Linda Pulido wins her sixth consecutive World Champion Title
By Jessica Thy Nguyen Special to the Dispatch
Gilroy – From fighting in the streets to fighting in a professional rink, Linda Pulido has made an unlikely place for herself among champions.
Pulido, the owner of a Gilroy martial arts studio, a first dan black belt, took home her sixth consecutive Division World Champion taekwondo title and first World Champion Filipino stick fighting title in July.
“It totally turned my life around,” she said of her transition. “From me being a trouble maker to now being a role model.”
The promoter for the event, Lyle Howry, pointed out that it’s quite rare to win the division title six consecutive times. He said the chances of a person being able to defend their title multiple times is an amazing feat.
“It’s a huge event,” Howry said, “The same people just don’t win every year. To do what she’s done is amazing. Thousands of competitors come from all over the world to compete in this event.”
Thousands of participants from all over the world came to Las Vegas in July to prove their techniques in fighting, full-contact martial arts, music forms, point sparring, and weapons showmanship in the USA World Championships.
Each division focuses on a technique that demonstrates the agility and strength of the competitor.
The 38-year-old successfully defended her welterweight, point-sparring taekwondo division title for the fifth time in a row.
Her husband, Rene Vargas, attends competitions whenever possible but was unable to watch her at the World Championship due to his on-call job as a foreman for the Santa Clara County Maintenance Department.
At 5-foot-3-and-a-half inches, dressed in her black and red uniform, Pulido projects an aura of strength with toned, muscular arms.
The Gilroy native was in her studio, demonstrating hand chops, stick fighting moves and punches as she spoke of her various fighting experiences.
“It has definitely installed good things in me,” Pulido said. “That taught me through my life as far as having a goal and knowing that I can achieve it.”
She said her love for her hometown is why she decided to open the martial arts studio here. She started taking taekwondo 23 years ago, and began her school in 1994 out of her garage. Her school gradually expanded to 200 students and now sits above Planet Fitness on Monterey Street in downtown Gilroy.
“I joined for all the wrong reasons,” Pulido said. “I got into it because in high school I got into a lot of fights and I wanted to get better at fighting.” She said she was a trouble maker and didn’t have a very high self-esteem which contributed to her getting into fights.
The youngest sibling in a family of four, she was the only child in her family who expressed interest in martial arts. She said her two older sisters didn’t possess a single athletic cell in their bodies.
A troubled teenager, Pulido never earned a high school diploma, but never let it hinder her determination to win and to teach her students the same mentality.
She attributes her success to everything she’s learned in martial arts and the self-discipline she’s gained through her experiences, with her family and students’ full support.
“I see what it’s done for me,” she said. “If it wasn’t for martial arts I don’t know where I’d be right now because I was definitely going in the wrong direction.”
Three days after the taekwondo tournament Pulido was in Florida for an Eskrima – Filipino stick fighting – World Tournament.
Pulido started learning Eskrima three months before the tournament when a Filipino Eskrima teacher came to the studio asking to be her instructor.
She is a member of the largest school of Eskrima worldwide, called Doce Pares, or 12 pairs in Spanish, which refers to the number of original members of the school and the basic strikes and defenses.
Pulido’s student of nine years, Cassandra Beltran, 17, accompanied her to the Eskrima World Tournament and both took first place in their division after a year of knowing the sport.
Beltran achieved her junior black belt at the age of 12 and is an instructor at Pulido’s studio.
“It’s very family oriented here,” she said. “It’s just the way she teaches. She doesn’t make it as confusing so you pick it up quicker here.”
With a family background in boxing and kick-boxing, Beltran grew up learning various forms of martial arts from other teachers and claims Pulido is her most involved instructor.
“She’s made me understand more,” Beltran said. “The whole mind frame, the whole putting it all together that also helped me use it out in school, getting my grades better and organizing things.”
Spending 40 to 50 hours a week at the studio teaching, the teen kick-boxer aims to eventually open a martial arts school as well, following in her instructor’s footsteps.
Another student, Calysta Tyre, 7, has been taking taekwondo lessons since she was 4 years old and is currently a green belt.
“[Taekwondo] teaches me to self-defense myself,” she said. “My parents think it’s really good that I learn taekwondo, so that if something happens in my house I can learn to defend myself.”
Pulido constantly encourages her students to accompany her to the world tournaments to experience the same feelings of accomplishing a well-earned goal.
“I feel like my purpose in life,” she said. “And I still tell this to everybody – because I don’t have any kids – I think my purpose is to help other kids grow up and feel what I feel now at my age … I hopefully am a role model to young women, women my age, young girls, and boys. I’m up here living proof of someone still competing, still achieving and still having goals.”
