Ronnie Blake wasn't always the mountain of muscle she is today. Once a shy, self-conscious woman in her late 30s, she decided one day to turn her life around and walked into a taekwondo gym. Weighing well over 220 lbs at the time and with no athletic background, she hoped to find motivation and discipline through martial arts.

Instead, the gym's owner mocked her size and ridiculed her lack of ability in front of others. Humiliated but burning with quiet fury.