While watching the preparation for the Vancouver winter Olympics I was jolted into remembering where I was a number of years ago. I was with the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 World Olympic Organizing Committee held in Seoul, South Korea. I had the fortunate experience of going to Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore and Seoul many times for international athletic meetings to make plans for the Asian Games and the Olympics.

At that time, the main emphasis of the medical committee was “safety of the athletes,” physically, mentally and emotionally. If you can remember back that far, we were still in the middle of a somewhat cold war with North Korea. It was only a short drive from Seoul up the mountains to the DMZ. We were stationed in Seoul for our tenure during this time. We were often asked to go to meetings all over Asia to investigate “health secrets” of another country or province.

Once my team was asked to investigate a remote village in South Korea where it was said that the athletes from there felt no pain during or after a competition. The village was a day’s ride by train to a remote area south of Seoul. We arrived at the train station and were met by the Mayor and the City Council (consisting of two people). Neither of them spoke English. Our team of three doctors from three countries (France, Italy and USA) had a collective ability in Korean that was very basic. We were invited for tea after our long train ride (They had never heard of Coffee in this village). Then sat down to talk about the athlete’s participation in the Olympic games. The Mayor and his Council were aware that something was unusual or we wouldn’t be there.

They took us to the athletes training center for the mountain village, there was not another village for fifty miles. When we arrived at the old high school gym setting, the stone building looked like it was built around the turn of the century or before. After we entered I was very impressed. In the large practice hall were close to a hundred athletes all practicing different skills in different events.

I noticed an old man going from one athlete to the other instructing them in hand and foot placement, something like a coach would do. We went over to him and observed for a few minutes then asked if we could speak with him for a short time. He was very gracious and smiled and followed us to another room where we could talk. Again, tea was served and we began our questions of him. We told him of the stories we had heard in Seoul about the athletes of his village not feeling any pain.

The old man called Hong Mo listened to us for about twenty minutes without saying anything. After hearing our concerns he began to speak in the best English I had heard during my visit to Korea. We learned that he had perfected his English during the Korean War where he had worked for Army intelligence. He had attended the University of Hawaii and graduated with a degree in English and American History.

He took us over to another building in the village. It was somewhat small compared to the building we had just left but with the same basic stone architecture. Here we were introduced to an older white haired man dressed in a traditional Korean gentleman’s outfit. He bowed and smiled to reassure us he was friendly. We were asked to witness something he thought we would like to see. The old man disappeared through a back door for a few minutes but was back shortly, now accompanied by two very large young men, both over six feet and two hundred pounds. Standing in the room the old man struck both of them very quickly in the side of the head. They fell like a leaf from a tree. The old man stood there a few minutes then went over to them and put his finger under the nose of the largest, of the two young men and pushed for about a minute. The young man opened his eyes, shook his head, quickly stood and bowed to the old man while his young partner lay there out cold. He then took the other young man and sat him up, went around behind him and pressed his fingers to his neck for about a minute. The young man opened his eyes and jumped up quickly, bowed to our group as if he had done something wrong.

The old man then asked the two young men to sit at a table in the room. He took out several long silver needles and began to insert them into different areas on one of the young men while the other watched. After about ten minutes he asked our host, if he would take the young man that was watching, bend his arm and fingers back until he winced in pain. He then asked him to do the other young man’s hand the same; there was not a peep from the young man as Hong Mo kept bending his fingers back until I though they would break.

He went on to explain to us that he and the village youth had been taught the virtues of the mind-body connection to ease pain and in some cases completely control pain by using acupuncture methods. Later we were told the old man would be the equivalent to a master in the Buddhist Monastery were he had come from in China to this village in South Korea some fifty years prior.

We concluded our business and thanked Mr. Hong Mo for the pleasure of the visit and the excellent lesson of being mindful of pain, we had learned from the old man. We never did find out his name for he wanted to remain “unknown” to all, but those that came to study at his school in the Mountains of Hopchong, South Korea.

I remember this lesson so well as the young athletes talked about injuries on the TV interview and how it had taken several months to correct several different injuries. They were ever so mindful of the pain involved every time they moved and they never wanted to experience it again. Then I wondered if they had received any of the age-old wisdom that was handed down to me and the other Olympic investigators in South Korea years before. There should be some way of preserving the history and the knowledge of all the participants at the Olympics, because each of us learned something of value each day.

Please address any questions or comments to the author at either of the following addresses bamashogun@aol.com or visit www.alternative-concepts.com or www.baldwincountynow.com