Sean Hayes is a fencing master trained in traditional Italian fencing pedagogy under Maestro d’Armi William M. Gaugler at the San Jose State University Fencing Masters Program, starting in 1995 and graduating in 1999; and was first trained in traditional French foil under Maitre d’armes Adam Crown starting in 1991. He has studied Historical European Martial Arts since 1991, first as a student of Maitre Crown and then as a researcher and teacher, and today is a researcher, teacher and practitioner of Fiore dei Liberi’s L’arte dell’Armizare, including a focus on the armored aspects of medieval martial arts, actively using his pedagogical training under Maestro Gaugler to assist his research in the Historical European Martial Arts. Through Maestro Gaugler, he has a primary master-student lineage back to Tommaso Bosco e Fucile, an 18th century master, and a secondary master-student lineage back to Giovanni Battista Marcelli, a 17th century master. Hayes is a full-time teacher and practitioner of Historical European Martial Arts, teaching six centuries of European martial arts privately through his own school, Northwest Fencing Academy, in Eugene, Oregon. He has presented academic papers on L’Arte dell’Armizare at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, the University of Chicago, the Renaissance Society of America Conference in Venice, Britain’s Royal Armouries, and the American Association of Italian Studies. He is the author of “The Importance of Skill Progressions in Studying Western Martial Arts,” an article featured in the book In the Service of Mars; “Stable, Striking And Mutable: Fighting From The Guards Of L’arte Dell’armizare;” and “Memory And Performance: Visual And Rhetorical Strategies Of Il Fior Di Battaglia.” During the last 25 years he has been a competitive epee fencer; taught and fought multiple times at the Western Martial Arts Workshop in Racine Wisconsin, the Symposium on the Western Arts of Swordsmanship through History (SWASH) at Britain’s Royal Armouries in Leeds, the Vancouver Swordplay Symposium International in British Columbia, the International Swordfighting and Martial Arts Convention in Michigan, Borealis Swordplay Symposium in Quebec, Lysts on the Lake, Longpoint 2014 in Maryland, and sat as a member of the Examination Board for all levels of fencing instructors at the San Jose State University Fencing Masters Program. He has fought several times in il Torneo del Cigno Bianco (The Tournament of the White Swan) in Verona, Italy.
In 2009 he and Ars Gladii Instructor David Farrell co-founded the Armoured Deeds of Arms, a tournament featured at the Western Martial Arts Workshop in Racine Wisconsin that continues to this day; he was the original author of the armored tournament rules that became the DeKoven Concord, a ruleset for conducting armoured tournaments that is widely used in the United States and Italy. He is a member of the medieval reenactment group La Compagnia della Rosa nel Sole, and co-founder of the International Armizare Society.