A look inside Azteca Taekwondo
Mitzi Barosso, daughter of the karate master and instructor herself, gives us a taste of what it is like to teach at Azteca.
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Casually driving down South Central Avenue, one could easily miss the Azteca Taekwondo Center. It’s small and unassuming, but once you enter the hidden karate gem it is very obvious how grand the school actually is. Started over 20 years ago by Mexican-born Arnulfo Barosso, Azteca Taekwondo is a place for local kids and adults to get in shape and learn self-discipline.
Mitzi Barosso, 19, is the master’s daughter as well as an instructor, and has a true passion for the sport. Her father gave her the choice between soccer and karate when she was a young girl, and after a couple visits to the center, she knew what to decide.
“After I came and tried it I liked it,” she said. “Because it takes your stress out and everything.”
The karate center boasts three or four classes a day with kids as young as age three. On Saturdays there is a special fighting class. Anyone is welcome to take a lesson or spar with his or her friends. Azteca recently even won first, second and third place in a Los Angeles karate championship.
Aesthetically, the center is a cozy little place with a teeny office and a large matted area with mirrors. Parents can watch their kids punch and kick from the sidelines. Along the edges is a small candy bar for the children to grab snacks on their way out of class. Paintings of cartoon animals and people cover the walls showcasing fun karate moves. The little office nook displays dozens of certificates and awards the instructors have won along with the first dollar they ever made. Also, Master Barosso has the rest of the space plastered with pictures of him throughout his karate career and his students practicing their skills.
The master, who doesn’t speak much English, is dedicated to his school. After leaving Los Angeles City College to pursue Taekwondo, Barosso opened his first school a couple of miles away, but in 1994, he moved the center to South Gate. A few years later in 1999, Barosso traveled to Korea to take an instructor course, which he said was a very demanding program.
His lessons are upbeat and exciting as well as very regulated. As each student runs in happily to their lesson they shout “greetings master!” at the top of their little lungs. Even the adult students are excited to start their classes because most of them have been practicing at Azteca since they were kids as well.
However, fun karate lessons are not the only things Azteca offers its students.
“We want them to do good academically,” Mitzi Barosso explained. “That's our main goal… cause you know how South Gate, it's not a bad population but there's bad influences and stuff like that, we want our students here to succeed.”
The younger Barosso said that in this area, one needs to be pretty tough. Without willpower, it could be especially hard. Mitzi explained that karate is an outlet for self-discipline and power to keep people going strong in the real world. Mitzi is proving her desire to help people in another way as well. She is currently studying to be a doctor, specifically sports medicine. She wants to study orthopedics because Taekwondo, as well as soccer, is all about your limbs.
“I’m focused on that ‘cause like I said, I love doing sports, Taekwondo is 70 per cent feet, 30 per cent hands.” She said while faking a punch. “People do get hurt, but the thing that I like about them is that they have spirit, they don’t stop… they keep going and that’s what I admire from them.”
Besides supporting their student’s academically, the Barosso’s hope for another type of success in their protégé’s future; opening their own Azteca Taekwondo Center. One of their former students owns the only other one in Victorville. Teaching the black belts how to be teachers themselves is one of Azteca’s biggest goals.
“They’re welcome to open a school,” Mitzi exclaims. “We support them.”
There are only two karate schools in all of South Central, and Mitzi and her father said that they hope their influence will bring about more and more.
While the Azteca Taekwondo Center itself is pretty tiny, the lessons the Barosso’s teach are bigger than one would expect from a karate school.
The site: