Our Club
Practitioner Information
This is a section for those students who have trained somewhere else, recently or way back in the past, and are wondering if our Taekwon-Do club is for them. The short answer is yes - our instructors will teach those who want to learn.
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We are a very friendly and open club where it doesn’t matter where/when you’ve trained before or in which affiliation. You are very welcome to join and train, simply bring proof of your current grade and you'll be able to continue your Taekwon-Do journey from there.
Our club is ITF style and follows the teachings of General Choi Hong Hi, the founder of Taekwon-Do. Our instructors train under First Grand Master Rhee and Grand Master Paul Cutler. The way we train works and is our best understanding of Taekwon-Do from the Masters and Grand Masters we train with. Our association is the Authentic Centres for Excellence of Taekwon-Do (A.C.E. TKD), established by Grand Master Paul Cutler, with First Grand Master Rhee as its Patron, Technical Advisor and Director of Promotions.
First Grand Master Rhee
Rhee Ki Ha was the first official “Taekwon-Do Instructor” to leave Korea in 1964, it was even documented as his occupation in his Korean passport. This was to be the beginning of a long journey as he took the art of Taekwon-Do to the rest of the world. Born on March 20th 1938, he is widely recognised as the Father of British Taekwon-Do after introducing the art to the UK in 1967. He also went on to promote Taekwon-Do throughout Europe, founding the All Europe Taekwon-Do Federation (A.E.T.F) in 1979. Our First Grand Master is one of the original Masters that pioneered Taekwon-Do throughout the 1960s, also being a key member of Choi’s famous World Demonstration Team during the 1970s and 80s global tours.
On July 2nd 1997, at the ITF’s World Congress in St Petersburg, Russia, General Choi announced that he was creating Taekwon-Do history by awarding Rhee Ki Ha the coveted rank of 9th Dan. This was the first time the Founder had ever promoted anyone to this esteemed rank, and is how the title of First Grand Master Rhee came about. Since the Founder’s death in 2002, he is widely regarded as the world’s highest authority on Taekwon-Do.
Every September in Glasgow we have the amazing opportunity to train with First Grand Master Rhee, with a full day black belt seminar and a morning coloured belt seminar. He has also made several visits to our club in Dundee, the most recent ones being May 2017 and May 2015. All our black belt gradings are conducted by First Grand Master Rhee, a certificate and belt with worldwide respect attached.
Grand Master Paul Cutler
Grand Master Paul Cutler is the Founder, Chief Instructor and Examiner of A.C.E. TKD. He and started Taekwon-Do in 1973 at the age of 25 in Oxford. At this time the Chief Instructor for Great Britain was First Grand Master Rhee, then a 6th Dan. All of Grand Master Paul Cutler’s gradings have been under First Grand Master Rhee. He attained the rank of Black Belt in 1978 and began teaching Taekwon-Do. He went on to obtain his 4th Dan in 1985. When promoted to 7th Dan in 1998 he became the first ever student of First Grand Master Rhee’s to receive Master’s status. He was awarded his 9th Dan on 29th October 2011, becoming the first student to be promoted to Grand Master by First Grand Master Rhee. We regularly host a Seminar and Grading with Grand Master Cutler in Dundee and train with him in September at the First Grand Master Rhee
seminar.
For many years Grand Master Paul Cutler has been the right hand man of First Grand Master Rhee, travelling with him when possible to teach and promote Taekwon-Do around the world. He was part of the UKTA’s Demonstration Team in the 80s. He has attended over 30 International Courses with the Founder, General Choi, from the 80s until his death in 2002. In 2011, he established A.C.E. TKD to promote authentic Taekwon-Do as formulated by General Choi Hong Hi.
Our Instructors
Our club is instructed by ZNT Taekwon-Do, which is part of A.C.E. TKD.
Our instructor is Miss Zoë Tate (VI. Dan), who we train with every week in classes in St Andrews.
Miss Zoë Tate
6th Dan Black Belt
An International Instructor, a Qualified Grading Examiner, a Qualified Referee and Umpire, and Emergency First Aid Qualified. She started her training in 1996 at the Dundee University Club, quickly becoming club secretary and then captain.
In 1997 she was awarded a University Full Blue and given the title of University Sportswoman of the year. During her colour-belt years and right up until attaining her 3rd Dan black belt, she was a highly successful competitor, never leaving a competition without at least one gold medal.
Miss Tate achieved her rank of 6th Dan on 3rd September 2017 under First Grand Master Rhee Ki Ha. As an instructor, she has helped numerous students achieve their black belt, and coached countless more to compete very successfully.
A.C.E. Masters
The current masters in A.C.E. are Grand Master Paul Cutler, Grand Master O’Neill, Senior Master Paul Kavanagh, Senior Master Derek Blackburn, Master Steve Proctor, Master Timothy Helstrip, John McMillan and Master Andrew Birthistle who all usually attend the First Grand Master Rhee Seminar weekend in Glasgow.
We know that some clubs heavily focus on sparring or patterns for competitions to push the competitive sport side of Taekwon-Do. Here, we train hard for the martial art. This means we encompass a bit of everything in our training: patterns, fundamental movements, step sparring, free sparring, competition sparring, breaking, sweeping, release from grabs, restraints, flying techniques, stretching, body conditioning, pad work, theory and application of techniques. There is also an emphasis on mental and physical balance. We use competition to aid us in our training and there is opportunity to compete at local, national and international level.