About Stephen K. Hayes

You can find the official biography of An-shu Stephen K. Hayes on the SKH Quest web site. What follows is a somewhat shorter summary of An-shu Stephen K. Hayes, and how he became one of the five brightest stars in martial arts, an honor accorded by Black Belt magazine.

Stephen K. Hayes was born in Ohio on September 9, 1949. After graduating from Miami University of Oxford, Ohio in 1971, he spent time in search of authentic martial traditions, working his way up to sandan in the Korean art of Tang Soo Do. However, frustrated with the limitations he'd encountered in his training, he packed his bags and headed for Japan.

In June of 1975, he finally met the teacher he'd been seeking all his life in Soke Masaaki Hatsumi, the 34th grandmaster of the Togakure Ryu ninjutsu tradition and 8 other traditions. For the next few years, he would undergo the most strenuous training of his life as he gained proficiency in the martial arts of the last authentic ninjutsu traditions alive alongside many of the Bujinkan Dojo's seniormost practitioners. In 1979, he met his future wife and To-Shin Do an-shu, Rumiko Urata, and married her the following year.

An-shu Hayes returned to the United States on and off for years, setting off the "ninja boom" of the 1980s and creating one of the largest martial arts phenomena since Bruce Lee. During this time, he introduced authentic ninjutsu to America and Western Europe, seeding knowledge of his training in the Warrior Quest seminar series. Virtually all of today's senior American Bujinkan practitioners began training during this time period, such as luminaries Jack Hoban, Bud Malmstrom, Mark Davis, Jean-Pierre Seibel, Courtland Elliott, and many, many more.

In 1993, An-shu Hayes earned the exceptionally rare ju-dan (tenth degree black belt) degree from Soke Hatsumi. He founded the Nine Gates Institute to help formalize and disseminate much of the knowledge and research he'd accumulated.

In 1997, An-shu Hayes, dissatisfied with the incongruence between authentic martial arts and authentic education technology, founded the martial art of To-Shin Do, an art based in his long research of budo taijutsu and life experiences. He founded the SKH Quest Centers, a network of schools designed to bring a pleasant, empowering experience to students everywhere.

Since then, An-shu Hayes and the SKH Quest Corporation have continued with their work of making authentic martial arts accessible to people everywhere. The SKH Quest network now spans 18 schools in 12 states, and offers distance learning programs by DVD to provide access to students who do not live near a Quest Center.