Thousands just in Seoul alone.
The thing is that there are many unicycle groups and organisations. I have met with one group so far and they are based on Taekwondo. They are a TKD association. All of the masters of gyms that are part of the association ride unicycles, and then teach their students unicycling as well. They make up one of the unicycle associations, they hold an annual Korean wide race day, and regular hockey games among the masters.
They have their own level system, import their own unicycles from China and Miyata and have a couple of other organisations under them.
There is another club that I’m pretty sure is called the CUA (Corean Unicycle Association) and they do thing slike muni and trials as well as regular riding.
Then there are a couple other groups and organisations. It is rather complicated, and they all have very serious and complex system of management, with presidents, PR people, and the whole works.
Also most of them have only been around 1-5 years at most, so it is all very new and already very organised, which means it is growing extremely fast.
Just in one unicycle association there are almost 2000 unicyclists, so you can understand why it needs to be so organised.
In Ottawa we have many unicyclists but we just aren’t organised, no records are kept of how many there are, and very regularly I meet new unicyclists on the street that I have never heard of.
So far I have been extremely well taken in by them and they have been really really friendly, the KUA (the Taekwondo based association) will be sending its masters to play hockey, enter some races and will be performing a Taekwondo demonstation. There are also some other Korean unicyclists who will be attending Unicon but are part of other groups.
Next week two of the major groups are meeting to discuss a merger and how it would be possible.
I’m hoping to meet the other unicyclists next week.
