Athena Karate is run by Mary Stevens with the assistance of senior students. Mary is a 4th dan in karate under the British Combat Karate Association; a full professional member of the National Federation for Personal Safety (NFPS) and a former secondary school teacher. She has degrees from Oxford University and Oxford Brookes (History and English respectively) a PGCE, and multiple fitness and personal training qualifications. She is the author of ‘Warrior Monkeys’- a series of children’s books published by Oxford University Press. She project-manages for FairFight – a Dutch NGO which empowers young women in India and Zimbabwe through the teaching of martial arts and self-protection. She is also half of the team behind VPAM UK (violence prevention and management for non-martial artists). For more information on any of these, please see links below.

Mary was honoured to receive The Alison Ducker Award for Inspirational Women in Martial Arts in May 2022 Alison Ducker Award

fairfightvaranasi.wordpress.com for Mary’s Fairfight India blog, or fairfight.nl for general information

Mary has also been interviewed on many podcasts with regard to her work for FairFight and her writing. So if you’re curious to know more about the school before coming along, feel free to listen:

https://anchor.fm/karateconversations/episodes/Episode-39—Life-advice-with-Mary-Stevens-e19169l/a-a6nvgkr Conversations on Karate podcast: for a relaxed overview of teaching practical karate and women’s self defence.

https://player.fm/series/fighter-mindset/s2e4-mary-stevens-empowering-young-women-through-martial-arts-and-self-protection Fighter’s Mindset Podcast for an interesting discussion of parenting and other issues.

https://borntobeabadass.libsyn.com/061-interview-martial-arts-and-self-protection-with-mary-stevens Born to Be a Badass podcast with Cynthia Jolicoeur Rood – reflections and discussion on being a female martial arts/self protection teacher.

https://clubbchimera.com/podcasts/ with Jamie Clubb on critical thinking

https://anchor.fm/benjamin–myers/episodes/Mary-Stevens-On-Outreach–Cultural-Inertia-and-White-Privilege-eo6air on martial arts teaching and FairFight with Benjamin David Myers

https://soundcloud.com/mostlybooksmeets/mary-stevens with Mostly Books on being a children’s author

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ozKpcT7LOo on Karate for Mental Health with Les Bubka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA50e_Qx_YA on Managing Violence Podcast with Joe Saunders

http://themartialartswoman.com/mary-stevens-uk-instructor-project-manager-of-fairfight-india/ on The Martial Arts Woman podcast with Andrea Harkins

https://www.listennotes.com/fil/podcasts/southpaw/12-sex-trafficking-in-india–x81dSEqz_n/ on Southpaw podcast with Sam and Paul