T. Kang Taekwondo Dojo on Avenue U: Marine Park Since 1992

T. Kang Taekwondo at 2960 Avenue U is where the Kang family's school became a Brooklyn institution. Grandmaster Tae Sun Kang opened this Marine Park dojang in 1992, a decade before the better-known Manhattan branch, and it still runs weekday afternoons into the late evening for children, teens and adults who want a traditional curriculum taught by long-serving black belts.

The roots go back further than the storefront. According to Grandmaster Kang's biography on the school website, his family moved to the United States in 1969 and set up their first taekwondo school in Brooklyn, which the site calls the beginning of the Kang System in America. Kang himself competed seriously in those early years and lists the title All American Champion, 1983, among his credentials.

The Marine Park school came next. The biography names it plainly as the founding location of T. Kang Taekwondo USA, opened in 1992. Kang reached grandmaster status at 9th dan in 2007, was awarded his 10th dan black belt in 2020, and was inducted into the Official Taekwondo Hall of Fame in 2024. Few neighborhood schools anywhere can point to a founder with that rank who still oversees the curriculum.

Day to day, the Avenue U school is led by its own senior team. The staff page lists Master Lisanne Jones-Sobers, a sixth-degree black belt, as head instructor at Marine Park. Master Berthony Pascal is the master instructor here and head coach of the T. Kang tournament team. Sahbumnim Katisha Turner, a fifth-degree black belt, rounds out the senior bench.

That mix matters for parents. Jones-Sobers sets the tone for the children's classes, while Pascal is the person to talk to if your teenager wants to fight in tournaments or train toward a demonstration team. The fact that all three hold high dan ranks means even a beginner's class is usually watched by someone with decades of experience.

T. Kang teaches a traditional style rather than a pure Olympic sparring program. The school sells instructional DVDs of its patterns, and the names on them, Chon-Ji and Dan-Gun among them, belong to the classical Chang-Hon set. Students spend real time on those forms, on stances held long enough to burn, and on self-defense combinations that make sense outside a ring.

As in most traditional dojangs, etiquette is part of the lesson. Expect to bow when you step on and off the training floor, to address senior belts by title, and to line up by rank at the start and end of class. New families sometimes find that formal at first, but many parents end up valuing the discipline as much as the kicks.

If you are deciding between this school and an Olympic-style sparring gym, the difference shows up in the weekly rhythm. A traditional program like this one spends more of each class on patterns, step sparring and breaking technique, while competition clubs drill electronic-scoring footwork almost every night. Neither is better in the abstract. Children who like structure and visible progress in their forms tend to thrive here, and teens who catch the competition bug can still channel it through the tournament team.

The Marine Park location offers two core groups, Children for ages five to twelve and Teens and Adults, and the site notes that all locations offer adult classes. Private training is available for students who want one-on-one work before a belt exam or a competition. The youngest program, Little Dragons for three and four year olds, is run only at the Tribeca branch, so Brooklyn families with toddlers will need to wait a year or two.

Saturdays are also when the school hosts birthday parties, according to its programs page, a popular choice for kids who already train and want to show classmates what they do every week.

Posted hours for Marine Park are Monday to Friday 2 pm to 10 pm and Saturday 10 am to 4 pm. Those long weekday evenings are unusual for a neighborhood school and make it workable for adults who commute into Manhattan and get home after seven. The site does not publish a class-by-class timetable for this branch, so stop by during those hours or phone the front desk to find the right group for your age and rank.

There is no published tuition on the website either. For Tribeca the school advertises a free trial lesson for children, and the most direct way to find out what applies on Avenue U is to ask at the desk on your first visit.

Families who split time between Brooklyn and Manhattan have another option inside the same system. The Tribeca branch on Franklin Place teaches the same curriculum, so a student can attend a class there on a workday and return to Avenue U on Saturday without any change to forms, belt requirements or terminology.

The dojang sits on the commercial stretch of Avenue U, lined with pizzerias, bakeries and small family businesses. A short walk east brings you to Marine Park itself, the largest park in Brooklyn, with ball fields, a running track and wide lawns that fill up on weekend afternoons.

Farther along the park's edge, the Salt Marsh Nature Center has a boardwalk loop over the tidal marsh of Gerritsen Creek, a calm place to cool down after Saturday training. Kings Plaza Shopping Center is a few minutes east by car or bus, and the Marine Park Golf Course stretches toward Jamaica Bay for anyone who prefers a different kind of swing.

Address: T. Kang Taekwondo Marine Park, 2960 Avenue U, Brooklyn, NY 11229. Phone: (718) 891-1400. Hours: Monday to Friday 2 pm to 10 pm, Saturday 10 am to 4 pm. Programs: Children 5 to 12, Teens and Adults, private training, Saturday birthday parties. Founded on Avenue U in 1992 by Grandmaster Tae Sun Kang, now a 10th dan.

Getting there: the B3 bus runs along Avenue U and stops near the school, and street parking is easier than in most of Brooklyn. Good fit for families who want a traditional, forms-heavy school with a famous lineage. Ask the Karpo APP for a slice nearby or for other taekwondo schools in south Brooklyn.