Gaviola started Martial Arts training with Hanshi Richard Kim at the Chinese YMCA in, San Francisco, in the spring of 1968.

He is currently teaching Martial Arts classes at Los Rios Community College Sacramento at the Folsom Lake campus and El Dorado campus; and operates his Martial Arts Way dojo at the Ballroom of Elk Grove in Elk Grove, California. Gaviola also teaches Tai Chi for Kaiser Permanente, YMCA Central Sacramento, various State of California Agencies, Elk Grove Senior Center and Sacramento County Drug Court Rehabilitation Program and Elk Grove Unified School District-Adult Education.

Gaviola is well known as one of the best international kata competitors to ever be trained by Sensei Kim. His knowledge of kata and their details is second to none. If there was ever a collector of kata and the detail of kata that Sensei Kim taught it is Frank Gaviola.

He competed successfully from 1977-1996 and won many top honors around the world in team kata, individual kata and weapons kata.

Frank is undoubtedly one of Sensei Kim’s top students and his skill in both kata and on the floor attest to this fact.

These are Mr. Gaviola’s senior students: Rose Baldo, Patrick Barclay, Lonnie Francis, Edgar Sagun Sr., Kathleen Villegas, Frank Yuen Jr.