Secret scrolls of the warrior sage are what I set out to find when I left for Japan in 1975 in search of the ninja. As a young man, I longed for contact with the wisdom of the ages. What if there really were special secrets guarded by generations of warriors sworn to the highest of protector ideals?

I had a hopelessly improbable goal in Japan, but I was driven by unstoppable intent. Like some tragic hero in an epic novel, I was ready to give up all in hopes of finding a master teacher who could reforge me into the man I longed to be, and I ended up plummeting through heart-tearing seasons of dark nights on my way to finding brightness.

The warrior can only become a sage in his advanced years, after all the battles have left him with deep insight into the human condition. He has witnessed courage, nobility, and virtue, along with false bravado, arrogance, and cruel righteousness. He has seen true bravely and abject cowardice. He has seen needless battles waged in rage, and he has seen leaders bow to brutes in hopes for peace but only to find slavery. He has, in the words of my own teacher’s teacher, “looked out through a veil of tears” at the horrors of what fighting struggle brings to the ones we love.

Decades earlier in his life, the Warrior Sage was most likely a Cool Young Dude exuberantly in the competition ring, or perhaps a Crisp Young Soldier marching into the field of combat, or perhaps an Intense Young Romantic swept into a rebellion or civil war forced upon him. He may have even relished the idea of testing himself in man to man combat just to see what it felt like to vanquish another in a contest of strength, will, and fighting skill.

It takes more than a life of rough encounters to turn the warrior into a sage, though. One can have much experience and yet still remain ignorant. To become warrior wisdom walking the world, one must thoroughly observe and analyze and transform as a result of the experiences. The sage earns his sagacity by facing the worst and finding the best, immersing in ugliness to learn of beauty, crawling through hell to realize heaven.

When I left America for Japan in the 1970s, I was a disillusioned black belt in my mid-20s. I had grown increasingly restless with the direction I saw martial arts taking in my homeland. Meditation-calmed young monks learning incredibly effective protector fighting skills taunted me from the Kung-Fu television series, but where was that experience in the training halls of an America in which I perceived martial arts growing flashier and shallower and shriller each year. I did not want to study with a martial arts rock star. I was looking for a warrior sage.

What are you looking for in your search for your path? How will you know when you have found the source for the answers to the burning questions churning in your heart? What do you say when others less idealistic than you smirk and ridicule your vision of all you could be? How do you reply when they urge you to sell out and join them in the smallness they live? Take heart. There are indeed some master teachers out there who welcome the intensity of your heart. Do all you can to hold your vision and prepare for just the right moment. The teacher will appear in your life ready to share, if only you stay true to the bigness of your dreams.

I was a die-hard fan of the early 1970s TV series Kung-Fu, starring David Carradine. Back then I was a low ranked karate black belt in an America that barely recognized – let alone understood – the Asian martial arts.

Shaolin Temple monk Kwai Chang Caine, wandering in exile from China in the rough American West, living his Buddhist wisdom as best he could in a violent and spiritually primitive land, was surprisingly emotionally motivating to me. He did his best to remain unobtrusive, aiding others in trouble when needed, sharing his spiritual insights  in a gentle way, but nonetheless drawing a clear martial line of boundary when the crude, stupid, and brutal mistook his compassion for weakness.

I was at that time in my early 20s, working sadly out of character in a corporate job ill-fitting for my spirit. The Kung-Fu show and its Kwai Chang Caine hero forced me into recognition of what I should have been doing in my life. David Carradine’s nuanced portrayal of the Buddhist monk martial artist nailed me right where I lived. What was I doing with my life? I needed a radical revision. I needed to become someone I respected. I needed to find and be spiritual wisdom. I needed to serve and build spirits full of potential in a sometimes cruel, stupid, and discouraging world. In 1972, I knew what I needed to become, but how would I do it?

Long after Kung-Fu the series disappeared, I got to know David Carradine the person and actor. Gently put, I’ll just say I did not experience much of Kwai Chang in the persona of David, who sometimes left people feeling awkwardly ill at ease meeting him (at least those times when I was around). I cannot advise patterning in how to be the best celebrity possible from David Carradine. Nonetheless, the impact of his roles on so many of us of my generation is of undeniable importance.

Thank you, David Carradine, for your inspiring role in my life, and in the lives of all who subsequently found my books, DVDs, schools, and seminars. May you now find the inner peace and illumination that your beautiful Kwai Chang demonstrated so movingly for all the rest of us.

Many years ago, I used to tell students of an interesting comment once made by Hatsumi Sensei on one of our walks late at night after training. I was continuously probing with questions about what a ninja really was. I wanted to move on from my Western stereotype ideas, and closer to the authentic truth as to who the ninja were from the grandmaster’s view of history.

He told me that historically, the ninja was a bringer of good luck. Just being in an allied samurai general’s presence was the major benefit the ninja offered.

I did not know what to make of that.

I thought of ninja as spies, underground resistance fighters, intelligence gatherers, but as “bringers of good luck?”

Logically, a ninja could give you the power and vision and resources of every other person in his or her network. Subsequently he or she would have all the combined knowledge of what was happening in the world “behind the curtains” of public vision. 

A ninja could also have a bigger approach to solving your problem. He or she would be outside the restraints of conventional problem solving, being outside of the workings of authorized political power.

A ninja would be straightforward in giving you what you need to know. Others in your organization might out of fear of political consequences only tell you what they think you want to hear.

Obviously that is all true. but Hatsumi Sensei was talking about something on beyond the conventionally reasonable expected answers when he spoke of his teacher’s revelations to him.

There is a “beyond logic” way the ninja’s friendship would bring good fortune. Sensei said that just being there at ones side was the ninja’s benefit. Some people are just magically powerful and helpful to have around. Their presence alone  is a gift and a blessing.

Could you imagine a person so special in your eyes, whose presence like an angel would enhance your life and assist you to get to your goals if only you got to spend more time around him or her?

I certainly have a few such people in my life, I am fortunate to say. I like to set up life so that I have good access to such people whose knowledge, care for me, understanding of my goals, and personal big vision helps spur my progress in life. Just being with them seems to encourage magically the advancements I need in my life.

How about you? Is there a ninja angel in your life?

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.

I just got home from a meditation retreat hosted by a senior Tibetan teacher.

While there, we participants spent hours each day tucked in side by side on Asian style meditation cushion seats on the floor.

At one point I looked around at my fellow American participants and noticed an odd unstated discomfort. People did their best to wiggle around and find needed space.

Check this out the next time you have an opportunity:

Look at the size of the standard Japanese or Tibetan meditation cushion seat.

Look at the size of the typical older generation Asian person’s bottom and leg length.

Look at the size of the typical American person’s bottom and leg length.

Ask yourself, “What is wrong with this picture?”

Ask yourself, “Which should we adjust? Should we adjust the program to where the cushions fit the Americans here in America, or should we adjust the Americans to where they fit on Asian floor cushion seats?”

Next, think about how and what you are studying in your martial arts school and ask yourself a similar question. ”Which should we adjust? Should we adjust the program to where the lessons fit the Americans here in America, or should we adjust the Americans to where they fit into Asian training situations?”

I’ve written 19 books so far. I have 4 more in the works in various stages of completion. My books in English and several other languages have sold way over a million copies. I must be pretty good, huh?

Yes, but…  I want to be better.

I sent one manuscript in progress to my friend book author Whitney Stewart, whom I have known since we met at a Dalai Lama event 20 years ago. I respect her, we seem to have a lot of spiritual connections, and I know she is interested in what I am writing, so I asked her to look at the manuscript with her fresh eyes and give me her take on what I could improve to be more readable.

I thought she would comment on my subject and how I told my story, but she did not. Her observation? I used way too many quotation marks for words that were not in fact quotations. I had put those quote marks around certain words to imply irony or unusual use of the words, but she felt such use was either confusing or unnecessary.

Hmmm. OK. I took those quotation marks out and re-read the passages.

Wow. Whitney was right. Despite all my reasons for having done what I did in using those quotation marks, the blunt truth is that my work reads way better without them.

How about your writing style? Any room for growth and improvement in the way you use words? Maybe you misuse apostrophe s to make singular words plural, as in the embarrassing, “Learn throw’s and kick’s”. Maybe you use capital Letters at inappropriate Places. Maybe you overuse the same phrase repeatedly – Does this make sense? Know what I’m saying?  Maybe you use popular but awkward clichés at this point in time (as opposed to just now). Ugh. Pay attention. Learn and grow. Impress more people, including yourself.

I know I have other habits that could be improved when it comes to my writing. Sentences in the Black Belt Books Ninja series Volumes 1-5 are more often than not way too long. I wish I had put in three times as many periods. That would have made the books more encouraging to non-scholar readers.

I wish I had done better, but I did what I did, and I am ready to be more skillful next time. I can look at my areas of needed improvement without shame, anger, defensiveness, or denial. That is actually the point here. How open are you to getting valuable needed advice as to how to do an even better job when it comes to something really important in your life that you are proud of?

If your goal is to communicate effectively, or be a masterful teacher, or be a good parent, or live a healthful life, and someone you respect points out a way to do that even more effectively, do you thank them and rush to make the changes, or do you resist and balk at the affront of their hurting your little feelings? Growth must involve change. How can you grow and yet stay the same?

Are you ready to learn and advance? Really?

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.

An answer to the final question in the series will be published soon:

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

One of my friends at the Sakya Pema Ts’al Monastic Institute, just outside Pokhara, Nepal, sent me some photos of senior students of the shedra (monk college) in their computer training class.

As from a description of meditation for beginners, they sit in perfect upright posture, focused in unswerving meditative concentration, letting go of the previous moment’s self and becoming yet a new and expanded version of themselves. Right there in front of the tiny screen.

These are my monk friends who live south of the forbidden Tibet border at the foot of the Himalayas. They and their head abbot Lama Kunga Dhondup are my coaches, trainers, and teachers in my study of the Vajrakilaya tantra practices, a set of powerful mind transformation methods in which the image of a sacred 3-edged dagger is a symbol of the power of awakening depth consciousness as to how human weaknesses can become enlightened powers.

These highest yoga tantra methods are said to be invisible to those not ready to grasp them. They dwell secretly in plain sight in a way that those unprepared will not even think of seeking their insights into power. These practices seem so out of the ordinary, so unfathomable, so ungraspable by conventional Western thought processes, that few of my friends and students have ever even asked me what they entail and what I am getting out of it.

Odd how many martial arts professionals my age feel the same way about computer technology. “It’s all superstition and voodoo to me,” replied one friend when I gently probed the rationale behind the design of his school’s ugly and discouraging web site.

You have to be ready to learn and advance.  Without the proper motivation such growth can be seen as a chore or a bore, and the power of the technology to bring you needed benefits – either Eastern inner technology or Western outer technology – remains a mystery.

Pema Ts’al Monastery senior students study arcane Western technological mind to mind knowledge transfer technique