“Since its origin fifty years ago, this event has become one of the largest, highest quality, and most popular Taekwondo tournaments on the West Coast.”
There are two types of competition at the UC Open:
Sparring. Two competitors kick and punch using footwork to control distance and position.
Forms. Competitor demonstrates precision, balance, and power of pre-arranged techniques.
Taekwondo sparring is a lot like swimming: you can practice swimming strokes on dry land all you want and even get really good at it. But, unless you actually get in the water, you really don't know how well you can swim and keep your head above water. Putting the gear on and getting in the ring for sparring is like getting in the water for swimming: if you don't get in the ring after learning all these skills, you don't really know how your skills measure up.
Competing in forms and sparring offer several specific benefits including:
Emotions. Learn to remain calm under pressure especially when the opponent is charging forward with fierce attacks.
Mobility. Become a boss of the situation by controlling the space between you and the opponent for both offense & defense with effective footwork.
Fitness. Improve strength, speed, flexibility, coordination, reflexes, stamina and more.
Because of the specific deadline to be ready for a competition, preparing for this event offers benefits not available otherwise. One benefit is training clarity, the ability to focus on essential actions and use time wisely to accomplish specific training goals.
People that want to succeed will also develop the awesome benefits listed below. There is no shortcut.
Develop a Work Ethic.
Getting on a schedule for training and sticking to that schedule teaches the value of ongoing training: persistent hard, smart work makes you better!
Learn to Achieve Goals.
Staying focused on clear goals through a solid work ethic results in a mastery of specific skills and leads to taking on other, more advanced goals.
Find Your Swagger!
Participants gain confidence and find their inner voice from newfound abilities and accomplishments. Celebrate and share these gifts with joy and passion!
The short list for getting ready for this competition is simple:
Be on a schedule.
Get all your equipment.
Take it seriously.
Having a fun competition means being ready. Being ready takes time and effort. This means being on a schedule by consistently showing up in the studio. There is no replacement for being on the mat.
Sparring. There's a laundry list of activities including improving fitness, flexibility, and strategy in addition to improving specific skills like footwork and combinations.
Forms. Refine techniques and movements for more power, grace, and precision.
Make certain that you have all the required protective gear for sparring. If you already have gear, check to make certain that it all still fits. If it's worn out, get some new equipment.
Getting ready for competition demands a commitment to improving at each and every training session. Coasting through the motions haphazardly will only lead to an unsatisfactory result. Train your best to perform your best. Decide to be a success.
The first UC Open Taekwondo Championship was held in 1969 and was one of the first events created by UCMAP under the direction of founder and technical director emeritus, Dr. Ken Min.
The UC Open began as a small competition in which Berkeley’s taekwondo students could demonstrate and apply the skills they learned in a stressful but controlled environment. It was the first taekwondo tournament in the United States to implement the World Taekwondo rules and regulations after the WT’s founding in 1973.
This year, UCMAP is celebrating the UC Open's 50th anniversary. The current UCMAP Director, Dr. Russell Ahn, welcomes competitors, parents, coaches, referees, and spectators from across the nation to have an enjoyable experience!
A prominent feature of the U.C. Berkeley, the UC Martial Arts Program is an expanding, dynamic organization dedicated to providing outstanding martial arts instruction to the campus community. Following the introduction of Judo to U.C. Berkeley in the 1930s by Dr. Henry Stone, UCMAP has grown into a world-renowned organization.
MSMAP members began competing in both forms and sparring at the UC Open in 2007. Since then, we’ve won several gold, silver, and bronze medals. The UC Open is a step up into the big leagues. It’s a well-run tournament offering fun, exciting action for participants and their families.
Read more: Other articles about MSMAP’s successful competition experiences.
Go to: 2017 UC Open Taekwondo & Yongmudo Championships
Go to: 2016 UC Open Taekwondo & Yongmudo Championships
Go to: 2014 UC Open Taekwondo Championships
Go to: 2013 UC Open Taekwondo Championships
Go to: 2012 UC Yongmudo Championships
Go to: 2012 UC Open Taekwondo Championships
Go to: 2011 UC Yongmudo Championships
Go to: 2011 UC Open Taekwondo Championships
Go to: 2010 UC Open Taekwondo & Yongmudo Championships
Go to: 2009 UC Open Taekwondo Championships
Quick Info. It’s about a 4-hour drive between Shasta and Berkeley depending on traffic. Usually, traffic is not noticeable until the 505/80 merge, if then. Traffic becomes heavier on the west side of the Carquinez Bridge later in the afternoon. To avoid traffic altogether when driving to Berkeley, get to the Carquinez Bridge before 5pm.
Plan Ahead. A little planning for driving and parking in Berkeley is helpful. Per the University web site: “We strongly recommend planning in advance as commuting in the city of Berkeley can be complicated.”
By “complicated,” this simply means there are many one-way streets and metered parking and parking time limits with confusing signs. All of this is easy to navigate:
(1) if you keep turning left, you’ll end up where you started;
(2) permanent parking signs mean a little less on Saturdays and even less on Sunday.
Driving is not so bad in Berkeley, but look over the maps to become familiar with the nearby street names.
Start here to get your bearings before traveling to Berkeley.
Parking can be an adventure if you’re unprepared. On-campus and off-campus parking lots are available as is free and paid/metered street parking.
Off-Campus Parking. Our recommendation is to park on the streets nearby the campus. Unmetered (free) street parking is available on Saturdays and Sundays (and weekdays after 6pm) on Ellsworth, Dana, Channing, Haste, and Dwight (note the signs for specifics). It’s a short walk to campus from any of these streets. Parking is free on Sundays on Bancroft Avenue.
On-Campus Parking. The closest on-campus (paid) parking is the RSF Garage immediately underneath the RSF and Kleeberger Field House (entrance on Bancroft Avenue). Refer to the university parking page and map for location and cost.
Use these maps to help get around in Berkeley and to help plan where you can park. The Parkopedia map even provides current costs for garages and parking lots, on- and off-campus.
Learn more about the history and landmarks of the university and city of Berkeley. Discover great places to visit, tucked away in the hills behind the campus.
Cal is known as one of the leading public universities in the world. With several Nobel Prize winners on faculty, professors and researchers at Cal continue to make discoveries that affect our daily lives.
Take a drive up the hill behind the campus to see a few things as well as enjoy a fantastic panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz Island, Angel Island, and the Golden Gate Bridge.
U.C. Botanical Garden. “The Garden holds one of the largest and most diverse collections in the United States...[featuring] plants of documented wild origin from nearly every continent.”
Lawrence Hall of Science. Take a visit to the Lawrence Hall of Science for interesting exhibits and a spectacular of the San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, and more. Bring your cameras!
Tilden Regional Park. And, if you make it this far, check out Tilden Regional Park, just a short drive further up the hill and Grizzly Peak skyline road. If you arrive in the afternoon, the park even has a steam train for children.
Architects. There are many examples of late-19th and early-20th Century architecture on- and off-campus particularly those buildings of the Beaux-Arts Classical tradition. Many individuals made their mark on the campus architectural landscape that exists today including John Galen Howard (campus architect until 1924), William Ratcliffe, Bernard Maybeck (Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco), and his student, Julia Morgan (the architect for Hearst Castle in San Simeon, CA and the first woman architect licensed in California).
Hearst Family. In the early 20th Century, much of the funding for campus construction was provided by the Hearst family (the same Hearst family in the Dunsmuir/McCloud area). The Hearst family “adopted” UC Berkeley following the founding of Stanford University by the Stanford family and a little competition between the families and the universities began.
Following are four landmark buildings near Haas Pavilion.
1. SATHER TOWER (THE CAMPANILE)
Named for its inspiration in St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy, this is “perhaps UC Berkeley’s most famous symbol. Visible for miles, it stands 307 feet tall and is the third tallest bell and clock-tower in the world...Completed in 1914, the Campanile is the symbol of the campus. It also houses a carillon of 61 bells on which music is played every day at noon.” The massive bells weigh from 19 to 10,500 pounds. Tickets to the observation deck are $2 for adults. The observation platform is open until 3:45pm (Mon-Fri) and 4:45pm on weekends.
2. FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH
This building, immediately across from the walkway from Haas Pavilion, is now the univerisity Dramatic Arts Department dance facility. It is “an excellent early example of the Bay Area Shingle style...The First Unitarian Church design was revolutionary for its time in its single huge west gable, the use of shingles and metal sash windows, the exceptionally heavy rough beams resting on unpeeled redwood trunks, and the semi-circular apse with a bisected conical roof on the east side. Curved buttresses along the side walls structurally unnecessary in a wood-frame building make a playful allusion to traditional masonry churches.”
3. BERKELEY CITY CLUB
One block over from Haas Pavilion on Durant, “the Berkeley City Club is listed in the Berkeley Designated Landmark #2, 1975, California State Landmark #908, 1977 and the National Register of Historic Places, 1977. This beautiful building was designed and built in 1929 by architect Julia Morgan.” and “is one of [her] outstanding works...whose interpretation of Moorish and Gothic elements created a landmark of California design.”
4. HEARST GYMNASIUM
A five-minute walk up Bancroft from Haas Pavilion, this facility offers a taste of Hearst Castle and its beautifully designed swimming pool (still in use). “Hearst Memorial Gymnasium, 1927, originally the women’s gym, was designed by Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan. It includes two gyms, three dance studios, and three outdoor swimming pools. The gym was built as a memorial to Phoebe Apperson Hearst” (the mother of William Randolph Hearst).
Learn more about the university and the city of Berkeley.
Berkeley is often identified with the Free Speech Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and the Anti-War Movement along with hippies, activists, and colorful street people and performers, and more. There is a reason for this association.
“For these ten years from roughly 1964 to 1974 Cal captured the imagination of the United States in a way that happens once a lifetime, if that. Though we, for convenience’s sake, group ‘the 60s’ together, it was really two separate ideas and spirits manifesting themselves, related only in time and place.”