{"692635":{"#nid":"692635","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Alumnus Credits Taido Class as Crucial Part of Ph.D. Journey","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESince he was a child, Varun Agrawal wanted to learn martial arts but never had the opportunity.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt was something I had wanted since I was a kid,\u201d he said. \u201cGrowing up in India, it wasn\u0027t known for martial arts.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAgrawal 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\u2019s Campus Recreation. One stood out: Georgia Tech Taido.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETaido 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 \u2014 Taido Karate in Peachtree Corners, Ga., which is currently the world\u2019s largest taido school.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETaido means \u201cthe way of the body and the mind.\u201d It was invented in the 1960s by Seiken Shukumine.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne of Shukumine\u2019s 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESince 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESparks and Fossett learned taido together as kids. Both became black belts before graduating high school.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShortly 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe class was held in an open area, and a lot of people would walk by and see us training,\u201d Sparks said. \u201cThat was the best advertisement we could ever have. We\u2019d invite them to work out, and it grew from there. We did some demonstrations around campus in the early days.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe taido club is still going strong and celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAgrawal discovered it in 2018 as a first-year Ph.D. student. He earned his doctorate in robotics from Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing in 2025.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile 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\u2019s ever experienced.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe 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,\u201d Agrawal said. \u201cIt helps you focus on what\u2019s important in the moment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere were times when I felt like nothing was going right, and I kept asking \u2018What am I even doing?\u2019 But I knew if I could do some of the harder things in taido, there\u2019s no reason I couldn\u2019t do the same thing in my Ph.D.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAgrawal\u2019s commitment paid off in 2022 when he became one of five students from Tech Taido to pass the black belt test that year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe test is grueling,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s four hours long. It\u2019s the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever done physically, and I\u2019ve run several marathons. They test you on everything you\u2019ve learned from white belt level to brown belt level. I was training five days a week for five months.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt 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.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAgrawal 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe said the unique aspect of taido is its emphasis on community and culture, which can be attributed to Uchida\u2019s influence.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cA lot of times, American senseis open dojos after learning martial arts overseas. They bring the techniques and the discipline over, but they don\u2019t bring the culture that comes with it. I love how taido is a part of our lives. It\u2019s not a separate workout; it\u2019s a communal thing.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAgrawal 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHardcastle said students trying taido for the first time will get a challenging workout.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI didn\u2019t know how weak my legs were until I took taido,\u201d she said. \u201cIt kicked my butt the first semester. We do whole body conditioning with lots of push-ups, lunges, squats and other exercises. It\u2019s a very athletic martial art and requires whole-body fitness and control.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHardcastle 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe have a great social community where we support each other,\u201d she said. \u201cWe occasionally go out to social events together. Sometimes we\u2019ll get together to watch MMA fights, things like that. But we also work out hard.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia 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 \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/crc.gatech.edu\/martial-arts-4\/\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/crc.gatech.edu\/martial-arts-4\/\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech Taido allowed Varun Agrawal to pursue a Ph.D. and a black belt as a graduate student at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech Taido allowed Varun Agrawal to pursue a Ph.D. and a black belt as a graduate student at Georgia Tech"}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-09-17 13:41:18","changed_gmt":"2026-09-18 12:45:02","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-09-17T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-09-17T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"681181":{"id":"681181","type":"image","title":"GT-Taido-Class_86A0245.jpg","body":null,"created":"1789652591","gmt_created":"2026-09-17 13:43:11","changed":"1789652591","gmt_changed":"2026-09-17 13:43:11","alt":"Varun Agrawal","file":{"fid":"265546","name":"GT-Taido-Class_86A0245.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/17\/GT-Taido-Class_86A0245.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/17\/GT-Taido-Class_86A0245.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":122978,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/09\/17\/GT-Taido-Class_86A0245.jpg?itok=eaFFqVwK"}}},"media_ids":["681181"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}