In September of 1986 I began a journey that completely altered the course of my life. What a blessing it was, since my life wasn’t exactly in a great place at the time. On that day, I had come through a friends invitation to a martial arts class and witnessed the power of how one person could make a difference in the lives of so many people.

Now, I had trained in other arts before; Karate and Kung Fu, but it was really never more than just another sport to me. I had long since given up on my boyhood dream of traveling to China and training with the Shaolin monks and meeting wise masters who would reveal the secrets of life. That’s all just in the movies, right?

What I witnessed dropped my jaw and sent shivers through me. I saw a real master filled with wisdom and energy teach, motivate and challenge a training floor of about 80 students. She (that’s right, a female master) was Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim. As I listened her experience imparted authority to her words. She was the real thing.

I signed up that night 22 years ago and my life turned from a dismal slide to a rocket powered roller-coaster ride that has been one amazing journey after another. I started this blog to try and capture what has happened to me over these years and share some of the gems of Grandmaster Kim’s teachings. One of my favorites an excerpt from her book Seven Steps to Inner Power:

“People and events can shape someone for good or bad. But you alone have power over these things, more power than you realize. It does not matter how bad cir­cumstances may seem. What I discovered was that how I dealt with circumstances was much more important than the circumstances themselves”

Ready? Here we go!…