I wrote a blog about relics being revitalized to provide new benefits to a new generation without damaging or destroying the essence of the relic itself. And of course I sometimes believe relics should be preserved as relics; museums inspire us with past triumphs in creative development.

Anyway, one commenter quite bluntly wrote in that the source martial art from which To-Shin Do evolved is completely sufficient in and of itself and required no “updating” at all to be effective. He went on to surmise that the reason I had changed my teaching was that my “ego and bank account” needed something more.

Brushing that cheap shot aside, out of curiosity my staff and I looked at my critic’s web site and links to videos of him in action. There he was, performing flat-footed robotic slow motion single action responses to a listless attacker who lurched in with a punch that resembled a bad bowler stomping forward with a right step and then a limp straight-elbowed right arm upward swing. The “punch” came to a stop almost a foot away from the defender when it ran out of what little steam it had. Made me shudder just to watch it.

Oh-ho. OK. Now I know why he does not at all approve of my insistence that we train against scary threats. He can’t handle those with what he is teaching. He then dodges the problem by requiring his students to attack him in a quirky stylized manner that fits what he wants to use for defense.

One difference between what I taught in the old days when I was an apprentice explorer and now 30 years later is that we usually avoid that lurching lunge that would never happen that way in a real fight. We insist our To-Shin attack simulations reflect what a real assailant would do to start a fight.

Many (most?) of the techniques that work so well against the extended straight-line-from-knuckles-to-neck arm need major modification to be effective in a real fight where the aggressor keeps angularity in his arm and shoulder joints. That’s why I had to create To-Shin Do.

Does that mean we do not teach defenses against leading-leg leading-hand attacks? No, not at all; we cover those. Boxers jab off the same-hand-and-leg-forward position, wrestlers lunge in with a same-side step and grasp, and MMA cage fighters fly in with a same-leg-and-fist lunge punch. We do train to protect against such fighting sports assaults that could end up on the street.

BUT when we do use a lunge punch, it really is a punch.

I suggest to my critic that to avoid embarrassment the day a real challenger struts into his dojo for a trial, my critic should think hard and carefully every time he is tempted to blow off and ridicule that which he does not want to understand. Save the cheap shots for later once you have earned your reputation.

That’s exactly what I learned to do in my decades of martial arts training. And that’s how I came to earn in the public arena the right to demand we revitalize the relic.

Last week my martial arts teacher Masaaki Hatsumi mailed me birthday greetings for my 60th. In his letter, he enclosed a photo of himself at his own 60th birthday bash in 1991. In his kanreki red suit – a western tuxedo no less – he salutes his past and future.

His red tux is significant, I believe. More than a mere eccentricity, it is a reminder of his own creative nature as an icon-busting teacher. Many of his students today fail to understand his real message, I strongly believe. “Think originally,” he might be paraphrased as offering.

One of my biggest surprises was his urging over the decades to bring what he taught me into full relevance for my culture, my world, my friends. In those 1970s days when I trained in the little dojo in his house, he goaded me to go beyond the mechanics and details of his ancestors’ kata forms whenever I would express exasperation with not getting all the details exactly right, just the way Daisuke Togakure might have performed a combat maneuver back in the 1100s. In later years in the 1980s and 1990s as well he kept pushing me to bring the lessons to life.

Big new world, he implied, with big new problems that need big new answers. The classics are timeless in their applicability of course, and yes every advanced Black Belt in our To-Shin Do ninja martial art will own every one of the classical exercises as he or she progresses through a lifetime of study. No one is advocating changing the principles. But memorization of the class lessons was not the point he wanted me to get. Go beyond, he admonished. Where does that lesson take you?

Another thing he seemed to not want was for me to transform him into some sort of icon or fantasy master in my mind. He did not want a personality cult built up around him (though I often lament that is precisely what some of his current students seem determined to do). He never failed to break apart any training aspect that became too sacrosanct or too inviolable in his students’ minds. He continues to do that today even as he moves into his 80s.

If I really got my teacher’s lessons, would I faithfully imitate his body’s movements, his speech, his purposes, and his daily operations of his hombu dojo? I think you know my answer.

He wore a red tux to make a statement in a country and culture and age with firm stereotypes as to how an inheritor of an historical martial tradition should behave. I got my own 60th birthday red suit as my own statement in response to what is most popular and seductive and yes off-base in the pay-per-view televised culture of martial arts in my country and times.

Lesson offered. Thank you, Sensei.

Are you upgrading when you take a small obscure military specialty from a bygone age and give it a new role improving the lives of a new century of beneficiaries? Or is it a desecration of the historic, an affront to the spirits of those who died fighting to hold their homeland free from invading occupiers?

Fortino Napoleanico, south of Ancona on the Adriatic Sea coast, was originally built in the early 1800s as a small fortress. As part of Napoleon’s empire, the fort and its troops blocked British sailors from coming ashore to a spring to replenish freshwater supplies on their ships in ongoing war between France and Britain.

Long after that war, the fort was converted to a seaside hotel. Rooms that housed French troops, supplies, and gunpowder now serve those seeking sun and relaxation. If the remote fort had been restored as a museum, it may have attracted a few Italian tourists. Upgraded as it is now, the Fortino serves a far larger population who enjoy gourmet Italian cuisine, luxurious rooms, rest, rejuvenation, and the beautiful beach at the former fortress. Rumiko and I stayed there for awhile this summer during a visit to Italy.

Is it possible that some might have opposed the conversion to hotel, preferring to keep the fort as a museum piece? Doubtless there were such voices. But visionaries prevailed. A relic became a resort.

I faced a similar decision with my martial art years ago. I could have kept the art in museum preservation and served a tiny group of people who might have enjoyed imitating 1500s Japanese espionage and combat. That would have been a fun hobby, but would have provided very little benefit for my community and other communities around the world.

Only by upgrading the obscure art of the ninja intelligence gatherers of Iga in feudal Japan did the art come to benefit people in the 21st century world community.

To restore the hotel to museum condition, it would take only a few cosmetic tweaks and the fortress would be back. Similarly with our martial art, we could easily make a few minor changes as to how aggressors attack in training, and we would be back to 16th century Japan. The Fortino and To-Shin Do ninja taijutsu are identical in that both still hold their original structure, but now serve far more people with far more benefits thanks to a few strategic upgrades.

My vote is obviously to revitalize the relic so that it serves far more people in many new ways, without removing any of the core essential qualities that brought it into life in the first place.

Our To-Shin Do martial art was developed from the original combat methods of the Togakure ninja of Japan. One of our hallmarks is an educational process that incorporates an understanding of psycho-emotional influences described by a series of five element-nicknamed patterns.

The water element describes a tendency to put distance between self and others in order to gain more clarity and understanding of what is going on. We could call it going within in order to better understand the situation without. In its lowest most degenerated form, the water element shows up in a personality as a tendency to push away others and regard them with a sense of hostility. In its highest form, the water element influence is a tendency towards scientific knowing, subjective knowledge of truth that rises from the depth of the heart.

As a way of dealing with conflict, the water element shows up as reliance on tactical positioning to render useless the power of others. With skillful movement into unexpected angles, water strategy leaves an aggressor in a position where his strengths are pointless and he is wide open to counterattack. The water element fighter is known as a tactical fighter, a scientific combatant.

Nonetheless, every now and then, I’ll find a tough male student who resists the water element aspect of our martial arts training. The usual explanation goes something like, “I’m just not a guy who backs off when someone gets in my face. If someone comes at me, I charge in and take him out. I never back down.”

The water element strategy is not backing down. The water element is tactically placing yourself where you can with utmost efficiency and effect stop an aggressor’s advance. As true as that is though, a tough “always charge the hill” sort of guy can still out of habit dismiss as a retreat or a hesitation any tactic that is not a fire blast forward. He has trained himself to take pride in seeing himself as tough and ready, and he just will not let himself angle out instead of charging in.

For years I have searched for the right wording to allow the tough guy to see taijutsu water tactical angling as one more tool of the successful combatant. In the world of sport or tavern fighting, “never back up” has become his proud credo, his badge of self recognized courage. Yes, but that is a consensual fight with one other person. What about the world of war, unexpected assault, or the overwhelming confusion of a gang attack?

“How about this,” I now offer. “You’re on a surfboard in the ocean and the largest shark imaginable cruises toward you. Do you want to charge those gaping jaws full of razor teeth, or do you want to slip the attack and stab in from the side where you can batter the gills with your board and fists and fingers? Are you ‘backing down’ or are you using tactical movement to better win with less wear and tear?”

I’m going to try that explanation next time. You can be tough and determined, and be smart at the same time. Maybe that view will help one more person give up resisting a very valid aspect of fully empowered human capacity.

At the Boulder Quest Center seminar recently, I asked head instructor Mary Aitoshi Casey and a few other skilled female practitioners how they related to my constant emphasis on the realities of street self-defense. Other martial arts are prettier than our To-Shin Do. Maybe such things would appeal more to women? I am always talking about what a street slugger or a mall kidnapper might do. Do women think about fights for survival? Mary writes a blog on women’s issues in the martial arts. Give it to me straight, I asked. Am I overly male-oriented in my teaching approach? Do women identify readily with my style of training for real physical self-defense? Here’s what Mary told me:

By my count, I’ve been involved in four physical altercations since reaching adulthood. All my altercations involved protecting someone or something. I’ve never been in a bar fight or fought to save face. I’ve never been jumped by a stranger in an alley. I’ve never had an unexpected person suddenly in my house. I’ve known the name of everyone I’ve had to fight. 

The primary reason I looked for and continue to train in To-Shin Do is to be able to stand and protect those who need me. This is about not letting more violence pervade my world and I’m willing to fight to encourage peace.

My brothers were always very skeptical about my training. I’m the wee one in the family and so they rightly believed they could overpower me. I am not capable of becoming bigger or stronger than they are. I am capable of being smarter, but I wisely never share that opinion with them. 

One day, my biggest brother grabbed me in a bear hug and as he was saying “What would you do if I…”, I struck the back of his hand. I swear he squealed and came up on his toes like a ballerina. I stepped out of range while he peppered me with questions about what I had done. Of course, when he was prepared for the strike it didn’t hurt as much and I could tell he was confused. It was an awesome moment of proving the efficacy of the techniques. He continues to playfully test my skills and enjoys seeing me succeed.

As a woman, I often find that men are surprised I’ve been in fights. Somehow I internalized this idea and figured my experience was not typical. Then I was at a women’s business conference and when we were asked to stand up if we’d ever been in a physical fight, about two-thirds of the room stood up. Even I was surprised by those numbers, given the demographic (female, highly educated, business owners).

Women don’t need self-defense because we are constantly plagued by scary men jumping out of bushes. We need self-defense because we are naturally gifted nurturers and protectors. Without the skills offered through To-Shin Do, we need to hope that our force of personality repels any physical conflict or we’ll lose when our bluff is called. With the physical skills to back-up our protective natures, we can live with less fear, better intuition, and greater energy.

“Do you guys spar in your martial art? I read on the internet you only practice techniques against a cooperating training partner.”

A visitor was checking out our dojo, and wanted to clear up something that was getting in the way of his enrolling with us.

There is a lot of outright ignorance on the internet. Notice how his question only allowed for two possibilities. There was live trial that he called “sparring.” There was pre-set “role play” practice that did not allow trial.

Actually there is a third possibility, what one friend calls “asymmetrical training.” That is where a well-padded well-protected designated attacker goes at a student with the intent of knocking that student down or wrestling them into helplessness. From my observation, too few martial arts schools seem to understand the value of this third choice.

A sparring champion enters the ring confident and prepared for what his opponent is likely to do. He consents to the time and place and form of the contest. He trains in preparation for that special time and place and structure.

Street fighting is a very different reality from sparring. In a street fight there could be multiple aggressors. A real fight might be a surprise ambush. Fighting outside the parameters of the ring could mean potential death or maiming. Words are powerful weapons in a street fight; shocking insults and sly intimidation go a long way in adding to the difficulty of winning in an ambush. You need total creativity and commitment in using your body, mind, and the environment to survive a real fight. Truthfully, there is no room for preparation, and there is no time for sizing up an adversary the way a boxer or judo champion might.

There is also no room for partially-committed actions. In the historical ninjutsu I studied, there is no such thing as blocking or covering. Even the defensive moves carry the capability to control or damage the adversary’s body or limbs. A clubbing fist can throw off an aggressor’s momentum. A hard kick to the shin or ankle can impede mobility. A finger stab claw to the eyes can cause an attacker to have to regroup. This is also true for the modern To-Shin Do self-defense I teach. The seriousness of a real fight can’t be underplayed.

In a street attack, our mind can be in a jumble trying to catch up to the explosive reality of the attack, trying to determine just how serious the situation is. Is this guy just showing off for his friends, or is he a killer? Could I go to jail for defending myself too well? These days nobody can tell ahead of time just how far an aggressor will go.

Do we spar? Well, yes. But sparring is only a small part of the mix. We do not see sparring as the final test as a sportsman would. We also practice full impact on training targets. We practice body conditioning for strength and suppleness. We practice fighting against those who do not fight like us. We practice recognizing what the attack is, and making up our minds in a split second as to what is needed to stop that attack. We practice facing and overcoming inner fears to build indomitable spirit linked to intelligent compassion.

No partial art here. We train for all the grim possibilities that could emerge in an ugly confrontation. It takes a lot of differing training technologies to be ready like that.

Two young men in Texas – Patrick Tow and Rayford Outland – decided to do a History Fair high school project about ninjutsu training and my work. If you might be interested in some minor points about my life and how I ended up where I did, check previous questions 1-4 and questions 5-8 and questions 9-11.

12. We realize this may be a touchy subject, but we heard you were expelled from the Bujinkan’s list of authorized judan 10th Degrees. We would love to hear your personal take on what happened.

A few of my senior students did not want me to comment on this. They feel that to address no-name keyboard snipers makes me look defensive and gives them credibility. On the other hand, other students and friends feel that because there is so much pernicious false information and cowardly character slander on the internet, it might be time to address the issue.

My skill as a practitioner and teacher – regardless of what rank degree I earned as a student – is on display all over the world through my personal appearances and DVD courses. My years of training with my teacher Masaaki Hatsumi have been documented in 19 books. You can look up what Black Belt Magazine says about my impact on the martial arts world. Nonetheless a few people still peck away at promoting this pointless gossip on the internet, so here is my take on it since you asked.

All this talk of my being “expelled” comes from a few of Masaaki Hatsumi’s newer foreign students (people enrolled after I made the art famous in the 1980s). Some of those newer black belts feel hard pressed to compete with my impact, and believe that if my influence were out of the picture, it would be easier for them to appear more powerful and important.

Based on observation, it is my opinion that a few of those foreigners are envious of the role that I played in Masaaki Hatsumi’s life. I escorted him from the shadows to full visibility. I propelled him to international fame through my books. I made it possible for thousands of students all over the world to study his art even though he had only two dozen students when I was living there. I established the foundation that took him to enormously rich prosperity. Some of Hatsumi Sensei’is newer students crave a sense of being that important too, but apparently they feel their roles are overshadowed by my influence in Masaaki Hatsumi’s life history.

These people seem to be nervous about what I teach, and are discouraged by the attention my words command in the greater martial arts world. Apparently a few of these students kept nagging for my name to be taken off the rank wall now that I am focused on teaching To-Shin Do. I guess they figured that if they could not beat me, they could at least cheat me.

I heard that some pestered Hatsumi Sensei to the point where he dismissed it all by saying they could do whatever they wanted. Reportedly, one of the students strutted over and took my name plank down himself. I really do not know the true story. There seems to be a lot of confusion in the Bujinkan organization right now, as a few ambitious people try to edge each other out in hopes of taking over when Hatsumi Sensei chooses to retire. That is what my friends in the Bujinkan tell me they witness all too often.

All this silliness began in 2006, but Masaaki Hatsumi himself has never acknowledged to me in any personal conversations or letters any word of “firing” me. My most recent letter from Hatsumi Sensei arrived three weeks ago (as of this writing), and he still has never acknowledged banning me from his life.

Why would Hatsumi Sensei avoid committing to an answer when asked? Why would he deliberately take an ambiguous fog-shrouded position? Maybe he is a ninja? Maybe he likes keeping people off balance? Maybe he is testing his students? “How much of what you see is really just what you want to believe?” he might ask.

So then what is true?

I did most of my learning under Masaaki Hatsumi’s guidance in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was in my 20s and 30s. I lived in Japan for some years and traveled back and forth each spring and fall for some years. I earned a 10th Degree Black Belt in Nin-po Taijutsu. I enjoyed my training. All of my books proudly acknowledge Masaaki Hatsumi as the source of my martial inspiration. My critics today were not there in the 1970s when Hatsumi Sensei was teaching ninjutsu. I was. Therefore, it is impossible for them to know what I know about what Masaaki Hatsumi taught in his ninjutsu days, and how it is different from the budo taijutsu they practice in the Bujinkan today.

Those are all indisputable facts.

Now in the 2000s, I very much enjoy teaching and sharing my insights into practical self protection and self perfection. My teaching approach is called To-Shin Do, and it is based on what I studied alongside Japanese friends in Masaaki Hatsumi’s dojo in the 1970s and 1980s

Perhaps the best way to view the situation is to understand that what I teach is extremely relevant to the kinds of danger that routinely arise in Western life. My job is to teach my fellow Westerners urgently needed spiritual tools in this current age of cultural degeneracy and financial confusion. At age 60 with way over 40 years of practice and application behind my belt knot, I serve far more people better by sharing To-Shin Do applied ninjutsu philosophies and tactics around the world as a teacher, than I would by just studying Japanese forms in Noda City as a student as I did half a lifetime ago.

In other words, my real rank is “Stephen K. Hayes.” Name plank or not, I serve the world with my budo to the best of my capability. Such a life is exactly what my teacher Masaaki Hatsumi has demonstrated to me since I began studying with him in 1975, and I am proud to follow his example.

Two young men in Texas – Patrick Tow and Rayford Outland - decided to do a History Fair high school project about ninjutsu training and my work. After gathering information from my books, DVDs, and the internet, their teacher asked for more detail and urged them to write to me personally with some more questions.

If you might be interested in some minor points about my life and how I ended up where I did, previous questions 5-8 and the answers follow the previously answered 1-4.

9. Why is it that ninja are often completely ignored in today’s history books (like textbooks, for instance), yet the books go on and on about the samurai for pages? Weren’t both ninja and samurai just about as interesting and important as each other?

The ninja were important in the 1500s and early 1600s, but once the Tokugawa family shoguns ruled a unified Japan, the ninja faded into the background of history. There was no possibility for a resistance movement, and perhaps no need for one. Japanese people forgot about the impact of the ninja families in the peaceful times of the 1700s and 1800s.

After that, many complicated things happened in the political scene of Japan in the late 1800s and early 1900s, after America forced Japan to leave isolation and enter the world of commerce and colonialism. When those of the early 1900s Japanese military industrial complex needed to build up the Japanese people’s sense of nationalism, in order to get them to support the imperial Japanese government’s plans for expansion into greater Asia, the ideal of the samurai selflessly serving the emperor was used to inspire the army. The ninja ideal, on the other hand, was too family and community oriented, making the building of a nationalized army and navy a difficult thing, and so the ninja ideal had to be reviled and portrayed as a negative or selfish thing.

10. How did you meet your wife Rumiko?

To support myself financially during the 1970s years I lived in Japan to study ninjutsu, I did advertising and movie and TV work. That kind of work allowed me to be paid well while still having the time to follow Hatsumi Sensei around all the time.

Rumiko had just graduated from Jochi Daigaku (Sophia University) in Tokyo, originally coming from Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu, and was working for one of the companies I did film, voice-over, and creative writing contract work for. She began to help me with translations that assisted me to read Masaaki Hatsumi’s books, and soon joined me in her own training in ninjutsu with Hatsumi Sensei herself.

11. What was the Shadows of Iga Organization all about?

The Shadows of Iga Ninja Society was the means I used in the 1970s and 1980s – long before videos, DVDs, and the internet – to promote the martial arts as I had studied them from Togakure Ryu Grandmaster Masaaki Hatsumi. We used to publish a newsletter-magazine and schedule of seminars and workshops around the world.

The Society is pretty much dormant these days, now that we have schools and DVDs that teach the methods I studied. I also feel it is more important in our current times of unsure social, political, financial, and internationally uneasy states to emphasize studying the much more practical To-Shin Do approach to making the teachings of classical ninjutsu work for students around the world. Nonetheless, many of my top students also study with me in earnest the classical ways of Japan’s shinobi warriors under the inspiration of what began in America as the Shadows of Iga Ninja Society in the mid-1970s.

Shortest blog I’ll ever write.

Check out our DVD of the month program at What’s New at SKH Quest.

Incredibly important material, excellently presented, sure to advance the martial arts and personal perfection training of anyone with intelligence and ambition. How about you? Got brains and guts? Enroll now.

I’ll discount them so it’s like getting 2 free DVDs each year.

Call the office at 937 436-9990 with a credit card number right now and enroll, or leave your name and phone number and a staff member will phone you back.

This is very important (or I would not put so much of my spirit into it). Let me help you advance.

Sometimes people ask me why I want them to spend more than just a little time on each new lesson in our Dayton Quest Center martial arts school. Why all the review and repetition? “Hey, look! I’m done! I’ve got that one down already! What’s my next lesson?” an exuberant student might shout out.

Well yes, you can imitate what you were shown. But you need more than imitation performed under best of perfectly encouraging circumstances to fully develop a skill you will need to rely on under the worst of circumstances.

Your path to success in self defense martial arts – or meditation for inner authenticity, or any form of personal development for that matter – is similar to the process of learning to walk.

When you were a baby first learning how to walk, you started with a few small steps aided by a sympathetic guide who cared about you, most likely your parent or grandparent. It was probably scary at first, part adventure and part hard struggle. You held tight to chairs, tables, and anything else in reach. You worked awkwardly at moving yourself forward. Of course you fell, but you got back up and tried again.

You were “learning to walk” – one big challenge – but you were accomplishing that one task on several fronts of development.

You were learning the mechanical actions of how to walk

You were learning how to find and maintain balance from moment to moment as you constantly changed your position in space and time

You were conditioning your muscles for the eventual strength and coordination needed to perform the work of holding yourself upright and moving yourself away from your current position

You were teaching yourself the bigger process of how to learn and grow by way of working at it

It is also possible that you were learning an attitude about how effective you were as a learner, based on the responses of those around you who already knew how to walk

Now re-read those steps again and this time think of your latest challenge in your martial arts training hall.

Add to the list, “You were learning how to judge when that skill is just the right thing to put into action.”

Wow. There is so much happening beneath the surface activity of attending class and learning the day’s lesson.

Building success in the study of martial arts is like learning how to walk. It is something you work towards and it begins with one step followed by another. You accumulate martial skill over time. You do not acquire it in a lesson.

Be patient with yourself. Believe in yourself, and your right to success. Believe in what you are doing, and its power to take you to success. Believe in the example set by those who offer to assist you, and the proof of your potential in their success. That’s how you keep progressing towards mastery.