I began training in 1985 with the Sutherland club with Daniel Marie as my first Instructor. I was looking for a way to get fit and to maybe learn something useful at the same time. I very quickly came to embrace and resonate with the philosophy and history of this ancient martial art.

I especially liked the idea of incorporating the yin and yang in techniques.

What appealed to me, as a woman, was that techniques didn’t only need to rely on powerful, hard masculine energies,     but could also combine the feminine energies of softness, circular motion and being like water. After grading to yellow   belt in February of 1986, I took a year off to have my 5th baby, returning in 1987 to full time training. Under the   motivating and expert instruction of Scott Wetherell I graded to Black Belt in 1992.By the end of the 1990’s I had graded  to 3rd Dan and several of my children had joined me in training too, with my eldest son, Brett, continuing onto obtaining a 3rd Dan Black Belt.

An amazing highlight of my journey in Hapkido was being a member of an Australian Hapkido Association tour of Korea in 2003. Instructed by the equally impressive and awesome Mitchell Wetherell, I graded to 4th Dan in 2006.

There were many times over the next 12 years when I thought about retiring, especially after having a hip replacement in 2013 and another in 2016. However, I was motivated to continue training by a sense of female empowerment, personal potentiality and a desire to see a woman finally take her place with the Masters. After 32 years my dream was realized in November, 2017. Throughout my career as a Psychologist and student of meditation, yoga and self-development disciplines I incorporated many of the techniques I picked up along the way to achieve my success.

It is now my intention to share these tools and techniques with you so that you too can achieve your goals in Hapkido. I will be writing a regular fortnightly motivational piece in the News section, so look out for it.