A Brief History of PACE Taekwondo

In the early 1970's Grandmaster Young Youl Oh, who had recently migrated to Australia from Korea, established Oh's Taekwondo Centre in Collingwood.  Grandmaster Oh arrived as a 5th Dan Black Belt with a very distinguished background having been the Korean National Taekwondo champion on numerous occasions.  He also spent a long tour of duty in Vietnam during the Vietnam War as Taekwondo instructor to the United States and South Vietnamese Military forces. 

In these early days, classes were run from a small premises on the 1st floor of a workshop in Wellington Street. In the mid 70's, however, Grandmaster Oh moved to a headquarters in Flemington but retained the Collingwood venue as a branch.  Subsequently, the branch was taken over by Mr Henry Beayni, one of Grandmaster Oh's senior black belts. 

In 1987 Mr Beayni was unable to continue running the branch due to other commitments and transferred its control back to Grandmaster Oh .  At this time classes were run from a community hall on the ground floor of the Collingwood high rise commission flats on Hoddle Street.  Later on in the year Grandmaster Oh asked Mr Robert Pace to take control of this branch as he had four other branches with which to contend. 

Since then the training venue has moved a number of times.  Classes were run in the Collingwood RSL Hall from 1988 to 1999 when the venue closed for refurbishment.  During this time, the club commenced trading as Collingwood Taekwondo.  From 1999 to 2001 classes were run from the Collingwood Leisure Centre and Fitzroy Swimming Pool.  In 2002 classes moved one suburb along to one of its current locations, the Clifton Hill Primary School.  The Northcote High School branch commenced operation in 2004 and with it heralded the name change to PACE Taekwondo.

Grandmaster Oh, who is now 9th Dan, still presides over gradings at PACE Taekwondo and conducts many Black Belt seminars for its members.