Meeting a real Master

Before I start with what's going on in my life right now, I have to say a few things as to how I got to the "here and now."

Well, it was in the early 80s back in Vermont. My life wasn't going as I had hoped for. Sure, I had a great education, was married, had 2 kids, house, car, and what not. All seemed to be going great and anyone around me would have thought "she's got it all."

But on the inside I was dying. I had a lot of personal and family problems. I was deeply unhappy, was starting to fall back to being anorexic, which I had been ever since I turned 16, and just was wondering if this was all life had to offer.

Then, one Saturday in foggy November, I tagged along with someone to a Martial Arts studio. Now at the time, I had no idea what Martial Arts was. I came from Salzburg, Austria and we didn't know anything back then about Martial Arts. So after it was explained to me, I thought this was way too brutal and savage for me, but would come along since I didn't have anything better to do.

I remember well walking into this tiny Do Jang, where this beautiful oriental girl in white pajamas (what did I know about uniforms!) and the very first thing she said was "Who is your worst enemy?" And the group of people - presumably her students - answered together "Myself Ma'am."

I was floored. That was part of Martial Arts? If that was indeed part of it - I wanted it. I knew I needed help, and that one little question made me realize that perhaps I would find help here.

Shortly thereafter the class was over and I found myself in that young girl's office - it turned out that she was actually Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim!

She assured me that I wasn't a bad person and only needed to re-direct my energy and I would be whole soon. She made me feel very welcome, very much at home, and there was no pressure for anything, whatsoever.

I liked her proposition: You try it my way, and if you don't want to do that anymore, then simply go back to doing things your way.

Deal! This was the day my new life began.