The Oamaru man is coaching a free self defence course at Te Whare Koa Marae, starting next month.
It focuses on teaching practical skills to protect yourself in situations involving both physical and verbal assault.
Mr Mak stressed that it was not a martial art or combat sport class.
"This is not fight club, this is escape club.
"The premise of this is, you are going to get hurt.
"The goal is to get out of trouble with the least physical and mental damage."
He hoped the course would give people the tools to defend themselves against real-world threats as well as the ability to stay calm when facing those threats.
"The very early part of this is all about understanding cultural limitations, your own personal limitations and then working out how you can use those to protect yourself.
"If somebody wants to bully me, they’ll try and move into my personal space and if I’m moving back, that shows I’m being submissive.
"They then hold the story, they’re the ones who are creating the story.
"Our job is to actually understand what they’re doing to create another story or rewrite the script."
Mr Mak has a background in martial arts and was inspired to teach the course as a way for people to be able to react appropriately to threats, no matter the level of danger.
"In the modern world, you need to be able to scale your response to the level of provocation. So if somebody is drunk and all it takes is a push in the chest to get them to fall over, that’s all you need. You don’t need to smash their eyes out."
It is a free course that is open to anyone, although Mr Mak suggested it was better suited to adults than children.
"Because it’s a pretty sophisticated way of looking at this stuff. Anyone under 20 is probably too young to probably pick it up."
The course will be held twice a week through October, November and December.
