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The Karate Couple

It was during one of his annual class trips to Mexico that mild mannered political science professor Stan Ackroyd, 60, decided to take up karate.

“I take students down to Mexico usually every summer,” Stan said. “This year, they were having elections, and there was a certain increase in violence. And I thought, I’ve been wanting to do karate for a long time – now is the time. And I got hooked.”

It was not long after one of her husband’s annual trips to Mexico that good-natured wife Margaret Ackroyd decided to take up karate.

“It was his idea,” she said, though when pushed she admitted that karate has turned out to be a good way to spend quality time with her husband, away from the demands of bills and children. “I can tune out all the other issues of my life while I’m there,” she said.

Margaret particularly enjoys kata, which are karate techniques strung together in a sort of dance. Stan, on the other hand, likes the feeling of confidence that karate has given him, a confidence he might otherwise have never known.

“You don’t want to end up sitting on the couch every day,” he added. “You want to try and do as much as you can. It makes life fuller.”