A clap rings out throughout Quest Taekwondo studio, so loud that everyone watching flinches at the sound.
Kamille Carbon shouts as she kicks the red paddle so hard that it flies out of the hands of her partner, Chloe Towns. Carbon immediately drops back into a fighting stance, arms covering her face, knees bent, body low to the ground.
Towns picks up the paddle and holds it in front of Carbon once more, like a red cape before a bull. Carbon kicks again, harder than the first time, but this time she misses. Her sweaty face breaks out into a smile; she sticks out her tongue and crinkles her nose, laughing.
Teammates who have been watching her break out into laughter, but cheer her on, saying, “C’mon Muhammad Ali!”
The easy atmosphere may be deceiving, but Quest Taekwondo is known as the power plant of Redondo Beach, producing champion after champion, year after year.
From July 4 to 10, Quest athletes traveled to Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Richmond, Virginia to compete in sparring at the Amateur Athletic Union Taekwondo National Championships and the USA Taekwondo National Championships.
At AAU, gold medalist Luigi Lopez, silver medalist Ira Pulanco and bronze medalist Ross Moore, along with Towns, Carbon and Nikki Pulanco, all qualified to compete at National Team Trials in September in hopes of representing the United States at the German Open. At USAT gold medalist Towns, and bronze medalists Carbon, Nikki Pulanco and Sean Kim all qualified for the National Team Trials alongside Luisse Ratunil, where they will fight for a seat on team USA at the upcoming Junior World Championships in Burnby, Canada.
“What it takes [to be a champion]: a lot of patience, a lot of perseverance, a lot of sacrifices,” said Master Walter Dean Vargas, coach and owner of Quest Taekwondo.
A former Olympian himself, he takes joy in imparting his knowledge on his athletes.
“The only thing that we can control is our performance. Environment, judges, who we are going to be competing up against, those are beyond our control. We have to put a gold medal performance, one hundred percent, every single fight. From there we take it one fight at a time. Before we know it, we get the number one spot; we get the gold.”
It’s no wonder that martial artists flock to Redondo Beach from all over the world; the Australian, Canadian, Philippine and Tahitian national taekwondo teams have come to train with Vargas and his team. They spar with the Quest athletes, hoping that Chloe Towns’ Midas touch will rub off on them, or that Vargas might utter the secrets of success in their presence. Vargas happily shares with them the secret that has ensured his athletes’ successes: hard work in the form of a grueling trainings.
“I want to share them my experience, both my success and my failure as an athlete, as a competitor, and as a martial artist,” said Vargas. “Another thing is having them experience things that I went through physically and mentally. I’ve been a product of going to other countries, Korea in particular, to train. That’s something I’ve been doing to my high level athletes, I take them to the Philippines. I give them the experience of competing internationally, so that when we come back, win or lose we take something with us, and we carry over to the next competition.
Vargas takes an active role in teaching his students, still stretching and doing drills with them. Sometimes he will even spar with students, if they are lucky. He performs the techniques and kicks to perfection, and his athletes confess that it is an honor to get the wind knocked out of them by him.
“They’re a blessing to me. I treat them like my very own. There are times when I deal with them from a coaching level, from a parent’s level, from a friend, from a mentor, and because of that, they give me nothing but their 100% and I couldn’t ask for anything more,” said Vargas. “They’re a joy to work with. So far all their hard work has been reaping the benefits; it translates to medals.”
The athletes continue to work hard as they prepare for the upcoming Team Trials to represent Team USA. Perhaps Redondo Beach will be the home of the USA Olympic Taekwondo Team in four years.
“All of them are Olympic hopeful if they chose to continue on within the next four years. We have to keep persevering and take it one competition at a time,” said Vargas.
Nurturing the Next Generation of Champions
At the end of every training, the elite sparring team huddles up and chants.
“Quest Taekwondo, go for Gold!”
That’s exactly what coach Walter Vargas has been telling himself since he began taekwondo at age 12 still in the Philippines. Five years later, he was competing in the World Championships in Korea; by 20 years old, he was competing in the Olympics in Barcelona. Vargas became a quarter finalist, losing by a point to Ming-Sung Wang from Taiwan.
“That was my first Olympics; you know I was still learning the game at that time. Although I set goals for myself, I was still having fun. It wasn’t until after the Olympics where I thought, my next goal is to medal in all these prestigious competitions,” said Vargas. “After that, I went to the ‘93 World Championships where I won a medal. ‘94 Asia Championships, Southeast Asian Games, I started holding gold, silver, bronze medals internationally.”
Eventually, Vargas retired from the world of competing. He moved to the US in 2002 with his future wife to “challenge” himself to see what he could make of his life here.
“At that time, since I was retired, I still had the passion for martial arts. But the next challenge for me is, how can I be able to effectively impart my knowledge to the next generation, to my athletes, to my students both in competition and in traditional classes? And that’s what made me decide to open up my school and have Quest Taekwondo,” said Vargas.
Vargas is still a big name in the world of taekwondo, not only for producing high ranking athletes, but for coaching national teams. From 2011 to 2015 he was part of the coaching staff for the Philippine National Team. This year however, he is a part of the USA coaching staff. If his athletes win a spot on the US team after the Team Trials, Vargas will be able to coach them. This is a huge advantage, since usually the fighters would have to be coached by an instructor unfamiliar with their fighting styles.
Two Time Reigning Champ
Chloe Towns, two time USAT gold medalist, has an eloquence and a grace to her fighting. Yet it isn’t Towns’ technique that necessarily sets her apart from her opponents; she believes in having a strong mentality before every fight. She wins the fight before she has even stepped in the ring.
“I have a ritual where I keep repeating to myself that my B game is better than their A game and I just keep saying it in my head over and over and over again until I believe it. So that way when I go up to the match I know that even if they give me their best, I’m still going to beat them even if I’m off,” said Towns.
Her competition has much to be fearful of; Towns shut out her opponent in the finals, winning with a score of 6-0.
“I think that I went in there and performed my mental game the best that I can, but I think no matter the score, gap or no gap, I think that I still have plenty to work on for team trials,” Towns said.”For some reason, no matter how many new [techniques] you put in, you’re always going to fall back to your base game and I think that there’s definitely room for improvement.”
Towns took a break from regular training and prepared for the competitions by traveling to the Philippines with Vargas to train, building herself up physically and mentally.
“I went to the Philippines for 10 days which mentally was the hardest thing of my life. But that was enough to force myself into giving 100 percent in the gym, because if I’m going to sacrifice 10 days of grueling training then I can’t give it up there,” Towns said. Her twice-a-day, six-day-a-week program also included strength and conditioning training. “When I got too tired I told myself, everything you slack off on is going to compromise your game.”
Yet there is no rest for Towns after winning the gold; she continues to train for the USA Team Trials, which will be followed by the World Championships.
“It takes sacrifice that most people don’t want to give. Right now, I keep repeating to myself, I need to make team. Then from team trials, Worlds. If I medal at Worlds, that’s outstanding, but for me right now, my goal is to go Worlds,” Towns said before flashing a smile. “Stay tuned.”
