The first three sessions you come to are free for you to try! You don’t need a uniform, we’ll sort that out later. Regardless of your martial arts background, show up in exercise clothes and bring a water bottle.

If we have a lot of beginners, we’ll split the class and take you through some fundamentals or teach you some of the types of training we do (e.g. Terry’s “kid’s game” or circle sparring).

We train on Mondays and Fridays in UQ Sport’s gym facility upstairs from the locker rooms.

Korean martial artists developed Taekwondo in the 1940s and 50s. In 1959 it was unified under the name of Taekwondo, loosely meaning “the art/way of kicking and punching”, by the original kwans (Korean martial arts schools).

Today, ITF and Kukkiwon (WT) are the main styles of the art. Kukkiwon Taekwondo is the style you see in the Olympics with a strong emphasis on sport and athletic kicks. ITF focuses more on the martial art as a method of self-defence.

Grant Dobinson founded the ITF-style Sang Dan Taekwondo in 1971 at UQ. The style emphasises effective self-defence through mastery of hand and foot techniques including strikes, blocks, joint locks, clinch work, and takedowns.

First off, that’s really cool! However, we will ask that you put on a white belt until your first grading rolls around. It shows respect for a new club and style, shows that you have an open mind for learning things that may differ from your old club, and allows our instructors to grade you to the rank they deem appropriate for you during your placement grading.

If you’re an adult, absolutely! The club is open to any adults who want to learn taekwondo and train hard.

Everyone starts somewhere. Our sessions are frequently high-intensity and there is an adjustment period for most people, but if you’re willing to push yourself and try as hard as you can every session, you will improve and reap the rewards of regular hard sessions. We do a lot of pushups, our warmups and drills can be gruelling, and a surprise pyramid burpee set shows up out of nowhere every now and then, but there is nothing more rewarding than walking away knowing you pushed yourself to your limit.

Of course! We want to make sure you want to train with us and find a good fit in a martial arts club, so the first three sessions are free for you to try and make up your mind. We’ll ask you to sign a waiver for liability reasons, but nothing else is necessary.

We are an ITF-style taekwondo club: not the type you see in the Olympics. We train hand strikes in addition to kicks, and our curriculum includes basics, formal patterns (tul, Chon-ji set), one-step, and touch free-sparring.

Our instructors have trained in multiple martial arts, so boxing basics and takedowns appear in our sessions regularly. Our goal is to provide our members with comprehensive skills to defend themselves on top of their training in taekwondo.

We have three schemes of payment: semesterly ($185), monthly ($65), or per session ($10). Buying a semester membership also entitles you to sessions during the semester breaks when there is sufficient interest in continuing to train. Our semester fees are as low as possible to make sure we can still rent the MAG and continue to operate.

We follow a solid colour and tip ranking system through the coloured belts. They are as follows:

10th gup - White Belt

9th gup - White with Yellow Tip

8th gup - Yellow Belt

7th gup - Yellow with Green Tip

6th gup - Green Belt

5th gup - Green with Blue Tip

4th gup - Blue Belt

3rd gup - Blue with Brown Tip

2nd gup - Brown Belt

1st gup - Brown with Black Tip

When a 1st gup rank is deemed ready (at least 1 year after attaining the rank), they are invited to grade for their 1st dan, or first-degree black belt by the club’s instructors. This is a gruelling grading intended to test the limits of the student and ensure they have mastered the basics of taekwondo.

Unfortunately, UQ Taekwondo is a university club. While we accept adults of all backgrounds, we do not accept children. There are many martial arts clubs around that will allow your child to train, but we are focused on providing intense sessions catered to adults. We look forward to seeing them come along when they’re older!