Alumnus Credits Taido Class as Crucial Part of Ph.D. Journey.

Since he was a child, Varun Agrawal always wanted to learn martial arts but was never given the opportunity.

“It was something I had wanted since I was a kid,” he said. “Growing up in India, it’s not known for martial arts.”

Agrawal knew he needed something to help him balance his physical health with the challenges of graduate school. He checked the list of classes offered by Georgia Tech’s Campus Recreation. One stood out: Georgia Tech Taido.

Taido is a niche martial art that applies a modern, scientific approach to traditional Okinawan karate. There is only one school in the U.S. that teaches it — Taido Karate in Peachtree Corners, Ga., which is currently the world’s largest taido school.

Taido means “the way of the body and the mind.” It was invented in the 1960s by Seiken Shukumine. 

One of Shukumine’s students, Mitsunobu Uchida, brought the new martial art to the U.S. when he immigrated in 1975. Uchida decided that Atlanta would be an ideal place to open a new school. 

Since then, generations of students have trained at Taido Karate, including Georgia Tech alumnus Bryan Sparks (EE 2000), and Andy Fossett, who started as a student at Tech in 1996 before transferring to Georgia State.

Sparks and Fossett learned taido together as kids. Both became black belts before graduating high school. 

Shortly after becoming students at Tech, they started an official taido club on campus. They taught their first class in 1996, which only had one student. By the next semester, they had almost a dozen. 

“The class was held in an open area, and a lot of people would walk by and see us training,” Sparks said. “That was the best advertisement we could ever have. We’d invite them to work out, and it grew from there. We did some demonstrations around campus in the early days.”

The taido club is still going strong and celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. 

Agrawal discovered it in 2018 as a first-year Ph.D. student. He earned his doctorate in robotics from Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing in 2025.

While keeping his Ph.D. studies first, Agrawal trained for five years to earn a black belt. He said the process was the most physically and mentally challenging he’s ever experienced.

“The tenets of taido teach you how to compose yourself and how to have a good mindset, which becomes helpful in dealing with daily life stress,” Agrawal said. “It helps you focus on what’s important in the moment.”

“There were times when I felt like nothing was going right, and I kept asking ‘What am I even doing?’ But I knew if I could do some of the harder things in taido, there’s no reason I couldn’t do the same thing in my Ph.D.”

Agrawal’s commitment paid off in 2022 when he became one of five students from Tech Taido to pass the black belt test that year.

“The test is grueling,” he said. “It’s four hours long. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done physically, and I’ve run several marathons. They test you on everything you’ve learned from white belt level to brown belt level. I was training five days a week for five months.

“It was one of the best days of my life. It felt like no matter what happened, I could move forward with my life and be proud of that accomplishment.”

Agrawal landed a remote job with a robotics startup after graduating. His new position allowed him to stay in Atlanta and continue with Georgia Tech Taido as an instructor.

He said the unique aspect of taido is its emphasis on community and culture, which can be attributed to Uchida’s influence. 

“A lot of times, American senseis open dojos after learning martial arts overseas. They bring the techniques and the discipline over, but they don’t bring the culture that comes with it. I love how taido is a part of our lives. It’s not a separate workout; it’s a communal thing.”

Agrawal teaches classes with Lacy Hardcastle, who took over as lead instructor when Sparks moved out of the area in 2019. Hardcastle took her first Taido class at Tech in 2007.

Hardcastle said students trying taido for the first time will get a challenging workout.

“I didn’t know how weak my legs were until I took taido,” she said. “It kicked my butt the first semester. We do whole body conditioning with lots of push-ups, lunges, squats and other exercises. It’s a very athletic martial art and requires whole-body fitness and control.”

Hardcastle describes the environment as welcoming and supportive, with regular get-togethers outside of class and a biennial trip to Japan with the Taido Karate school.

“We have a great social community where we support each other,” she said. “We occasionally go out to social events together. Sometimes we’ll get together to watch MMA fights, things like that. But we also work out hard.” 

Georgia Tech Taido classes are held every Monday and Wednesday from 8:30 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. in Studio A of the Georgia Tech Campus Recreation Center. The registration cost for the fall semester is $75. To register, visit https://crc.gatech.edu/martial-arts-4/.