Thayne found Western arts of Historical European Martial Arts in 1999, when he began the study of Armizare, the art of Arms of Italian Style. Long sword, spear, dagger work and is still active today as a Free Scholar and Instructor of the Chicago and Rocky Mountain Swordplay Guilds.
In 2005 Thayne started Martial Blade Concepts / Counter Blade Concepts training along with Kali Eskrima Silat and became a Full Instructor in the MBC system under the founder Michael Janich in 2013. He has been featured in many photos from magazine articles written by Mike Janich and has appeared on several episodes of the "The Best Defense" Television show on The Outdoor Channel.
Thayne’s love for the old American melee weapon styles got him involved with Bowie knife and Tomahawk weapons and he has been teaching the big knife in on-going classes and a few seminars since 2014.
Today, in addition to Armizare and MBC, he is a student of realistic based defense systems of Urban and military Combatives, studying under giants in the field such as Lee Morrison and Kelly McCann and is a practicing savateur in the system of Boxe Francaise and street Savate.