‘The Ninja and Their Secret Fighting Art’ by Stephen K. Hayes

Hailed by Black Belt as “an acknowledged authority on the art,” Stephen K. Hayes is considered to be the “father of American ninjutsu.” And it all started with the story he tells in The Ninja and Their Secret Fighting Art (Tuttle, 1994). The book was first published in 1981, after the author returned from his apprenticeship to the ninja in Japan.

Stephen K. Hayes’s fame in Japan stands alongside that of Steven Segal’s, who became the first foreigner to be allowed to open an aikido dojo in Japan. Hayes was the first American accepted as a personal student by “the master of the last historically unbroken ninjutsu tradition in Japan.” The master is no other than Masaaki Hatsumi, 34^th master of the Togakure-ryu ninjutsu tradition of Iga Province (today Mia Prefecture, Kansai region, Honshu).

In short, ninjustu is a martial art of stealth and invisibility whose earlier practitioners were the ninja, spies and commandoes who were at their peak of activity in feudal Japan.

Hayes story of how he made contact with the ninja in Japan is as good a tale as any other ninja story. He arrived in Japan in 1975 with only a vague idea where to find a ninja master but, surprisingly, Hatsumi Sensei (whom Hayes had sent a letter to, but never received a reply) was waiting for him! The fact that Hayes was born on September 9, 1949 (“the ninth day of the ninth month of the forty-ninth year of the century you call the nineteenth hundreds”) was, in the eyes of the ninja master, a good sign as, according to the ninja folklore, “nine represents the highest level of personal growth.”

Although Hayes went to Japan with a strong martial arts background, having practiced karate for over eight years, he soon realised that his skills weren’t anywhere near what he experienced on the very first day he met Hatsumi Sensei. Not only did he fail to throw a simple punch at the Sensei’s assistant, he was also flown across the room with very little effort.

His training started the next day and, for the next five years, until 1980 when he returned to the US to start his ‘career as a ninja,’ he wore the “black cotton jackets, loose-fitting black leggings, and black tabi (split-toed footwear)” of the ninja. He trained daily in the Togakure-ruy Nimpo, which was Hatsumi Sensei’s family school of the art of stealth.

The Ninja and Their Secret Fighting Art is structured into seven chapters, plus a preface and a glossary-index. Chapter 1, Perspectives, deals with brief historical accounts of the origin, organization, training, rise and fall of the ninja art, and the emergence of ninjutsu in the modern world. Chapter 2, Search for the Ninja, focuses on how Hayes met Hastumi Sensei and how he was accepted as his student.

The rest of the book deals with the more technical aspects of ninjutsu. Chapter 3, Unarmed Combat, presents the several ninja fists, fighting postures, and other factors to be taken into consideration during combat (such as, distancing, angling, and naturalness). Next, the Weaponry chapter gives succinct description of traditional ninja weapons and basic techniques on how to use them. Accompanied with real-life pictures, we get to see what chains and cords, sticks and staffs, canes and concealed weapons, ninja swords, and throwing blades looked like.

Chapter 5, The Way of Invisibility, takes on the more obscure arts of the ninja: their incredible sense of deception, the use of phantom steps, the basics of reconnaissance, how to blend with the night, the usage of blinding powders, and the art of disguise. In Chapter 6, Shadow Warriors, we find out about the ninja’s approach to espionage, from planting agents, determining goals and strategy, sowing confusion, tactics, to counterespionage. The ninja commando tactics in breaching enemy lines and penetrating the stronghold are also described in brief.

The last chapter, The Realm of the Spirit, takes a look at the more mystique arts of the ninja and the methods they employed in psychological warfare. A lot of space is devoted to “the five weaknesses” of the human personality, which the ninja learned how to use at his own advantage. These are laziness, anger, fear, sympathy, and vanity. The ninja also learned to manipulate “the five human needs:” security, sex (with the use of kunoichi, or female ninja), wealth, pride, and pleasure. A few pages on the “force of the killer” and harmony end the book.

Although sometimes inclined to present the ninja in a more favourable light than what you’d normally get, The Ninja and Their Secret Fighting Art by Stephen K. Hayes remains one of the best introductory guides to ninjutsu. The book is still available in bookstores around the world, the edition that I read being in its eight printing!

Hayes is also known in his quality of Buddhist priest and actor (in the 19080 TV series Shogun). He has written 19 books, among which the novel Tulku, a Tale of Modern Ninja (1985). Some of his other non-fiction books include: Ninja: Legacy of the Night Warrior (1984), The Mystic Arts of the Ninja: Hypnotism, Invisibility, and Weaponry (1985), The Ancient Art of Ninja Warfare: Combat, Espionage, and Traditions (1988), and Lore of the Shinobi Warrior (1989).