Michelle
Benoit

Michelle was born and raised in San Diego, CA. At the age of five, she was in a life-altering car accident, which put her into a medically induced coma for one month and in a wheelchair for six months. Due to the traumatic brain injury, she was restricted from doing sports until high school, which led her to pursue the arts. Michelle practiced piano for 8 years, until she was 16 years old.

Her martial arts journey started in 2010 with a kickboxing class at a jiu-jitsu academy during her junior year of high school. After graduating high school and attending community college, Michelle continued practicing kickboxing for 5 years with three different instructors.

At age 23, she became curious about jiu-jitsu and joined the classes at the same academy. Michelle trained for three years in San Diego. After her acceptance to Humboldt State University, she moved to Northern California and kept training with another academy, then moved back to San Diego about a year later, graduating with a Bachelor's within 3 semesters.

Her passion for teaching began in 2021, teaching jiu-jitsu to 3-6 year olds, with the goal of creating the biggest and most efficient littles jiu-jitsu program anyone had ever seen. Within three months the class had tripled in size, to a total of 30 students.

Around 2022, Michelle joined Legion as a purple belt student. It wasn't long before she started volunteering to assist in the kids' classes. Eventually, her role as a volunteer coach evolved into head littles instructor. What started as a Tuesday/Thursday class for a handful of littles has grown into a Monday through Friday class for more than 50 students. After 10 years of jiu-jitsu, Michelle is now a brown belt and still has a passion for teaching.