Beverly Hills Martial Arts Center

I have been doing martial arts since I am 15, did different style, and was transferring from a different location as a red belt Tae Kwon Doist.
Master Kim is a great teacher, he cares for his student, and fuses different style to nourish his classes. You will learn forms, increase your kicking and punching techniques, build your stamina, and get to spare with a world champion.
He is also an Eastern Medicine Dr, and has an acupuncture clinic next to the dojo.
And in addition, you will practice with student that will become could close friends.

First time here today. Took in a Kundalini yoga class with Tej. She is awesome. Easy parking, easy location to find (2^nd floor just above El Pollo Loco) right next to the McDonald’s on Sunset and Crescent Heights.

I’ve been wanting to get back into the martial arts for years. I practiced Kuk Sool Won as an adolescent. Will this be my next studio? Probably not. The facility is nice and everyone was very friendly. However, I tend to agree with some of the things Benjamin P. wrote in his review. My search will continue!

The Beverly Hills Martial Arts Center has completely changed my life for the better. I feel like the studio has given me more meaning in life, I will continue my journey on this path for many years to come.

Master Kim teaches, in his own words, «the martial arts» rather than «taekwondo,» which means he incorporates quite a bit into his taekwondo classes including hapkido and certain weapons. He has several dan ranks in taekwondo, but didn’t mention his rank in hapkido, saying «I did hapkido for a little, and I like it.» I stopped by over this past weekend to check out the studio to see if it would be a good fit for me. I’ll be honest in saying that it wasn’t what I was looking for, but I am not basing my rating on that alone. The dojang itself was rather nice, and had a little alcove off to the side that appeared to serve both as an acupuncture clinic and Kim’s office. Aikido instruction also takes place at the dojang, but not by Kim. The price is rather expensive, around $ 180 a month, but not the most expensive I’ve seen in the LA area (the winner so far is Soneca Martial Arts at $ 216 a month), with discounts if months are purchased in bulk. There were a lot of ranks between white and black, around 12 I think (pretty sure the usual amount is 8). Makes me wonder what the curriculum is like.
I showed up for the adult/​teen class at 10:30 am on Saturday (it says 10am on the website, but it’s wrong). It was a good group of people with only one teen and the rest older than 25. Definitely something I was looking for in a dojang. The assistant instructor that day was a previous national champion of the Philippines, and Kim himself apparently is some sort of world champion. However, Kim says «I do not promote competition.» He will help his students train for tournaments, he said, but he will never put tournament posters on his walls, and will never tell his students about them. He is more interested in «teaching martial arts» as I said before. Not a bad approach at all, but alas also not what I was looking for. Still, though, my rating is not based on this.
What I found disheartening about the dojang was the wide gap between the upper ranks and the lower ranks. There were two black belts and several other color belts from white and purple to green and several red/​blacks (lowest to highest).
The assistant instructor first had the class do some stretches (all static, and I didn’t see an initial warm up. dangerous!) followed by rapid punches and multiple kicks to warm up. I paid close attention to how each student did the simple kicks as well as the more advanced kicks. Something I noticed immediately was that many of the students didn’t turn their bodies enough when doing round kicks of any kind. This greatly impedes strength. There was ONE student who managed to turn his body enough to kick properly (looked like the eldest black belt), but even the other black belts and red/​blacks couldn’t or didn’t do that. From that you can tell a lot about the quality of instruction of the school. If the majority of the students there can not manage to do the basic kicks, then they can’t do the more advanced kicks. It was all just very sloppy. To top it off, the assistant instructor didn’t actually teach them how to kick or tell them what they were doing wrong. Serious minus points.
After some really lackluster kicking drills, Kim came out from his alcove to teach some basic wrestling take-​down techniques. The instruction was a little better here, with the assistant instructor and Kim on the floor at the same time. The ones who were really struggling got a lot of attention from the assistant instructor, and the most advanced got help from Kim, but the ones in the middle floundered around a bit haphazzardly with not much of a clue on how to proceed. I mean, they thought they knew what they were doing, and at first glance they appeared to be doing okay, but there were a lot of things wrong with their throwing and falling. After sitting through that, I walked out, and threw away the brochure.
When I got home, I looked on youtube for some videos to perhaps show me some demos that Kim has put on in the past. When searching for his school I found a few videos of kids. One video was of a black belt test where several children attempted to break a board with a flying side kick. A couple weren’t able to do it, and the rest could do it only on the third try. Was painful to watch. That’s not their fault, of course, but rather Kim’s. If he is going to expect his students to do a flying side kick to break a board on the test, he should have taught them how beforehand. The other videos were of a couple of demos involving three children black belts. REALLY BAD! Go watch for yourself.
My conclusion:
Serious taekwondo students should look elsewhere! For the price of admission, you should expect something far better. If you’re going to teach «martial arts» which boils down to a hodgepodge of various styles with no particular style receiving more time and attention than an other. This results in students with poor abilities who are «good» at a lot of stuff, but will never be great at any one.

I spent a lot of time researching taekwondo schools in LA and this is by far the best I found for adults.

I just got acupuncture from Master Kim and it was excellent. I went in with a head cold (feeling as if I was on an airplane) with a leftover stuffed nose from being sick last week and he completely karate chop kicked the last of it my sniffles.
My boyfriend got his first acupuncture today too and was so relaxed he fell asleep.
The space is very open and clean with natural light and a very traditional Asian no shoes policy. It’s no frills basic minimal in and out acupuncture. If you don’t mind the karate going on next door (not the most relaxing) but I have an application on my phone that plays white noise and Mr. Kim is worth it.
We love Master Kim.

My son takes classes here and he loves it. There’s a big, comfortable, padded space for his class. His instructor is very organized and teaches discipline, but in a way that is playful and fun. They have really fostered an interest in the martial arts in my son, who was a bit unsure of himself. I see him gaining in confidence and making friends.

Great martial arts classes that includes a mix of taekwondo/​hapkido/​Komdo (Korean kendo)/judo among other things. Adults and children class available. Martial arts master Kim is also great acupuncturist. The style is a little different from your regular Taekwondo studios, but so worths it!