In the 80’s I was a short, skinny eight-year old. You know the type. Always picked on but never picked for the team. When I started high school, things didn’t get much better. We had just moved to central New Jersey and I was the new kid on the block with no friends. My grades dipped. My guidance counselor thought I was so weird that he measured my head. In those days, they had never heard of Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD.

Because of my disability I attended classes with no more than six students. These “special classes” helped me get through high school but I still had trouble focusing. I didn’t make the baseball team because of this. I felt I lacked something internally, even though I managed to get my driver’s license which increased my social opportunities. Whey my family moved to South Florida in 1992, I was ready for a new life. I was able to get into a college, but was still having trouble focusing and studying. I considered a career in Occupational TherapyFinally, one day at a party, I asked someone who I knew had studied the martial arts, whether they could recommend a good school. That person recommended “Stephen’s Karate and Fitness Center” in Boca Raton.

I tried a few classes and loved it. It was a workout I had never experienced. In my teens years, I had lifted weights but found that boring. At Stephen’s Karate, I learned a unique style of mixed martial arts that combines traditional Tae Kwon Do with boxing.

There was also the exposure to the group dynamic that I enjoyed. As I slowly but surely moved up through the ranks, my instructor Barry Stephen asked me if I wanted to become an assistant instructor. I said yes without hesitation. At the time I was a red belt, which in our school, is half-way to black belt.