Michael was born in the American midwest and, like so many others, was primarily babysat by television. Consequently, he has a soft spot in his heart for Space 1999, the original Battlestar Galactica and, above all, Star Trek. Despite all of this TV influence it was a movie that changed his life when he saw Billy Jack around the age of 6 or 7. A partial blood Indian hero finally gave him a role model... the hippies were something like his parents... he finally had a direction in life: he needed to learn martial arts. Michael has been teaching Chinese martial arts for about 25 years. Along the way he picked up a little magic (stage magic, not like Gandalf magic), a love of art, an ear for punk rock, a wife and kids. That is probably more than you really wanted to know.