Friday, October 26, 2007

Steve Lavallee - Kyoshi

My school is run by Master KC Lavallee. She is a 5th Degree Black Belt. Update note, she is, as of 11/2012, Shihan KC Lavallee.

The school is part of a group run by Steve Lavallee - Kyoshi. Two notes: One, Master KC is married to Kyoshi Steve Lavallee. Second, Kyoshi's nephew (his brother's son) is named Joe Lavallee.  He also trains in our system and is reaching a high level (4th or 5th degree black belt), I've seen web posts where the two were confused. I have an updated post about Steve Lavallee.

Kyoshi is one of the more interesting and charismatic guys around. He's a 7th degree black belt, a successful business owner, has thousands of students through his system, and works with hundreds of industry leaders thru MAUI. I train in the Lavallee National Training Center (HQ - NTSC) so Kyoshi is frequently on the floor or teaching class. He runs many of our BB candidate classes himself. Which is great.

Here's some background:
An early article on him http://www.martialinfo.com/articles/article_view.asp?i=77

I intend to get the whole story on Kyoshi's professional resume from him one of these days (degrees, ring record, training) but as best I can tell:

Kyoshi is interested in developing the blend of martial arts. While his base training is kenpo, he seems to have studied and blended a range of martial arts. On the wall in our dojo, there is a certificate awarding him a 7th degree in Blended Martial Arts from Degerberg Internationa. This certificate on the wall is signed byRobert Beal, Greg Tearney (10th Dan), John McSweeney, and Fred Degerberg.

John McSweeney was a student of Ed Parker, the father of American Kenpo.

There is another certificate signed only by Greg Tearney awarding Steve Lavallee a 7th degree in Karate-Do.

There is alot of Muy Thai in our system plus XMA . He trains sometimes with his friend Shihan Moti, a champion in five martial arts with base training in Israeli Krav Maga. In the last few years, Steve Lavallee has been training in BJJ at Gracie Academy. Kyoshi's base training is Kenpo. Our curriculum evolves with periodic additions and changes in the kata and defense techniques. For instance, when I was a white belt, we learned mostly kenpo self defense. Recently, we've learned new jitsu-type self-defense.

Another of Kyoshi's interests is the Maui Program and working with other sensei to improve the overall management of martial skills and foster exchange among different martial arts.

On October 19th, 2007, Kyoshi Steve LaVallee was the Keynote Speaker at the EFC Summit Keynote in Miami.

This post about Steve Lavallee was updated.

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