"Misaeng" trailer, some explicit language. All opinions expressed in the blog are solely my own. The blog is not an official publication of any City of Melrose organization.
Learn across domains. Varsity sports creates challenges - identity, performance, culture. You don't need to assimilate everything on day one.
Art imitates life. The K-drama "origin story," Misaeng: Incomplete Life shares the travails of survival and success in a competitive business setting.
Its themes transcend the workplace, applying for school and sports.
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mentorship
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office politics
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preparation
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humility
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work ethic
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continuous improvement
It's one of the finest workplace dramas ever made.
What are "premium" coaching lessons shared?
Volleyball lessons from "Misaeng"
"Misaeng" is a term from the board game "Go" meaning, "A stone that has not yet come to life." In sport, this most often applies to an ascending young player but can work for an upperclassman "late bloomer" like Anna Shoemaker in 2022 with 115 kills.
The game "Go" is outside my "Circle of Competence." I asked Claude.ai to help me with "Go" principles that work for sport. I include a few annotations.
There's a Korean drama called Misaeng: Incomplete Life that has no business being this useful to a volleyball program. It's about a high school Go prodigy named Geu-rae who never turns pro, washes out of the game he loves, and lands—of all places—an internship at a trading company he's wildly underqualified for on paper. No degree. No connections. No corporate polish.
What he has is fifteen years of reading a board.
It turns out that's enough. Not because Go and office life are similar on the surface, but because the thinking underneath both is the same thinking that wins volleyball matches: read the whole picture, commit fully to your choices, protect your connections, and never assume a lead is safe. Here are twelve lessons from Geu-rae's board that belong on our court.
Volleyball IQ matters, executing after vision, analysis, and decision.
1. Position Before Points
In Go, a stone that claims key territory is worth more than one that grabs an early, empty capture. Teams that chase the highlight kill over the sustainable system usually pay for it in set three. On the court: don't let a hot early run seduce you into abandoning your system. Build a position — serve-receive discipline, rotational spacing — that holds up when the set gets tight, not just when it's easy.
Craft a culture and philosophy and fight for it.
2. Read the Whole Board, Not Just Your Corner
Weak Go players get tunnel vision on one local fight and lose track of the rest of the board. Geu-rae's gift is that he never stops seeing the whole thing. On the court: this is court awareness in its purest form. A libero locked onto the ball and blind to the setter's tempo, a hitter who never checks the block — both are playing their corner instead of the board. Vision wins rallies before contact happens.
3. Weak Stones Need a Plan, Not Panic
A "dead" group in Go often lives if the player stays calm and counts liberties instead of reacting emotionally. On the court: down close and late, or benched after an error, the instinct is to panic or shut down. The better response is Geu-rae's response — assess what's actually left to work with, and build from there, one stone at a time.
Stay focused and intentional throughout the game. "Win this play."
4. Know Who's Dictating Tempo
Go has the concept of sente — moves that force a response — versus gote, moves that are purely reactive. A team stuck in gote is losing control of the match even when the score is close. On the court: this is defensive pressure and needing a score. If you aren't aggressive, you're playing their game on their terms, regardless of the scoreboard.
Volleyball rewards consistency and aggressive play.
5. Every Stone Placed Is a Commitment
Go stones don't move once they're down — unlike chess, there's no retreat. Every placement is permanent. On the court: a shot, once released, can't be un-shot. A pass, once released, can't be recalled. Indecision is worse than a wrong decision, because indecision has all the risk and none of the commitment. Geu-rae's discipline is deciding before the stone leaves his hand — which is exactly what film study and reads are for.
6. Strength Comes From Connection
Isolated stones die easily in Go. Connected groups survive almost anything. The emotional spine of the whole series is Geu-rae building real relationships with his team instead of operating alone. On the court: a six-rotation system isn't six individuals — it's one connected group. A star player isolated from her teammates is a strong stone with no liberties. She'll get captured eventually.
Team First
7. Low Experience Doesn't Mean Low Value
Geu-rae gets underestimated constantly because he skipped the traditional path. What he actually brings — pattern recognition, composure, years of reading pressure — turns out to matter more than the resume. On the court: the underclassman who hasn't played travel ball, the kid coming off the bench for the first varsity minutes of her life — pedigree isn't readiness. Character and preparation are.
"Do more to become more. Become more to do more."
8. Sacrifice Small Stones to Save the Group
Strong Go players let minor pieces go if it protects the larger position. On the court: this is the dive that sacrifices your body position for the next play, the player who passes instead of forcing a shot she doesn't have, the senior who takes the blame in the film session so the team keeps moving instead of fracturing. Losing a stone on purpose is not the same as losing.
9. No Move Only Helps You
Every stone changes the balance of the entire board — for better or worse, for everyone. On the court: a teammate's shortcut in a drill, a captain's attitude after a bad call, one player's body language after an error — none of it stays contained. It ripples through the whole rotation. This is why culture is built or broken in the small moments nobody's grading.
Your behavior off and on the court impacts the team. Represent.
10. Patience With the Boring Middle Game
Go has a long, unglamorous middle phase where nothing looks decisive — and it's usually where the match is actually won. On the court: this is a Tuesday practice in December. Nobody's watching, there's no crowd, no scoreboard. But the teams that take the middle game seriously are the ones still standing in March of next year.
Fight complacency.
11. Study the Opponent's Habits, Not Just Their Moves
Over a long game, a Go player learns an opponent's tendencies — not just what they did, but what they tend to do. Geu-rae reads coworkers the same way. On the court: this is scouting past the stat sheet. Does their outside hitter tip when she's tired? Does their setter favor the same set on game point? Anticipation beats reaction every time, and anticipation is built from repetition, not talent.
"Utilize strengths, attack weaknesses." - The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
12. A Won Position Can Still Be Lost
There's an old Go proverb for this: the game isn't over until the last stone is placed. Complacency turns a winning position into a loss faster than almost anything else. On the court: Up 23-18 isn't victory. It's a position — and positions require finishing. The teams that let up with a lead aren't unlucky when they lose it. They're playing gote (cautious) against a team that never stopped playing sente (aggressive).
Geu-rae never made it as a professional Go player. But everything the game taught him — patience, position, connection, composure under a weak position — is exactly what let him survive and eventually thrive somewhere else entirely. That's the whole point. The board changes. The discipline doesn't.
Lagniappe: In Go, there's a saying that a single stone, badly placed, can lose the whole game — but a single stone, well placed, can save it. Next time you're deciding whether one rep, one rotation, one sentence to a teammate matters — it does. Place it well.
