Mike Mandel

Mike Mandel is the only known Defendo Instructor Trainer in the world who learned directly from Bill Underwood.
"I met Bill in the early 1970’s when I was a young man studying karate and kung fu. I stepped on the mat with Bill and he systematically took me apart. He was in his seventies at the time. I fell in love with this incredible system that doesn’t depend on strength or size. We’ve run Defendo past numerous highly skilled people, including martial artists, and American Marine and a former SAS soldier. Everyone loves the system” - Mike Mandel, Eye Spy Volume III, Issue Nineteen, 2003
In the early 1980’s Bill Underwood re-connected with his former student and paid instructor to ask Mike to once again instruct students at the Toronto School of Defendo. After Bill’s death in 1986, it is Mike Mandel alone who preserved the entire system.
In 2002, there was a fear that this incredible self-defense system would not be taught again. Mike, with access to all of Underwood’s rare published works and original training material - and foremost - his incredible memory and actual experiences with Bill Underwood, easily reconstructed the entire system.
Mandel went on to teach Robbie Cressman and Britain’s Clive Elliott in much of the system, thus becoming the primary modern source for Bill Underwood’s techniques. Mandel and Cressman founded Defendo International and the Toronto School of Defendo in 2003 and toured England teaching Underwood’s methods. After a parting of ways with Cressman and the demise of Defendo International, Mike continued to impart all of his knowledge to Defendo International’s “Pat Underwood Award of Excellence” 2003 and 2004 winner Adam Sutherland, who became his new protégé. It can be easily demonstrated that all of Bill Underwood’s Defendo being taught worldwide today can be traced back directly through Mike Mandel.
Read about Mike Mandel in print:
Martial Arts Illustrated July 2003 Vol. 16 No. 2
Martial Arts Illustrated December 2003 Vol. 16 No. 7
Martial Arts Illustrated February 2004 Vol. 16 No. 9
Martial Arts Illustrated June 2004 Vol. 17 No. 1
Eye Spy Volume III Issue Nineteen 2003
Internet Publication The Martialist http://www.themartialist.com/0703/defendo.htm