in Korea? I'm sure some exist, but going to gyms here is often borderline comedy/weirdness.

The first one I went to always had funky incidents:

The first night I went, some guy apparently tried to flirt with some ladies and then he suddenly began threatening them and they went behind the exercise bikes to get away from him. They are yelling at each other over the loud music and he's cursing and doing his rooster dance and starts pushing the bikes around for show. That's when the trainer started to intervene, but for as big as he was, couldn't or wouldn't remove the guy, so the police came.

Then I go in the pool and swimming etiquette is awful, with everyone slamming into each other or stopping all together in the middle of the lane. Some old guy won't stop talking to me, and keeps asking me when I'm going to go shower. Hmm...

They tweet a whistle and suddenly the whole pool has to stop swimming because a song starts blaring and it's the official stretching/water aerobics dance ceremony, with choreographed dance trainers on the side of the pool leading the way. All the ajummas are in perfect sync but nobody else seems to know what's going on.

Instead of telling me swimming time is temporarily over, and while others are still doing laps, a lifeguard grabs my ankle as I'm trying to push off the wall. Not sure whether to curse, splash, or deck the guy, I bail to shower as I'm finished anyway, and the same old man follows me in.

I'm just rinsing off with my suit still on, and he starts to grab my suit, saying "In Korea, we take this off!" I smack his hand away and move along.

Then in the locker room, some naked guy is bent over in front of the mirror holding his butt cheeks open and touching and examining his hole in extreme detail. Nobody seems to mind this as they are busy blow drying their pubes with the blow dryers.

So the next time I went during the day, but it was packed with hundreds of children coming for swimming lessons: screaming "foreigner!" and complete mayhem in the pool and shower room as the coaches kept randomly disappearing, with almost zero control over the kids regardless.

Plenty of fuss there...

Maybe try an upscale neighborhood. Might be a little better.

[augustine]

^ That was great

[cdninkorea]

[Charlie Bourque]