Blanko, I think what Snake is talking about is, after you focus on an object (using a half-press of the shutter button in autofocus mode), you press the down button on the 4-way controller, to chance focus mode. Then, you change to the Manual Focus setting, but only if you use only 1 button press to go from your current focus mode to Manual Focus, meaning, without highlighting a third focus mode first.
The focus modes you can select are, from left to right, Autofocus, Macro, and Manual Focus. If you normally use Autofocus, which is the left option, you can't get to Manual Focus by pressing the Right button without first passing over Macro. If you pass over Macro, the Autofocus distance gets lost and it isn't copied in Manual Focus. So, you press the Left button instead, and immediately the Manual Focus option is highlighted. You will notice (in most cases) that the selected distance is not exactly halfway between macro and infinity, but some other point, because the camera remembered the Autofocus distance. Press OK to confirm, and you have your snap focus.
However, if you normally use the Macro setting*, you only have to press the Right button and you're immediately at Manual Focus, and the camera will remember your autofocus distance (still press OK to confirm). If you normally use Macro, moving to Manual Focus by pressing the Left button will mean you lose the autofocus distance because then it passes by another focus mode (Autofocus) before it gets to Manual Focus.
*I always have my camera set to Macro, because it's basically the most versatile Autofocus mode; the camera will still autofocus throughout its entire normal range, but it will also focus at macro distances. Because the total focus range is longer (both normal distances and macro distances) the focus might be a bit slower in some cases, but to be honest I don't really notice it. The upside is that you can switch between normal distance shooting and macro shooting without changing focus mode.
I hope this is understandable; either way, congrats on your EX1, it's a wonderful camera and I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot!