It all started when she was a young girl, growing up in a thatched roof shack in rural South Korea. Tae Yun Kim often woke up to the sounds of her uncles doing their tae kwon do training outside in the morning mist. She watched them for years and one day hoped that the martial art would end its several thousand year tradition of excluding women from being able to train. She had begged and begged her uncle to show her some moves, but he had always refused. Tae Yun Kim was persistent, however, and years later her begging eventually paid off with her uncle no longer willing to bear the arguments, and deciding to give in to her request.

Her training with her uncle was comprehensive but did not satisfy her desire to become as competent in the martial art as she had desired. So instead of just getting a few lessons from her uncle, that request escalated to a daily training routine, where she developed a deep passion for tae kwon do that she would carry with her for decades to come. When she was 8 years old, a Buddhist monk took her under his wings and her real training began. Through years and years of training in secret her skills had improved greatly, but it would be many years until she was allowed to show what she had learned in a formal testing, she was 13 years old when she tested for the first time, and became a black belt right away.

And that’s why by the time she had achieved Great Grandmaster level status, it was no longer a surprise to anyone who had the opportunity to train with her. It was clear that Tae Yun Kim was going to be the first woman to achieve such an elite status in martial arts, and that she was not going to let any man get in her way.

Now a success and inspiration to many, Tae Yun Kim runs her own tae kwon do studio in Fremont, California. It is called Jung Suwon Martial Arts Academy, and Tae Yun Kim teaches both group and private lessons there.