Chose BMX over the expected path
Left high school soon after entering and committed fully to becoming a professional BMX flatland rider.
Personal story
I choose difficult things on purpose.
The challenges are different, but the motivation is consistent: become more capable, test what I can learn, and bring my personal best to whatever I decide to pursue.
Seongtaek Kwon / VampireMusician
Professional name.
Creative identity.
Seongtaek Kwon is the name attached to my professional career. VampireMusician is the social identity people have known online for years. Vampi is simply the short, memorable name of this website.
I can look fierce and gothic, or light and sweet. Underneath it is the same discipline, curiosity and desire to keep developing.
A life in evidence
Different chapters. The same drive.
A life of deliberate challenges
Won in Tokyo
Won the amateur class at King of Ground, then one of the world’s largest BMX flatland competitions.
Became a paid professional and represented South Korea
Earned a salary as a professional BMX rider, placed fourth at the Asian Extreme Sports Championships in Taiwan and reached the ESPN X Games final in Malaysia as the only Korean athlete in the final.
Built a life in Finland
Moved from South Korea to Finland and developed an international career spanning technology, commerce and creative work.
Became Finland’s Pi champion
Redirected intense focus into a difficult memorization challenge and won after a few months of practice alongside full-time work.
Keep learning difficult things
Blindfolded cubing, classical piano, composition, photography, video, two full marathons and continuous physical training.
Blindfolded cubing
From learning the method to solving two cubes consecutively without sight.
Watch the proof on Threads ↗Pattern discovery
I progressed through increasingly difficult cubes, then developed my own method in my head to finish the 10×10 after a week of work.
Self-development
I choose classical piano, Pi memorization and other intimidating skills because overcoming difficulty is how I expand what I can do.
Creative craft
Piano, composition, photography, video, design and technical production.
Creative range
Performance, image and the VampireMusician identity.
VampireMusician is not a costume created for this website. It is the creative identity people have known through years of social media, music, performance and visual experimentation.
Physical discipline
Self-development includes the body.
I became a professional athlete as a teenager and never stopped training. Strength, running and difficult physical goals remain part of how I care for myself and test my limits.
