CAMP CASEY, South Korea – Some of the best wrestlers in South Korea stopped here recently to impart skills to Army troops at this base just 13 miles from the border with North Korea.

Members of the South Korean national wrestling team and the country’s Olympic athletes put on a combat wrestling seminar at the Carey Fitness Center on June 18.

The Prep Wrestling Academy, a school for young wrestlers in Seoul, hosted the event, and brought to it Kim Hyeon Woo, a 2012 London Olympic gold medalist, and Seo Bum Gue, a Korean National Team wrestler and medalist.

Learning basic moves from accomplished wrestlers was a great experience for beginners, Pfc. Severia Velarde, a Florida native, said at the event.

“I think it’s great that they come out here and expose us, and anybody really, to wrestling,” Velarde told Stars and Stripes.

“Getting a chance to practice with a national team (member) or the Olympic champion, it’s actually really cool, and I think it’s a good experience for newcomers to kind of get a role model or idol, and get into the sport,” he said.

The seminar was meant to boost interest in freestyle wrestling and encourage larger events in the future, Dion Jordan, the chief of sports, fitness and aquatics for the Community Recreation Division at Camp Casey, told Stars and Stripes via email Friday.

Kenneth Lee, co-founder of Prep Wrestling Academy and vice president of United World Wrestling-Asia, contacted the Army through Jordan about organizing the seminar.

“We always talked about hosting some kind of wrestling club or wrestling events and we were always scratching our heads thinking what to do, so we decided to get in contact with Dion,” Lee said at the fitness center.

Around 20 servicemembers attended the roughly one-hour long seminar lead by Lee and his team of five, which included the two nationally recognized athletes, Lee Ho Won, the head coach for Prep Wrestling Academy, and Kim Jun Ho, a co-founder and the academy’s chief operating officer.

“Like I said, wrestling is a great sport for not only physical toughness but mental toughness as well,” said Lee. “It’s the essence of all self-defense and it comes really handy in real life situations.”

Camp Casey is home to the 210^th Field Artillery Brigade and the 3d Cavalry Regiment rotational unit.

After wrestler introductions, the athletes demonstrated proper ways to execute several moves, then paired up the participants to practice.

After tutoring on about a dozen different wrestling moves, the troops took an opportunity to spar with the South Korean athletes.

The service members’ response to the seminar was better than he expected, Lee said.

“It’s actually a little bit emotional; I thought my team was going to go home with their tails between their legs,” he said, “but I wish they enjoyed it as much as we did, and wish this could be an ongoing thing in the future.”