Coaches

Travis Gorrell is the owner and head coach of Victory Muay Thai. As a child, he loved watching Bruce Lee movies with his mother, who is originally from Thailand, so she put him into training. His study of martial arts began at the age of five, which makes him a practitioner of martial arts for 38 years at the time of founding VMT in 2022. Coach Travis earned his 3rd Dan (black belt) in Moo Duk Kwan Tang Soo Do from the late Grandmaster Jae Joon Kim, who was the Chief Master Instructor of Korean, U.S., and Vietnamese Special Forces in Vietnam. Grandmaster Kim passed along a piece of wisdom when Coach Travis earned his first black belt by saying, “Now the real learning begins.”

As a teenager, Coach Travis competed in the United States and abroad. Eventually he could no longer fight other competitors in his age bracket, so he was matched against adult men in the lightweight division by the time he was 14 years old. Because of his passion for martial arts, Coach Travis went on to learn various styles, including an introduction to Muay Thai in Thailand and France. His passion for teaching youth, and his desire for the next generation to realize their God-given purpose and value, are what led him to open Victory Muay Thai.

Coach Travis resides in Valrico with his wife, Allison, whom he met while they were both training at Tampa Muay Thai in South Tampa. The couple has two young children who will get to make many of their own choices in life, however, whether or not to train in martial arts is not one of them.