By Jaime Lintott

The problem is, I have Social Anxiety Disorder and as I get older, it gets worse, I get worse.

Prior to me joining Taekwondo, my life consisted Gilmore Girls reruns and a bag of Smartfood. The older I get the harder it’s become to get away with hiding in my room. I’m going to be 30 soon. I know this isn’t old but I also know that it’s old enough to have collected some pretty bad habits and really bad coping mechanisms, which, for me, mostly consisted of hiding or running scared.

Then, this past December, I watched Taekwondo at my local YMCA and fell in love.

Finding the Grace of Life in Aikido

Imagine you are standing at a storefront window looking into room devoid of furniture but covered in thick mats. You see people wearing karate type uniforms, but this doesn’t look like karate. They take turns trying to grab each other–usually by the wrists, maybe the collar – and sometimes they are successful but other times their partner deftly evades grasp, stepping to the side just in time.

It looks a bit like a choreographed dance, something you’d see on Dancing with the Stars, but instead of a graceful bow to the judges, one of the partners either gets thrown, rolling with the landing and hopping back up, or gets pinned to the floor. Odd choreography, indeed.