Dancing is actually the last thing Judy Smith ever imagined she would be doing. As a child and teenager, her passion was horses. She grew up riding through the Colorado Mountains and competing on the horseshow circuit in hunter/jumper classes. At age 17, Judy was in a car accident that drastically altered the course of her life. She spent the next several years sitting very still, being an alien in her own body, and trying to figure out what in the world she was going to do with the remainder of her time on Earth. Through various twists and turns, Judy ended up in Berkeley, California, a Mecca for people with disabilities. She met a woman, Gail Pacifica, who was very interested in dance and movement. The pair began doing movement improvisation on the floor, just for fun, and a whole new world began to open up as Judy learned for the first time since her injury how much she really could move! This led her into swimming, weightlifting, and eventually to the martial arts, where she met Thais Mazur in a kajukenbo kung fu class.