Park So-dam on 6 Years of Pilates After Thyroid Cancer: 'Couldn't Lift My Arm'

Park So-dam showed up to her pilates class on the 23rd having slept only five hours, too restless to settle the night before the release of her film Gyeongju Travelogue. It is the kind of detail that, against the backdrop of her medical history, carries a particular weight: for months after her thyroid cancer surgery in December 2021, she could not lift her arm at all.

The actress posted the session to her YouTube channel, Sodam Sodam PARKSODAM, under the title "Slowly, Steadily, Time I Spend Taking Care of Myself." The video is her second upload on the channel; her first, a solo travel vlog from Matsuyama, Japan, drew warm responses from viewers who called it "the most wholesome kind of YouTube" and praised how quickly it moved.

Six years and one surgery

Park So-dam has been doing pilates for six years, and she was candid in the video about why that streak matters to her. She continued practicing even during recovery, when limited arm mobility made many movements genuinely difficult. She described working through classes gradually, regaining balance in her body over time, and said the process is what made it possible to return to public life in good health.

She described the studio as "the most comfortable space for me" and explained that the discipline appeals to her precisely because it combines alignment work, stretching, and strength training in a single session. On days when her energy is low, she said, she often leaves feeling lighter than when she arrived.

During the filmed class she moved through a series of demanding positions with controlled breathing, pausing regularly to check her form in the monitor beside her. The core strength and flexibility she showed prompted her to note, almost in passing, that it had taken six years to get there.

Building the channel with her fans

Park So-dam is in her 14th year as a working actress, but the YouTube channel is new territory, and she is approaching it deliberately. She has asked fans through her fan community, Sodam Dodam, what content they want to see, and said she plans to shape the channel around their responses.

The pilates video is a low-key offering: no dramatization of her illness, no recovery narrative laid out in sequence. What it communicates instead is something quieter, that the work of rebuilding a body after serious surgery is incremental, repetitive, and ongoing, and that for Park So-dam it has become simply part of how she moves through her days.