Masaaki Hatsumi - An-shu Stephen K. Hayes’ Teacher

 

An-shu Stephen K. Hayes' teacher Masaaki Hatsumi was born in Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, on December 2, 1931. He attended Meiji University, where he met his wife Mariko. He studied boxing and martial arts in his youth. He met his teacher Toshitsugu Takamatsu in the mid-1950s, and traveled to Kashiwabara, west of Iga and south of Nara, weekly for 15 years to train with his teacher. In the 1980s, Masaaki Hatsumi gained international prominence through the books of An-shu Stephen K. Hayes.

 

 

 

Koichi Oguri, Masaaki Hatsumi, Tetsuji Ishizuka, Stephen K. Hayes, Tsunehisa Shoto Tanemura, during a 1975 training session in Noda City, Japan

 

 

 

 

 

 

SKH Quest founder Stephen K. Hayes is the American martial arts pioneer who studied with Masaaki Hatsumi in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, and then brought world access to Masaaki Hatsumi's martial art. Dr. Hatsumi awarded An-shu the very rare ju-dan 10th Degree in 1993 to acknowledge An-shu’s lifelong work in promoting the martial arts as a path to mastery of life.

Masaaki Hatsumi joins Stephen K. Hayes at Ohio Shadows of Iga Festival in 1982

 

 

At the very first Bujinkan instructors meeting in Japan in Autumn 1979, Masaaki Hatsumi told An-shu Stephen K. Hayes that it is the duty of every senior instructor to create a personal teaching program from the historical material and then present training in the most relevant and useful way for students. Thus were planted seeds that would flower as the SKH Quest martial art of To-Shin Do, based on techniques, theories, and strategies Stephen K. Hayes studied with Masaaki Hatsumi, arranged and interpreted to serve 21st Century American students in the best way possible.

 

 

In the more than 30 years of sharing his teacher's original lessons, Stephen K. Hayes has introduced Masaaki Hatsumi's insights to the Western world in a way that inspired thousands to become part of the training legacy. Today, An-shu's Togakure Ryu Ninpo Taijutsu DVD is one of the best possible references for the standard Bujinkan fundamentals. Check it out here...

To-Shin Do An-shu Stephen K. Hayes still makes periodic visits to Japan to see his teacher Masaaki Hatsumi, now in his late 70s

 

 

 

 

Stephen, Reina, Marissa, and Rumiko Hayes with Masaaki Hatsumi - Nin-po training has been a Hayes family focus for over 30 years