About Me
Check out my interview conducted in 2003 by Phil Elmore of www.philelmore.com.
My name is Tony Manifold, I am located in Victoria, BC Canada and I have been involved in the martial arts and combatives for over 12 years. Like a lot of people my start was with high school wrestling. Luckily for me, however, my wrestling coach was a 2nd degree black belt in aikido. So my wrestling career also involved almost three years of unofficial Aikido instruction. During this period I did Judo for just under a year. After the club closed down, I moved to an American Kenpo and kickboxing school. This was my first introduction to the striking arts. I was lucky that my instructor there was a former bouncer and had considerable street experience. He started me off on practicing the arts for self preservation..
After I had to leave that club I stayed with my grappling for a while until I again went to another Karate, Shotokan this time, and Kickboxing school. This was about the time that the UFC was becoming popular. Due to the fact that I was already cross training it was a natural move to Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). During this time I trained in Shotokan, Kickboxing and submission grappling over 25 hrs a week. I also trained in self preservation thanks to my head instructor; a two time World kickboxing champion with an incredible amount of combat experience both in the ring and out. During this time I competed in shoot fighting. The pictures you see on my site are the only ones I have of me doing anything remotely combative and come from a MMA fight. After leaving that scene I began to concentrate more on self preservation as well as getting back into judo for awhile. I have studied many forms of Military Hand to hand Combat. They include the Canadian Army version of Hand to Hand combat, SCARS, WW2 Combatives and the defensive tactics taught to Canadian Miliary police and Naval Boarding party members.. Lately I have been studying Filipino Martial Arts in the form of Prof. Remy Presas' Modern Arnis. Recently, I have been certified by ASP in the use of their tactical baton
I learned early on that there is a difference between sports, traditional martial arts and drop down, drag out, dirty fighting. I have also learned that there is a great deal of over lap between the three. I have been fortunate to have a very well rounded experience in the Martial arts. So hopefully this page has given you a glimpse of who I am and where I am coming from. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at tmancombatives@yahoo.com
Thank You,
Tony Manifold