{"id":8757,"date":"2026-09-09T11:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T11:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8757"},"modified":"2026-09-09T11:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T11:04:09","slug":"filipino-american-kickboxing-gym-celebrates-20-years-in-the-bay-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8757","title":{"rendered":"Filipino-American kickboxing gym celebrates 20 years in the Bay Area"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SAN JOSE \u2014 Ed Carpio is master of what he calls \u201cpunch, kick, elbow, knee therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Horoscopes September 9, 2026: Michelle Williams, a financial gain looks promising<\/a><\/p>\n

Inside his gym Condition and Competition Kickboxing along Old Bayshore Road in San Jose, six days a week, he and his team teach people how to skillfully and artfully stay healthy, and fight and defend themselves through kickboxing, Muay Thai and strength and conditioning classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here to make sure that I can fulfill your goal, whatever your goal is,\u201d Carpio, 53, said.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 5, the Filipino-American coach and former champion fighter will celebrate 20 years of business.<\/p>\n

His method of teaching is rooted in martial arts, something he learned from his mentor and former coach, Cung Le, a Vietnamese-American fighter from San Jose who had a fruitful professional career in the early years of American combat sports through televised leagues such as Strike Force and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.<\/p>\n

Le, who grew up competing in wrestling, taught Carpio the fundamentals of martial arts starting in the 1990s through Sanshou, otherwise known as Sanda, a Chinese full-contact kickboxing sport which mixes punches, kicks, knees and wrestling. The discipline can be traced back to ancient duels involving two combatants who would face each other on a Lei Tai, or raised platform, and fight to the death.<\/p>\n

The Chinese military eventually developed Sanshou into a national sport, absent the deathmatch caveat.<\/p>\n

Carpio grew up in the 1970s and 80s, through the rising early era of America\u2019s explosion of martial arts when Hollywood stars such as Bruce Lee started making films like \u201cThe Way of the Dragon,\u201d and later when Jean-Claude Van Damme released \u201cBloodsport.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Already involved in basketball and track growing up, he decided to join Le\u2019s gym and become one of his first students. Carpio took and won his first Sanshou fight in 1996.<\/p>\n

The trophy for that fight still sits in his office as a reminder of his early roots in fighting.<\/p>\n

Carpio said during that time, gyms were more brutal, and walking into one could get a bit bloody \u2013 well before studies behind chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, were well known.<\/p>\n

He would go on to become a national lightweight Sanshou champion before opening his own gym in 2006, leaving behind a career of management in tech, which included jobs at Hewlett-Packard and Cisco during the early rise of the tech industry in Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

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Carpio decided his gym would be less bloodthirsty and more friendly to all levels of skill or desire, whether they came to fight or just to release some endorphins for fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved teaching. I loved sharing knowledge. I love changing people\u2019s lives and making an impact,\u201d Carpio said.<\/p>\n

He went through two different locations on Junction Avenue in North San Jose before settling three years ago on his current spot in a warehouse building near Highway 101 and Old Oakland Road.<\/p>\n

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Over the years, he\u2019s trained hundreds of students, including, notably, Jan Koum, the co-founder and former CEO of the popular messaging platform, WhatsApp, before Koum sold his company and became a billionaire. Other notable people who\u2019ve trained at the gym include Jerry Fealofani Afemata, better known as renowned reggae artist J Boog, and Cisco Lutu, a popular Vegas-based DJ known as BigBody Cisco.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me to be part of helping someone reach their goal, that\u2019s it,\u201d Carpio said.<\/p>\n

For Alex \u201cAP\u201d Pasos, his goal was to fight and compete to become a kickboxing champion.<\/p>\n

After Pasos walked into Carpio\u2019s gym in 2015, he would go on to win five different championships and amassed an amateur fighting record of 10 wins and 3 losses, with two by knockout. Now, he\u2019s both a fighter and a coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll those belts, all those wins, it was through a lot of perseverance, a lot of ups and downs,\u201d Pasos said. \u201cIt\u2019s just the foundation of people that I\u2019ve been with for over 11 years now. In that span of years that I was with (Team) CCK, I couldn\u2019t see myself training or building with another gym or set of coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the gym\u2019s red and black foam mats, active fighters, casual fitness fanatics and first-timers alike train and sweat, throwing punches, kicks, elbows and knees with smiles.<\/p>\n

San Jose resident Amanda Hernandez first walked into the gym alone in 2019 without any prior formal combat sports training, motivated by a goal to lose weight.<\/p>\n

Now, she\u2019s on Carpio\u2019s fight team, trains five to six days a week, and said she\u2019s in the best shape of her life. She said she\u2019s improved her health, sharpened her senses, and has made lasting friendships with people she otherwise wouldn\u2019t have met.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding a love of a combat sport has sort of brought me back to my teenage self, my girlhood in a lot of ways,\u201d Hernandez, 41, said. \u201cIt\u2019s just something outside of the structure of my life that I\u2019ve chosen to dedicate myself to, and it\u2019s something I\u2019m not doing for anybody else but me. Not for any other gain, or anything like that. Just for me. It\u2019s so freeing when you\u2019re doing something without a performative aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind the front desk, fighters and newcomers alike are greeted by Eddie Bugayong Jr., likely clad in his favorite Deftones hat and collectable New Balance shoes, who goes by \u201cCoach Boogie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bugayong Jr., 46, grew up with Carpio in San Jose, and has been there for every day of the 20 years Carpio has been in business. He first joined the gym as the front desk manager at Carpio\u2019s first location, and would later develop his own love for kickboxing and Muay Thai, becoming both an assistant coach and pro-shop manager.<\/p>\n

Through the years, he\u2019s undergone a kidney transplant, heart bypass surgeries and suffered complications from diabetes. Through all that, it was training and coaching that completely changed Bugayong Jr.\u2019s life, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me personally, it\u2019s done a lot for me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt gave me a sense of community and a motivation to continue to do what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through his health complications, Bugayong Jr. said training in martial arts has kept him healthy and happy. The gym, he said, gives him confidence and purpose.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take a lot of pride in what I do,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s moments of gratitude where I\u2019ve been doing it for so long and I just look around and see what we\u2019ve built. That\u2019s something to be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Harriette Cole: I took my mom on a surprise trip, and it didn\u2019t go well<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Carpio is master of what he calls \u201cpunch, kick, elbow, knee therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFilipino-American kickboxing gym celebrates 20 years in the Bay Area - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8757\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Filipino-American kickboxing gym celebrates 20 years in the Bay Area - Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ed Carpio is master of what he calls \u201cpunch, kick, elbow, knee therapy.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8757\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-09T11:04:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=8757#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=8757\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13065d40d633843429ac57d4e5c06f9b\"},\"headline\":\"Filipino-American kickboxing gym celebrates 20 years in the Bay Area\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-09T11:04:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=8757\"},\"wordCount\":1132,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=8757#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/84e938f134e115e5a5e334b50365d9a6-scaled.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Local News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=8757#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=8757\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=8757\",\"name\":\"Filipino-American kickboxing gym celebrates 20 years in the Bay Area - 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