About
The UC Berkeley Martial Arts Program offers Youth Martial Arts, Martial Arts Camp, and Adult Martial Arts, along with specific disciplines such as Judo, Karate, Taekwondo, Taiji, Wushu, and Self-Defense Yongmudo. The program’s academic year includes events such as the UC Open, the Chinese Martial Arts Tournament, and the UC Yongmudo Championship, and it also runs instructional seminars, symposiums, martial art camps, and sends student teams to national and international competitions.
• Price: Most of our services are included at no additional cost (already paid for by your student registration fees), while some programs may have an additional fee for participants.
Since its inception in 1969, the Martial Arts Program of the University of California’s Berkeley campus has had a twofold mission, including preserving the philosophy, techniques, and traditions of martial arts and developing a scientific understanding of the physical and spiritual implications of human performance. Instruction in UC Berkeley Martial Arts Program clubs is carried out by high-ranking instructors in their particular martial arts. The program includes six different martial arts clubs: Judo, Karate, Taekwondo, Taiji, Wushu, and Self-Defense Yongmudo, and these clubs are described as very beginner-friendly with top-notch instructors and safe facilities to study martial arts. The UC Berkeley Martial Arts Program is dedicated to providing martial arts instruction to the UC Berkeley campus and the surrounding community, and its six clubs are active in organizing and hosting instructional seminars, symposiums, and martial art camps, as well as participating in collegiate, national, and world competitions. UCMAP pools together hundreds of its members and has nearly 600 members and many more alumni, giving it ample resources to run events in a university environment, and it is held highly regarded as one of the top producers of martial artists in the country.
The leadership team includes Dr. Russell Ahn, Director of the UC Martial Arts Program, and Dr. Ken Min, who founded the first major university-based martial arts program in the nation in 1969. The future of the UC Berkeley Martial Arts Program was secured in 1995 with a one-million-dollar endowment from the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Korea and the World Taekwondo Federation, officially named the Ken Min Endowed Directorship for Taekwondo and the Martial Arts, which established a permanent position for martial arts instruction at UC Berkeley. The program has partnerships with Yongin University and Korean National Sport University and has created a research facility and the International Martial Arts Research Institute (IMARI). IMARI has published an academic journal of martial arts as a monograph series that contains an annual compilation of martial arts papers on art, physics, physiology, instruction, and philosophy for an international readership. The University of California Martial Arts Program is described as unique in its combination of athleticism and scholarship, vision and history, innovation, and tradition, and it consistently sends student teams to national and international competitions and boasts Olympic hopefuls.
Last updated May 11, 2026.
• Price: Most of our services are included at no additional cost (already paid for by your student registration fees), while some programs may have an additional fee for participants.
Since its inception in 1969, the Martial Arts Program of the University of California’s Berkeley campus has had a twofold mission, including preserving the philosophy, techniques, and traditions of martial arts and developing a scientific understanding of the physical and spiritual implications of human performance. Instruction in UC Berkeley Martial Arts Program clubs is carried out by high-ranking instructors in their particular martial arts. The program includes six different martial arts clubs: Judo, Karate, Taekwondo, Taiji, Wushu, and Self-Defense Yongmudo, and these clubs are described as very beginner-friendly with top-notch instructors and safe facilities to study martial arts. The UC Berkeley Martial Arts Program is dedicated to providing martial arts instruction to the UC Berkeley campus and the surrounding community, and its six clubs are active in organizing and hosting instructional seminars, symposiums, and martial art camps, as well as participating in collegiate, national, and world competitions. UCMAP pools together hundreds of its members and has nearly 600 members and many more alumni, giving it ample resources to run events in a university environment, and it is held highly regarded as one of the top producers of martial artists in the country.
The leadership team includes Dr. Russell Ahn, Director of the UC Martial Arts Program, and Dr. Ken Min, who founded the first major university-based martial arts program in the nation in 1969. The future of the UC Berkeley Martial Arts Program was secured in 1995 with a one-million-dollar endowment from the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Korea and the World Taekwondo Federation, officially named the Ken Min Endowed Directorship for Taekwondo and the Martial Arts, which established a permanent position for martial arts instruction at UC Berkeley. The program has partnerships with Yongin University and Korean National Sport University and has created a research facility and the International Martial Arts Research Institute (IMARI). IMARI has published an academic journal of martial arts as a monograph series that contains an annual compilation of martial arts papers on art, physics, physiology, instruction, and philosophy for an international readership. The University of California Martial Arts Program is described as unique in its combination of athleticism and scholarship, vision and history, innovation, and tradition, and it consistently sends student teams to national and international competitions and boasts Olympic hopefuls.
Last updated May 11, 2026.
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