I am personally bringing a gun, or preferentially, a jet plane:
The training begins on 5 a.m. The fundamental of the training is to turn the entire body into steely firmness, and the basic part is training the fist.
Punching bags and such, right? Maybe crack some cinder blocks if you’re up for it?
Mr. Im said, “You would wrap a tree trunk with ropes, and keep punching it. You throw 5000 punches day and night — do that for a month, the inside of your fist swells up until you can barely curl your fingers.” He added, “Then you open a tin can and set it up on a stand. You keep punching the sharp part. When your hand turns into mush with blood and pus, you start punching a pile of salt. Repeat it, and your hands become like a stone.” Mr. Im explained, “You punch the salt so that the salt would prevent the hand from rotting away with the blood.” According to Mr. Im, with the hand trained like this “you can easily break 20 sheets of cement blocks, and you can kill a person with three punches.” His hands would naturally make a fist throughout the interview. This reporter had to respectfully ask that he unclench his fist during the interview.
Now what if I I just run you over with my car?
The way to train shoulder and arm muscles was also unique. Mr. Im said, “You would take off your top, line up, put your hands on the shoulder of the person in front of you and put your head down. And then a car would drive on top of the outstretched arms.” He explained, “The car goes fast enough not to break your arms, but if you don’t concentrate your shoulder would be destroyed.”
And you better bring some friends along…
In a martial art called “Gyeok-sul,” the special forces train by sparring each other. Mr. Im said, “Kim Il-Sung used to say he wanted a warrior who can defeat a hundred, but honestly that’s not possible. But we get trained enough to fight ten men without guns.”
Sometimes they like to take a nice swim.
In the winter, according to Mr. Im, the special forces are thrown into the sea around 4 km [TK: 2.5 miles] away. Mr. Im said, “The ocean temperature is about negative 30-40 degrees in North Korea in the middle of winter,” and said “The salt water feels like blades; the capillaries all over your body burst out, and some people just die there.”
Cool. Co-coo-cool.
Via Hunter-Gatherer, who got it originally from Ask a Korean.

Holy shitmuffins!
Huh, over half a year of the last thing having been posted on this weblog having been the word “shitmuffins”. Can you really live with that?
Any requests?
P.S. Shitmuffins!
I can make suggestions, sure.
* Maybe a short essay on whether or not you see any influence from Tolkien-style epic fantasy in your non-fantasy fiction these days? You watch so many movies and shows and read a decent amount of books and comics, it’d be interesting to hear if you think the growing popularity of epic fantasy stuff (Star Wars, LotR, Harry Potter) in mainstream consumption in the past two decades has influenced storytelling beyond the genres one are used to finding it in. I suppose most super hero movies would qualify, but that’s not really that far outside the genre — I was thinking more if you see any of Tolkien’s moves in Deadwood, anything Scott Lynchy in The Thick of It, or anything Narniaesque in Criminal.
* Maybe I should suggest something selfishly. You say you like my quote of the day-posts, but you rarely if ever comment on them, so I do not know which you like more and which you like less. Perhaps a reposting of some of your favourites?
* Maybe a series of posts, where you list the ten movies, ten TV shows, ten books and ten comics (and, I guess, ten albums – I REALLY don’t care about music) you feel everyone should read/see/hear before they’re retired. Not necessarily your favourite ten in each category, mind you. Just the ones you feel nigh-on all people should have seen, thought about, understand references to, write school papers about, do their academic treatises with, have in their bookshelves, etc. Or at least, all people with a remotely similar cultural background to you. I guess you wouldn’t presume to recommend things to jungle-dwellers and moonmen and such.
* Maybe a personal update. What’s up in your life that’s keeping you from posting? How’re you doing?
* Maybe a Top 12 Tweets in 2011. Your own, or others’.
* As mentioned, you consume a lot of fiction. What about a post on the one element you feel disappointed you don’t see more of, be it in TV, movies, comics, short stories, novels or radio plays.
* Maybe a short story, written by you!
* Maybe something serious and community-conscious about your views on some particular current event or political conundrum.
* Maybe an amusing comparison between the virtues of a flying pig versus a hell frozen over, both metaphorically and literally. Feel free to conclude with musings on how a flying pig would do in the frozen hell. Also, if hell comes, why are we still worrying about the high water?
* Dragons are always popular, of course, but the rest of the mythological crew get the shitty end of the stick. Is there a mythological creature you feel is vastly underapplied by present-day books and movies, and whose potential for sheer and utter awesomeness is wasted in obscurity?
* Maybe a description of your five to ten most precious possessions, and a short analysis on whether the picks were made mainly from nostalgia and sentiment, or from practicality and market value.
* Maybe a list of things you wish *I* had posted about on *my* inactive weblog.
* Maybe a recipe on shitmuffins.