Today we’d like to introduce you to Sterling Vega.
Hi Sterling, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
SVega Taekwondo and Training Center started in 2012 in my family’s garage. I had been competing heavily in Olympic Style Taekwondo around the state and nation and made the USA B team a couple of times. When, I was 16 years old, my father Luis Vega JR decided to start training me from home to get ready for tournaments. Eventually, I began leading Taekwondo classes in our driveway, which children from the neighborhood would attend. By the time I turned 18, I had made the Texas State team and earned my opportunity to compete in Korea. My dad and I had also turned our garage training into a legit business.
I ended up rupturing my left ACL in 2014. Despite not being able to practice myself, I wanted to channel my passion and turn my focus to teaching Taekwondo, taking children to tournaments around the state. We started to gain traction with our home set up, being recognized by high-level athletes and coaches. We even hosted a few schools in our driveway to train with us.
Our classes became so popular, we simply didn’t have enough room to grow in just our driveway. We began to look at buildings but with me being so young, landlords didn’t me very many opportunities with no prior leasing experience. Finally, after months of looking and waiting we found a place. The day after I turned 21, I signed the lease on a building. It took us a while to fill up the space but, in 3 short years, we out-grew our first location.
We were able to move into a bigger unit and began offering Fitness classes alongside the Taekwondo classes. It was going great; classes were full and people were excited to join us. We were growing strong and steady, but a major challenge arose. COVID. Our numbers dropped tremendously, but we did not let it bring us down. We ran Zoom classes along with in-person instruction. During the pandemic in early 2021, an ice storm hit, which left us with a flooded building. That didn’t stop us though. We cleaned up the water, dusted ourselves off and got back after it. Being persistent with teaching even when it got hard, we were able to get our groove back and within of a year we outgrew that unit. While we were bursting at the seams, we got extremely lucky with a double unit opening up giving us twice the space. We moved into our current space at the beginning of 2021.
With this double unit, we were able to split the space giving us room for the gym and Taekwondo to run side by side. We were met with our fair share of trials with this new space, to include flooding two weeks after we moved in. Once we got everything fixed, we set our sights on our very first Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Taekwondo Nationals as a Team, where we brought home 1 Silver and 4 Bronzes. Then COVID challenges came up again. Unfortunately, it hit our family hard and we lost my mother. Despite our loss, we persevered because we knew that’s what she would want us to do.
Through the end of 2021, we had an explosion of growth, which allowed us to lease out the unit next door to our current spot at the beginning of 2022. With this opportunity, we were able to move our gym into its own permanent space. The opening in our double unit allowed us the chance to bring in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. As a whole, we are extremely proud of the achievements we have made throughout the years, becoming a triple threat: SVega Taekwondo, SVega Training Center and SV Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. In 2022, we had students go to nationals again and brought home three national champions and one silver medalist.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Looking back on the journey we’ve been on it has definitely not been an easy road. We have had to claw tooth and nail to get to where we are currently. When we first moved from our garage into a brick and mortar our student count went from 20 kids down to 4 students. There was a few months when covering the rent to stay afloat and open was extremely trying. With determination, we were able to overcome and grow to where we are currently with just shy of 80+ people coming and going on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, our facilities have been through multiple floods from water coming into our unit from the roof, to underneath the wall, to broken pipes. With the most recent freeze last December, we had a pipe burst on our Jiu-Jitsu side, now we are having to replace over 3 thousand dollars worth of mats. It won’t keep us down we will make due until new mats arrive and luckily for us we have been extremely fortunate to have a very strong family like community bond; that has come to our aid during all the hard times. With the community having our backs it helps make everything we have been through worth the heartache.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about SVega Taekwondo and Training Center?
SVega Taekwondo’s main goal is to help our students build confidence, courage, respect and to overall learn how to defend themselves as well as to diffuse a situation they could possibly be in. We encourage our students to stand up for themselves and others. We also help facilitate anyone who just wants to take on a new hobby or martial art.
We aren’t your average cookie-cutter dojang. We specialize in Olympic Style Taekwondo (WT), Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, strength and fitness training. We are known for being a tight-knit community and treating every member like they’re family, no matter their background. We are very supportive of our community and help where we can, to include sponsoring athletes for competitions.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I believe that having a passion for teaching martial arts while being inviting to all kinds of people helps us continue down the path of success. Everyone who walks into our facility is family from the time they sign up to the moment they leave if they choose to take a different path in life. We are a firm believer in wanting to help individuals succeed in life within and outside of our building.
Pricing:
- Taekwondo Starting at $110/Month
- Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Starting at $90/Month
- Group Fitness Classes starting at $40/Month
- Open gym starting at $15/month
- Daily Drop-in – $10
Contact Info:
- Website: www.svegatkd.com
- Other: https://linktr.ee/svegatkd
Image Credits
RJ Lake
Pat McCord
