Duquette Submission Fighting owner is Al "Sonny" Duquette. Al is a mixed martial arts - ultimate fighting instructor in upstate New York in a hamlet called Nicholville. His studio is located 15 miles from Potsdam, 20 miles from Massena and 20 miles from Malone (see maps).

Al has been training in the martial arts since 1985 and is trained in Zen Do Kai, Karate, Judo, Submission Wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitzu, and No Holds Barred Reality Fighting. In May of 2003, Al took 2nd place in the Men's Heavyweight Expert Division in "NAGA". NAGA is the World's largest No Holds Barred Submission Fighting Tournament which is held in New Jersey. This competition hosts over 1100 fighters from around the world. NAGA (North American Grappling Association) hosts submission fighting events where combatants square off in a ring and must wrestle their opponent into any type of hold to make his opponent quit fighting. Pinning an opponent is not an option, you must apply a sleeper choke, neck crank, or any type of joint lock which includes arm bars, knee bars, ankle locks and many more submissions to win the fight. Your opponent must quit for you to win.

Al is a veteran police officer and the North Country's most sought after martial artist for local citizens and Law Enforcement Officials. Having gained his instructor's certificate from 5 time World Jiu-Jitsu Champion, Rorion Gracie of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Duquette, a former S.W.A.T. team member, has trained with Defensive Tactics Instructors from the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Navy Seals, U.S. Special Forces, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, Miami Police, Washington D.C. Police, New Jersey State Police and the F.B.I.. Currently having personally trained Federal Police officers, the New York State Police, County Sheriff Deputies, City Police, local Village Police, The District Attorneys Office, State Corrections officers and Town Judges, Al trains police officers yearly in defensive tactics and new rectruits at the police academies.

Al has been beaten by some of the best including 3 GRACIE'S and Machado Black Belt Tim Burrell, to name just a few. Al's biggest victory is over Renzo Gracie's master fighter Addison Lemay. Al runs the marial arts studio as a part time hobby. This allows him to stay fresh in his training and it gives him the opportunity to meet some great people as well. His students are like friends to him.

Al likes to say that he is self trained, to a point. Al has trained in Los Angeles with Rorion Gracie and NUMEROUS black belt marial artists from all over the country and of just about every discipline there is. Al's specialty in the late 80's and all of the 90's was to seek out the best martial artists in their dicipline and get their knowledge, then move on. The trick to get these fighters to train with Al was Al had to beat them at something, to prove to them that he had a skill they needed to learn.

The 2 years of private classes doing Judo in the Army with a close friend who took Al under his wing proved to be of great value. No one knew submission fighting back then. This made Al look invincible to other standup fighters. So they wanted to trade information. Then Al would draw out wrestlers, boxers, kick boxers and karate experts. This made him a complete fighter.

Al would then compete at 'smokers' in dojos, barns or back yards, doing Ultimate Fighting before they even knew what Ultimate Fighting was. Back then they would use football helmets, elbow and knee pads and everything was legal but groin shots, biting and eye gouging. Al suffered many injuries along the way. A dislocated left shoulder, a partially paralyzed right shoulder, ripped cartilage out of both knees and off his rib cage, an ankle that never seems to want to heal, neck and back injuries that has Al seeing a chiropractor weekly since 1992, and too many shots to the head has given Al frequent migraines.

Al was lucky enough to fight many black belts in their respective disciplines in these 'smokers' when he was younger and won much more than he lost. Admittingly, it was his ground game that did most of the work. Although Al's strikes were not flashy, he was told they were fast and heavy. Al has also fought 7 good top NAGA Submission fighters. This proved to Al that all the technique in the world is useless if you become too tired to fight. (Conditioning is your best submission!) In these 'smokers' and tournaments Al compiled a 72-14 record. Al says his defeats were mostly being fatigued then beaten. Although when beaten by Tim Burrell and the Gracies, it was their superior technique that ended the fight. Al says they were much better fighters and obviously in a league of their own.

Although Al's competition days are behind him, he regrets not being able to say he stepped into the "CAGE". That is todays standards. But then again, it is much safer today than back when there were no referees and no control....injuries, a family and a job have mellowed Al's fight drive but he still rolls when he can.

Al enjoys watching his students work through the ranks and become dangerous street orientated mixed martial artists. Al has had students compete in No Holds Barred cage fights in Montreal, Boston and Atlantic City. He has had numerous students compete in Submission Grappling tournaments. The highlights of his teaching career are watching his black belts succeed. Like Matt "Mayhem" Johnson who won the NAGA World Championship in 2005, Kelsey "Knockout" Burnham who debuted with a 56 second knockout cage fighting victory, David Miller who fought Mike Dexter who holds 4 different cage fighting titles, and Spencer "The Punisher" Paige who knocked out or submitted 3 consecutive unbeaten cage fighters to win the Full Force Cage Fighting Championship Title in January 2007. Al takes special pride in Spencer. Al says when Spencer first came to him, his ground ability was nothing. Al says he's never seen anyone work so hard and so long. And to see Spencer win the Title from the ground with an arm bar, was like watching his own son hit a game winning homerun in little league. It was priceless! Although these students are rare, 90% of the students coming in just want to learn self defense. But along their journey, they learn the cage fighting techniques as well. This is who Al is and what he does.