The University of Minnesota’s Taekwondo Club aims to create a community with shared interests, regardless of experience or background, both inside and outside of taekwondo.

The club meets three times a week from 5 to 7 p.m. at the University’s Recreation and Wellness Center. According to Sakthi Sundaram Saravanan, a fourth-year student and the club’s vice president, meetings usually start with warmups to prevent injuries and a grace period for people to show up late.

“On Mondays, we usually do conditioning drills, so kicks, drills, practice and getting those basics down,” Sundaram Saravanan said. “On Wednesdays, we focus more on sparring, which is one-on-one fighting for points, and Fridays are more like a free practice where people are open to do whatever they want.”

The club focuses on many components of taekwondo, including sparring, tricking, weapons, self-defense, board breaking, demonstrations and poomsae.

Poomsae is a memorized series of taekwondo moves performed in a specific order, Sundaram Saravanan said. 

According to Sundaram Saravanan, poomsae involves a variety of different elements, including breaking and tricking. 

“The tricking component is more gymnastic stuff like flips, spin kicks, jump spin kicks and line kicks,” Sundaram Saravanan said. “In the weapon section, you either have a staff or a sword that you do a demonstration with, and there are also weapon defenses that go along with them.” 

Kaitlin Beel, a graduate student and the club’s facilities and safety officer, said demonstrations are performances similar to a dance, which involve a mixture of poomsae, including breaking and tricking elements.

“I would describe the club as casual and social, but the support is there if you want to go and be more engaged at a higher level, so it is certainly not required,” Beel said. “There’s always going to be someone who can help you if you want to do more, but there is also an openness to taking people at whatever level they’re at.”

Victor Hofstetter, a third-year student and the club’s external relations and marketing officer, said anyone can find a way to focus on their interests within the club. But, he finds people gear their interests towards what they are good at for competition.

“If you are interested in sparring or poomsae, you will for sure be able to go to a competitive level on those,” Hofstetter said. “If you do tricking or weapons though, these are more niche and don’t necessarily have a big audience or a big demand in tournaments.” 

Hofstetter said people can join the club more casually, but they welcome people who want to join them in tournaments.

James Cho, a fourth-year student and the club’s vice president, said the club was invited to the Midwest Collegiate Taekwondo Conference (MCTC) last fall, which is an alliance of college taekwondo clubs in the Midwest.

“In October of 2023, we had the opportunity to go to our first competition and training camp in Chicago at the University of Illinois Chicago with MCTC,” Cho said. “It was pretty low stakes, just getting to know everybody else, and it was a fun experience.” 

Hofstetter said the Director of MCTC David Lee is coming Saturday to give the club a sparring training session in preparation for two MCTC tournaments in October. 

Beel said the club tends to focus on collegiate competitions because there are more students at the same age and level.

“It’s nice to be able to be around other college students, which collegiate events provide,” Beel said. “Whereas, if you are at a local tournament, you might be the only person in your division and may get paired up with an exhibition match with a high schooler, which isn’t as enjoyable of an experience.” 

Hofstetter said the club plans to attend at least one competition each semester this academic year. 

The club also performed in partnership with both the University’s Asian American Student Union and the Korean Student Association, Cho said.

One of the main reasons Cho said he continues his involvement with the club is because of the friendships he made and the environment.

“I felt that I fit in, that I could be myself, not be judged and have a lot of fun,” Cho said.

Hofstetter said building community is one of the club’s main goals. 

“We want to share the cultural tradition of taekwondo,” Hofstetter said. “The means that we use to get to that goal do not matter, whether it’s competition or creating community. It’s really about finding that thing we’re all passionate about and engaging in it together.”