Meeting the in-laws is never an easy task, but add being sought after by the local media and five farmers' wives, in a country you have never been to before, and you have yourself a complex mix.

This was the sticky situation John Brotchie happened to find himself in when he was travelling on holiday to the countryside township of Okaihau in the Far North in 1980, to meet the parents of his Auckland-born wife, Joanna.

"Someone found out in town, when we were living with the in-laws, that I trained women to fight, and then the local press somehow got a hold of it. Next thing you know I have five farmers' wives on my doorstep asking if I would train them." Despite his life time spent perfecting his art, you just don't argue with New Zealand farm women.

News travels fast in small-town rural New Zealand, and by the next week Brotchie was asked to hike - the man doesn't drive - further east across the country to the Hokianga to teach a self-defence course to some safety-conscious women.

"And all this while I'm on holiday, I couldn't even relax on holiday!" Brotchie exclaims, in his fading British accent.

Nine years later it was 1989, and they were back. New Zealand's pull proved too strong to resist.

"We came back, of course, because my wife wanted to be here," he says with that knowing look, that it is always the way with women.

And women seem to be what Brotchie knows best.

They say seeing is believing, but on meeting the perfectly mannered Englishman, who looks 10 years older than he is, it is hard to believe he now single-handedly runs a 180 strong, female sport fighting gym. The largest of its kind in the world.

A fact which the petit, tidily dressed 58-year-old himself finds hard to believe.

"I never intended to run a fight club that's now internationally known, I mean it's crazy. If somebody had said to me at 19 years of age, 'you'll be running a female fighting club', I would have said rubbish. Because music was the only thing that I would be involved in."

But now it is his livelihood, though perhaps not as lucrative as he would have wished.

Although the current state of domestic violence in New Zealand is being addressed by public service campaigns such as the recent "Family Violence, It's Not Ok!" advertisements, the harsh reality is that each year 11 women die and about 400 women are hospitalised due to assault*, and 15 per cent of residents in women's refuges have a permanent disability as the result of battering**. And then there's Mania, no public service campaigns here, just a grass roots level programme helping females in the community to swing more than just their handbags.

Female kick-boxing and mixed martial arts trainer of 10 years, Russell Masters, believes that most women come in to start fighting initially for self-confidence issues and because of incidences in the past when they couldn't defend themselves.

"That's their original motivation, and then they realise they are strong enough and don't have to be afraid about walking home from work or parties late at night," he says.

So for the female trainer, Mania is about empowering women, from all walks of life.

"I mean if one girl saves herself from being killed it has all been worth it," Brotchie says intently as he checks his beeping cell phone. It's a message from one of the girls saying she will pick him up and take him to the gym soon.

"I never bothered to take my licence," he admits unashamedly.

A good friend of Brotchie's, a member of the gym for two years and the sender of the text message is Katie Taylor-Reid.

"I'm his chauffer, I drive him home most nights and pick him up and take him to training because he's partially blind so he's not allowed to drive," she says with a laugh. Not that he'd ever let on.

It is barely noticeable because his saggy eye brows almost cover it, but his left eye is slightly lazy and doesn't always follow the right. But this doesn't stop Brotchie in any which way.

"Hello darling, how are you? Go warm up and then you'll be training on the mat and we'll fight later if you want," he yells to a girl as his arm is twisted up his back by another as part of her training.

Years of mixed martial arts have made this man as flexible as a rubber band, so in the ring, he doesn't feel much pain. This is a clear advantage over any woman he is training, but he doesn't hold it over any of them.

"You're doing well, you've almost got a submission come on girl, you can do it, I know you've got it in you," he encourages in his training spas as he lets girls beat him up, sit on him and choke him.

Standing about five-foot-seven, what he lacks in height, he makes up for in strength. However he doesn't have a physique that most would expect for a man who was awarded an International Martial Arts Federation Black Belt.

"As a kid I was smaller than most, so I had to have a testicle operation when I was 15 and I suddenly grew," he says.

With a comb-over, goatee and missing teeth reminiscent of his own fighting days, this man in grey trousers with a rip in the knee could be anyone's grandad.

"He's 70 isn't he? Oh I think that because he has no teeth," says Amber Porter, another one of John's fighters, with a laugh.

Situated on the corner of a main intersection in Sandringham, his gym called Mania hides in a tight space beneath an accountancy firm.

But it is hard to miss.

Sported in bold on its trademark yellow boards, Mania tells anyone who will take the time to notice that it is a specialist in women's combat; a blend of martial arts, wrestling, unarmed combat, self defence and stunt fighting.

Inside, a boxing ring takes up a third of the converted garage and red and blue soft mats cover the rest of the floor for training.

For nearly 20 years Brotchie has come in five, sometimes seven days a week to teach submission style wrestling to Auckland women from all walks of life. There is no discrimination here; big, small, short, tall, young or old, if you're female, then feel free to waltz on in. Another sign outside states, 'new members are welcome'.

"It's been great, because it's great to see women become strong and empowered. That's the biggy for me. It's a lot of fun to watch, and it's good to see someone go from being a winter wallflower to being a strong and powerful woman."

Porter has been at the gym for a year and a half. She, like many of the women training at Mania, considers John to be a good friend.

"I stay at Mania solely because of John, other gyms are so non-personal. But John books you in and calls you to motivate you, if anything's going wrong he's very compassionate," she says. Brotchie is many different things to all the girls who come in, trainer, friend, counsellor, fight partner but Taylor-Reid believes it goes even further than that.

"His parents treated him pretty horrible, and so he doesn't want to be like that and wants others to have what he didn't," she explains, giving the impression he is a father like figure to all the girls. But there is no need for just an impression, "he's really supportive, kind of like a dad sort of. You can always count on him."

Brotchie's mother was a German Jewess; she got out on the last plane before the Nazi occupation of Denmark.

She had a dead baby in her womb when she met John's father in London. Consequently she had to have one and half of her ovaries removed.

"And so I was born on half an ovary, my birth was a miracle birth in that way."

Because his parents were not expecting a child, they didn't know what to do with him

"I didn't have a loving childhood, because my parents didn't know anything more about it than I did."

Brotchie was sent to an English countryside public boarding school at six and stayed there until he was 17. It was traumatising enough that he vowed he would never put his own two sons through it.

At 14 amateur wrestling became his passion, which morphed into sport fighting when he was 19. But it fell to the wayside as a life of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll emerged for the jazz drummer and harmonica player as he got into the developing music scene.

"I don't remember a lot of it, my friends said I went to sleep in 68 and woke up in 72, but I was told I had a lot of fun. Anyone who lived in the 60s and can remember it, didn't really live it," he chuckles.

The three chest height shelves packed chock-a-block with CDs, sporting almost anything from Jewel to Johnny Cash to The Arcade Fire, which dominate one side of his living room, prove that music was and is not just a common interest for Brotchie, but still a fiery passion.

He came from managing new wave punk bands in London to managing female fighters in New Zealand.

But it wasn't that simple. On his original trip to New Zealand, he had a dramatic conversion and became a Christian. The man with the new found lease on life went back to London knowing that something had to change, as he had smoked enough pot and seen enough bands.

"So I had to make a decision, God or music and I chose God. And I had no idea where that was going to take me."

Cue 2008 and the small man with the big heart's personal turnaround has also changed the lives of hundreds of New Zealand women for the better.

"I've had so many letters from so many women through the years saying thank you, you have given me back my faith in men. Why I don't know."

And he's modest too.

By Olivia Boswell