User:Michael Chidester

Michael Chidester has been studying historical European martial arts since 2001. He was a member of the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts until 2006, where he achieved the rank of general Free Scholar and acted as the ARMA Provo Study Group Leader. Michael co-founded the True Edge Academy of Swordsmanship in 2009, and until 2011 was a senior instructor and senior researcher at its Provo branch. He has lectured on historical martial arts literature at Fechtschule America in Houston, the Iron Gate Exhibition of Historical Martial Arts in Boston, the Symposium on Historical Arts and Swordsmanship at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, and Life: the Marion K. “Doc” Smith Symposium at Brigham Young University.

In 2010, Michael received a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Brigham Young University, with a minor degree in Military Science and additional coursework in Italian and Spanish. He developed a degree of fluency in the latter while living abroad in Mexico between 2002 and 2004. He is a member of the Western Martial Arts Coalition and a Lifetime Member of the Historical European Martial Arts Alliance; after serving as its principal designer and editor for two years, Michael was appointed Director of the Wiktenauer Project by the HEMA Alliance governing council in 2012.