How Boxing Workouts Can Transform Your Fitness Routine?
Explore how boxing challenges the body and mind, helping you overcome training plateaus, build functional strength, and improve cardiovascular health.
Kathryn Yang
Bio
Master Kathryn Yang is a distinguished martial artist, instructor, and author based in New York City. Her martial arts journey began approximately 30 years ago with Shotokan karate. After four years, she transitioned to Taekwondo and has since dedicated herself to the ITF style, currently holding a 6th dan black belt under Grandmaster Suk Jun Kim.
Academically, Master Yang earned her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. She practiced law for four years at Cravath, Swaine & Moore before choosing to focus on martial arts instruction. She spent seven years teaching at S.J. Kim’s Taekwon-Do before establishing her own dojang, Yang Taekwondo, in New York City.
In 2021, Master Yang authored "Shijak: To Begin: A Modern Martial Arts Story," a novel that intertwines traditional martial arts practice and philosophy within a contemporary narrative. The story follows characters Daria and Dae Sung as they embark on journeys of training, competition, and self-discovery under their Taekwondo teacher's guidance.
Master Yang's dedication to teaching and preserving martial arts traditions is evident in her commitment to passing knowledge to the next generation, which she views as a categorical imperative.
There is a difference between working out and training. So far, you just work out. You sweat a little and get a good amount of exercise. Yes, you do get a little better, a little stronger and a little smarter, but mostly your skills are derived from your natural abilities. Training is very different. When you train, you have to push your body and your fighting spirit to the point of breaking every time. When you train, you have to go right up to the limits where your physical being and your spiritual self scream ‘no more.’ And at that barrier, which naturally evolved throughout your lifetime as protection against possible physical harm and mental anguish, you must force through or be forced through into a world of seemingly unreasonable pain in order to glimpse and then realize another level beyond your current abilities. This must happen over and over again in order to truly progress on this journey. And of course, the cruelty of all this is that the next level itself is illusory, as is the one after that, and the successive barriers you must force your way through will seem boundless.” “Even for the strongest person, training extracts a heavy and oftentimes damaging toll on your body and on your psychic health, which is why I rarely push my students that hard,” he continued. “The harmful effects of such hard training is also why you need a trustworthy guide and teacher, someone who can catalyze your training but, more importantly, someone who can pull you from the abyss and show you that the white hot pressure to advance and constantly surpass your previous achievements is also an illusion in and of itself.