Kyung Sun Shin

Who is Kyung Sun Shin?

Shin Kyung Sun is a Korean master of judo and a pioneer of that art in the United States of America. He is ranked 8th dan in judo, and also holds dan ranking in karate.

Shin was born in 1933 in Seoul, Korea. He began training in the martial arts in 1943, and was a long distance runner in high school. During the Korean War, he served in the Special Student Battalion of the Republic of Korea Army. He owned a pharmacy in South Korea, although he was not a pharmacist himself. He had studied English literature at Hongik University, but did not complete the course. He did, however, captain the institution's judo team to the National Collegiate Championship in 1958, his second year there.

Around 1960, Shin emigrated to the USA intending to seek a position in a pharmaceutical company. He went to Illinois at first, studied liberal arts in Georgia, and then returned to Illinois in 1963. He studied accounting part-time at the University of Chicago, and it was around this time that he met his future wife, Sandy Hamilton, a biochemistry student who is also a judo practitioner. She was ranked 1st dan at the time.