Our presenters

Wil founded Tactical Survival Academy in 2008, bringing over 15 years of international experience in high-performance training, motivational speaking, university lecturing, and personal development across NZ, Australia, the UK, Europe, Singapore, and the USA. Holding graduate and postgraduate degrees, he specialises in real-world tactical training for civilians and security professionals.

Since launching Tactical Survival, Wil has trained thousands—from everyday Kiwis to NZ Defense Force personnel, police (including tactical units), emergency staff, diplomats, and private security.

A Master Instructor in Protect Krav Maga, Wil trained under Dr. Itay Gil earning his rank after intensive Krav Maga, self-defence and counter-terror awareness training in Australia, New Zealand and Israel. He is also NZ’s representative for FIMA, the leading worldwide Krav Maga federation. A certified range officer and competitive shooter, Wil actively competes in IPSC action pistol and rifle matches.

Beyond training, Wil works in the Film & TV industry as an actor, stunt performer, and fight choreographer on international blockbusters and local productions. He continues to expand his expertise, training in Kali and JKD under Steve Brown of the Inosanto Academy.

Will Allardice started playing guitar at school, learning classical and pop tunes and after university, completed Trinity classical grades and began teaching Saturday morning classes.

He has now taught guitar, electric bass, ukulele, and mandolin at schools and privately in the Wellington region for over 25 years.    His interest in music/guitar ranges from early classical to the present day so Will has an extensive collection of teaching material and expertise.

Yvette is passionate about helping others create beautiful outdoor spaces and gardens. She created her own dream garden at home after enrolling on a couple of design courses and catching the “vision”.  After much deliberation and several designs, she finally settled on one. Then hardscaped and planted it up “with quite a bit of help from her whanau and credit card”. Anything is achievable when the design is done!

Times are changing. More people want an outdoor space that’s beautiful and has areas for specific purposes especially for families and entertaining.  Yvette shows how it’s possible to achieve all of this and now, more than ever, establish restful outdoor retreats as valuable extras when working from home.

As a trained teacher “back in the day”, Yvette loves delivering exciting workshops that are packed with information, interactive and fun to be part of. Taking on the challenges of questions, problems and never-seen-before scenarios of student gardens is what keeps bringing her back!

With 10 years of design experience Yvette also offers professional services within the Wellington region and through postal services further afield. But being a people person at heart there is another big dream - to help communities repurpose shared, uninspiring outdoor spaces into vibrant, attractive havens which will encourage relationships and reduce isolation and loneliness.