ABOUT KUGTAR MMA
SINCE 1995
SALINAS, CALIFORNIA
Three decades leave a mark. KUGTAR began in Salinas in 1995 and grew alongside the family that built it. Training, teaching, competition, and the everyday responsibility of keeping a dojo alive gradually became inseparable from family life.
ORIGIN
KUGTAR did not begin with a polished identity or a finished blueprint. It began with years already invested in martial arts — learning it, testing it, teaching it, and returning to it.
Over time, the academy became part of the rhythm of the family itself. The work happened in small repetitions: opening the doors, teaching another class, preparing another student, cleaning the mats, showing up again the next day.
That repetition is where history comes from.
VANDERLIPE
VINCE
FOUNDER · MASTER V
Born in the Philippines, Master Vicente Vanderlipe began in Eskrima before continuing his martial arts training in Salinas. He earned his first Tang Soo Do black belt in 1985 and later moved into full-contact kickboxing, winning a championship title in 1996 and becoming known as “The Axe Man” for his signature axe kick.
By the end of 1996, he had also begun Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu through Ralph Gracie. Decades later, his experience spans BJJ, Tang Soo Do, Kenpo, Taekwondo, Eskrima, kickboxing, and MMA—bringing multiple systems, competition experience, and a lifetime of martial arts into KUGTAR.
VANDERLIPE
ma'am
Ma'am (Cecilia Vanderlipe) holds black belts in both Tang Soo Do and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, with additional experience across multiple martial arts disciplines.
Her greatest influence at KUGTAR can be seen in the youth program she has helped build and refine over years of teaching. What began as kids’ classes has developed into a consistent system for technical growth, confidence, coordination, discipline, resilience, and self-defense. Her approach is demanding but personal, giving young students the structure to become stronger athletes, better listeners, and more capable people over time.
OWNER · YOUTH PROGRAM DIRECTOR
TOGETHER
For more than three decades, Vince and Cecilia have built KUGTAR around martial arts they have actually lived—traditional striking, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, kickboxing, Eskrima, competition, coaching, and years of teaching students.
Their combined experience is what gives KUGTAR its depth: different disciplines, different perspectives, and one academy shaped over time by the people who built it.
THE YEARS BETWEEN
The years between 1995 and today were built one class at a time. Vince and Cecilia continued training, competing, teaching, raising a family, and developing KUGTAR alongside the students who grew with it.
Over time, programs became stronger, knowledge deepened, and children who entered the academy began growing into experienced martial artists of their own. KUGTAR evolved, but its foundation remained personal: a family teaching what they had spent their own lives learning.
Pre 2000
TODAY
Different years. The same responsibility.
KUGTAR today carries more than thirty years of accumulated experience into every class — from the programs Vince and Cecilia built, to the students they have developed, to the next generation now growing up around the academy.
The history is established. The work is still moving forward.
TODAY
The story is still being written in ordinary moments: another class, another correction, another student learning how to stay composed when something is difficult.
That is what thirty years eventually becomes.
Not a monument to the past.
A standard carried into the present.