When Tom Kupa took up karate in 1973 it was for all the wrong reasons ... to be a bully.
"Now I'm doing it for all the right reasons ... to train youngsters how to deal with bullies," he said.
Kupa, 54, and his wife, Olivia, run Kupa International Martial Arts in Hastings where they train more than 50 fighters. This week Kupa had a world championship gold medal-winning story of his own to tell his youngsters.
Despite competing for the first time since 2003 and after just two months of training, Kupa won gold in the full contact section of his 50-plus age group at last weekend's International Sport Karate Association's world championships in Sydney.
"I brought my old bones out of the closet ... part of my 'if you don't use it you're going to lose it' philosophy," Kupa, a former New Zealand age group rugby representative, quipped.