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Hi, I was asked to write a bio so to make a long story long here it is. I was born in Hawaii on 1959, but I am California raised. I spent most of my growing up in La Puente, CA. I graduated from La Puente High and spent three years at Mount San Antonio College, but I like to think I graduated from Hapkido College because that’s how I make my living, teaching Hapkido. My first introduction to Hapkido was from a school in the city of Pomona. The instructor was Mr. Jeff Harris; he was one of Grandmaster Kim’s first students to open a school from his teachings in the United States. Eventually I found myself training under Grandmaster Chong S. Kim himself. I am currently training towards my fifth degree and hope to become a Master of Hapkido myself one day. I knew when I started teaching in class this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life so I set my goal to own my own school. After I reached the level of Black belt I still had 5 more years of training to reach 3rd degree, because Grandmaster was very strict that you should have a rank of at least 3rd degree before opening a school. So you see what I mean about Hapkido College. Anyway I totally loved the journey from student to instructor. Even today I encourage my students to enjoy their training, don’t be in such a hurry to get to the next belt and get comfortable with your technique before you try to test. |
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I will always be a student myself because even if I were to learn all the technique Hapkido has, being a teacher I also learn from my student’s everyday. I feel I’m very lucky that my life was steered in this direction because now I can say if I died today I died a happy camper, because I got to do something I love everyday and I have the love of two family’s, my immediate family and my Hapkido family well actually my immediate family is also my Hapkido family because my husband is a 2nd degree, and all three of my daughters are black belts the youngest is 2nd degree like her dad. Yeah I guess what started out as a hobby turned into an obsession but as you can see my family enjoyed it too. Anyway back to my bio, I received my 3rd degree in February of 1999 didn’t waste much time I found the location I wanted, Grandmaster Kim checked it out and gave me his permission to open. On June 1st 1999 my doors opened for the first time. Here we are and it’s 2008 and I’m still here! Running a school and continuing my own training is a challenge but, with the help of some very dedicated students I’m able to do so. I received the rank of 4th degree on February 24, 2006. I want to give a special thanks to Mr. Renteria, Mr. Fuentes, Mr. Guerrero, and Mr. Villegas for all their help, which most of the time included high falling in the early hours of the morning. If you think you might have an affection for the martial arts I can highly recommend Hapkido not just because Hapkido is one of the best styles of self defense and that I have dedicated the rest of my life to teaching and training but because I’m having fun doing it. I also like fishing, camping, dirt bike riding, playing Texas holdem, and good music. Pet Peeves are laziness, traffic, advertising phone calls when you’re working, and when people don’t pick up after themselves. Well I hope reading this helped you to get to know me a little better. Thanks for checking out our website and have a good day! |
