Taekwondo legend Juan Miguel Moreno was recently in Milpitas, teaching a “fast camp” at Blue Dragon Taekwondo Academy (1485 N. Milpitas Blvd.) between June 11 and 13.
Moreno, who owns a nationwide coaching program called Peak Performance (based in Miami, Florida), has been a part of every summer Olympics event since 1988, either as a competitor or a coach in Taekwondo, and has won 2 Olympic Silver Medals. For this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, Moreno helped to qualify 5 Taekwondo Olympic competitors, from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
Blue Dragon’s owners told The Beat they were honored to have Coach Moreno come to Milpitas and coach the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) High Performance Sport Taekwondo Fast Camp. Grandmaster Thac Nguyen, Blue Dragon’s owner, sits on the executive committee for AAU Taekwondo, and is the regional chair for AAU Taekwondo Region 13 (California & Nevada) and AAU Taekwondo, and the Karate District Chair for the AAU Pacific District (Northern California). Blue Dragon has competed at the AAU Taekwondo Nationals since 2014, consistently accumulating top amounts of medals in both forms (patterns) and sparring.
Surrounding Coach Moreno’s appearance, Mayor Rich Tran approved a Commendation and the Key to Milpitas for Moreno. Vice Mayor Carmen Montano, Councilmember Evelyn Chua, and Councilmember Anthony Phan came to present Moreno with the Commendation and Key, and a trio of Milpitas Police Officers also appeared to show their support.
Nguyen started working on getting Moreno to come coach at AAU after Moreno held a camp for 200-plus Taekwondo athletes in Orlando, Florida. Also on hand in Orlando were 3 Olympic athletes who took a break from their Olympic preparations to come and encourage the amateur students.
By email, Blue Dragon’s Jade Dang wrote, “Moreno is not only a great athlete and coach, but also a great motivational speaker. Besides his Olympic status, this sets him apart from all the other guest trainers we’ve had at our school.”
