Kickstart Kids Stafford wins state demo title; four students earn spots on U.S. martial arts team

Kickstart Kids Stafford’s demo team won the Martial Arts Mania state championship this year — the first state title for Stafford in that event — and four students qualified for the U.S. martial arts national team and are slated to compete at the World Games in Oslo, program host Randall Williams reported June 6.

Master Rommel Gargolas, the Kickstart Kids instructor in Stafford, said students Daniel Alaniz, Anthony Haas, Andrew Avalos and Keith Valdez each made the national team after tryouts. Gargolas described the competition pathway as fall and spring qualifiers followed by regional and state championships; first-place finishers at Martial Arts Mania advanced to represent Houston at the state level, where Stafford’s demo team prevailed against other cities.

Gargolas, who identified himself as a seventh-degree black belt and the local Kickstart Kids instructor for 10 years, said the World Games are held every two years and will include competitors from many countries. He described Kickstart Kids as a character-building program founded by Chuck Norris and said it provides discipline, respect and fitness as an alternative to traditional physical-education classes.

The broadcast did not provide official scores, the exact dates of the qualifiers, or the specific divisions in which each student competed.