Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert Visitacion.
Hi Robert, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born 1963 raised by my grandmother… My mother was a backup singer for Jerry Lee Lewis back in the day. And was on tour a lot. So my single grandmother raised me. We lived in government-assisted apartments. And at 13 years old wanted to take Kung Fu because I used to like Bruce Lee. But we didn’t have money for lessons… So I would collect Coke bottles for a month or two till I had enough money to pay for a month of lessons. Then I would take what I learned and come back to the apartment and work on my heavy bag that I bought. And that cycle continued until I met my instructor/fight manager Carroll Baker. We hit it off and the rest of history. I won the US Kickboxing title in 1986 and was ranked #2 in the world rankings. I’m truly a product of the martial arts. There was so much temptation back at the apartment building that I was raised, drugs and drinking. And the martial arts kept me away from all that. My grandmother worked two shifts to provide for me. And she worked from 3 to 11 and 11 to 7. so while I was home she was at work and when I was at school she was home… So I was unsupervised for long periods of time at those apartments. I took what Bruce Lee said, “the body is the temple” seriously and it kept me out of trouble. Looking back, I had about ten friends that we hung around together at those apartments. 1/2 of them are dead or in jail now. So I’m grateful for the martial arts. Some of the best things in my life are credited to the martial arts. Such as finding my dad. He saw me fighting on ESPN and learned what city I was in and hired an investigator to look me up. We have been in contact ever since. Traveling the world fighting, Meeting my spouse of 32 years. I wouldn’t have met her if I hadn’t moved to Texas for training. My martial arts business career and being inducted into two martial arts Hall of Fames. I could go deeper but I’m sure you don’t have the time.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
For the most part, it’s been a smooth road… I did change locations at 1 point and moved 3.9 miles doorstep to doorstep. And because of the demographics and having to cross the interstate nurse state, my business plummeted just plummeted for a few years. But now we’re back on the right side of the track so to say… And business is great it’s great again.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about V-FIT Martial Arts?
We teach martial arts at this studio. That includes kids and teenagers Tae Kwon Do, teen and adult Kickboxing and teen an adult Muay Thai. But when you step back and actually look at what we do, We help with physical and mental growth. We have kids coming in that are introverted and shy and then you fast forward six months and they’re a completely different person with confidence… Our fitness kickboxing, we have had people lose up to a 100 pounds good pounds during their stay in our classes. Our Muay Thai have seen both of those effects with our students. Currently, we have moms in that class, we have police officers in that class and then we have amateur and professional fighters in that class. With some of those fighters coming from a similar background is mine and now they are world champions 2 to females that have come in and have lost over 80 pounds and are now fighting competitively. Those are great rewards for the students but it’s also a great reward for me.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Well talking about risks, the only real risk that I took was moving to a different location for three times the space. And that didn’t work out so well as I touched on that earlier.
Contact Info:
- Email: Robert@v-fitma.com
- Website: www.V-FITma.com
- Instagram: v.fit.martial.arts
- Facebook: Facebook.com/VFITma, Facebook.com/HOCMuayThai, Facebook.com/Kickboxing123
Image Credits
HMS Elite Photography
