An article I came across:
Rumors and Worries
A Musubi Journal interview with Stephen K. Hayes
Some confusion has arisen in the past year in regards to just who is and is not a recognized and legitimate teacher of Dr. Masaaki HatsumiÂ’s Bujinkan Dojo martial arts. Claims and counterclaims have appeared in forums on the Internet and the popular commercial on-line services. Many members have written to us with queries as to who to believe. They want to know what is true. Some seem to fear that the new Quest Centers are evidence that our founder Stephen K. Hayes has somehow parted company with his original teacher Masaaki Hatsumi. Others claim that Masaaki Hatsumi no longer recognizes Stephen K. Hayes as his senior-most Western Hemisphere student. In the following interview, Nine Gates Institute founder Stephen K. Hayes comments on the controversy:
Musubi Journal: What is at the bottom line beneath all these rumors?
Stephen K. Hayes: The bottom line is that Masaaki Hatsumi is my teacher. You just canÂ’t change the facts. Yes, I was awarded a graduate certificate of program completion several years ago, but I still see my martial arts teacher each year. He still continues to endorse my teaching work here in the West.
My wife Rumiko received her Shihan senior master teacher degree from Masaaki Hatsumi. We are still very much a part of the family.
MJ: How is Masaaki Hatsumi involved with your Quest Centers?
SKH: I think of our Quest Centers as our tribute to my teacher Masaaki Hatsumi. They are a salute to his vision of bringing the once-hidden Japanese warrior arts to a world sorely in need of higher ideals. It is well-documented that I went to Japan twenty-some years ago and “discovered” the ninja art of Masaaki Hatsumi. After years of training in a tiny little Noda City dojo with an obscure master of the martial arts, I wrote a series of books that blew the lid off thirty-four generations of secrecy. Because of those books, the western world then had access to Masaaki Hatsumi and his Bujinkan Dojo martial arts. When I left Japan to move back to the United States in the early 1980s, the Bujinkan was unheard of. Within two years, I had put the Bujinkan on the map to the point where the 1980s were referred to in martial arts circles as “the decade of the ninja”. Today, as a result of that work, thousands of people call themselves students of Masaaki Hatsumi’s Bujinkan Dojo. That is my way of saying “thank you” to my teacher.
MJ: How are your new Quest Centers structured?
SKH: At the October 1996 Festival in Ohio, we made public our final plans for the establishment of a group of martial arts schools united in their approach to teaching Kasumi-An Bujinkan Dojo taijutsu as a form of self-protection and personal empowerment. We have come up with an approach that will allow people in many situations to participate. At this point, we are committed to creating a group of schools that fit into the two following categories:
Schools Owned by Stephen K. Hayes: November 1996 was the debut of a network of my Stephen K. Hayes Quest Centers in Ohio and California. These and further training halls will be staffed by teaching professionals who share my vision of what martial arts training is supposed to be. Far beyond the conventional stereotype of martial arts schools as we know them today, our new Quest Centers focus on all the technologies that allow us to evolve into tatsujin, or fully actualized human beings operating effectively in all areas of life.
We train and license member schools to use documented and scripted taijutsu self-protection martial arts and Life Enhancement Technologies lecture, discussion, and meditation curriculum programs for each week of the studentsÂ’ training from 1st day white belt through 1st degree black belt. We train and license member schools to use documented and scripted school management programs for each task and employee position in the school. We provide member schools with access to a full line of professionally-designed sales tools and products bearing our center name and logo, instructor training at one of our training centers, and construction guides for building new training centers in a manner similar to my own.
MJ: What do these new Quest Centers mean in regards to your relationship with Hatsumi SenseiÂ’s Bujinkan Dojo?
SKH: Hatsumi Sensei has been my martial arts teacher for over twenty years now. Nothing can change the reality that I got what I got under his direction, despite these silly rumors on the Internet. I still issue Bujinkan Dojo degree licenses from Hatsumi Sensei to my senior students.
MJ: But you are calling them Quest Centers and not Bujinkan Dojos.
SKH: Our Quest Centers actually make up an advanced education system designed to lead to fully developed human beings. Bujinkan Dojo taijutsu for self-protection is one thing that we offer at the Quest Centers, one part but not the total package. The new centers involve much more than just the physical actions of taijutsu. Therefore, the name of the Quest Centers reflects more than merely kick and grab technique, and so it would not be accurate to label these centers Bujinkan Dojos.
MJ: Some people interpret this as you “breaking away” from Masaaki Hatsumi. Why is it that some people like to claim that you no longer train with Hatsumi Sensei?
SKH: Well, the truth is that I have been very fortunate in my life. I have attained the kind of success in life that I set out to attain thirty years ago. I literally made my dreams come true; Black Belt Hall of Fame, seventeen published books, friendship with movie stars and powerful people, being asked to travel with the Dalai Lama as security escort, not to mention the obvious worldly symbols of success that my family displays. Of course, all the notoriety that comes along with success creates envy and resentment in those who see their own lives lacking in power and success. Instead of being inspired by the work of their superiors to strive for greater possibilities, the envious attempt to pull down those above them.
MJ: Why is there so much confusion about your relationship with Masaaki Hatsumi?
SKH: Masaaki HatsumiÂ’s Bujinkan dojo training hall network is not set up along conventional Japanese martial art organizational lines. If we were set up like the judo Kodokan or the aikido hombu, where all members are supervised by a central authority, the teachers of Dr. HatsumiÂ’s martial art would operate in a well-defined and authentic hierarchy. As it is, Bujinkan license holders are strung together only in their claims of having been trained by the grandmaster or one of his senior instructors. Oddly enough when compared to other martial traditions in Japan, there is no enforcement of any system of respect for seniority.
MJ: It wasnÂ’t that way in the old days, was it? Why isnÂ’t there the kind of respect for seniors that we would expect in the Japanese martial arts?
SKH: Dr. Hatsumi has set up his system in such a manner that all teaching members operate autonomously of one another. I understand that this seems to be the same sort of set-up that Bruce Lee left behind for his Jeet-kune-do. Nobody knows what is true. This is very confusing to people outside of the art, in that there do appear to be contradictory claims as to just who is legitimately licensed and who isn’t. The positive effect of such an “unorganized“ organization structure, however, is that all teachers claiming to be authorized by the grandmaster have the responsibility to interpret the art and demonstrate its power in their daily lives rather than simply rely on political hierarchy to support their claims of mastery. It also gives us all a lot of freedom, something that is crucially necessary if this art is going to move into the Western world as a thing of value and not just an odd hobby for eccentrics. The “bad news” is that there is a lot of confusion. The words “freedom” and “chaos” describe the same phenomenon.
MJ: What about people who claim that you do not spend much time in Japan anymore?
SKH: This is somewhat true, in that I spend more time in the West now than I do in Japan. After graduating from the program, it was my duty to set out into the world to test out what I had learned. Japan is now like a wonderful retreat for me. It is always a refreshing escape to go back, but my work lies here in the West.
MJ: But some people say that they are in Japan learning things from Masaaki Hatsumi now and you are not.
SKH: Yes. That is true. It was my turn to be there studying in the 1970s. Now twenty years later in the 1990s they are going through the lessons I went through when I was back there at their stage of training. As a graduate, it is my job to test out and prove in the world what I learned when I was a young man there as a student.
MJ: DonÂ’t you feel that you are missing something by not being there in Japan now?
SKH: Nostalgically, I consider Japan my heart’s home. I really enjoy it there, and of course half of my daughters’ family lives there. It would be fun to give up all the challenge and work here in the West and go back, but it would not be proper for me to live in Japan at this point. It is like graduating from a university. After all the degrees, it is time to go out in the world and see what you can do. If I were still to be in Japan going through the same lessons again and again, I would be hiding from the challenges and responsibilities of life. People look down on the “professional student” who never leaves the classroom to face real life. No, this is where I belong. There is much important work to be done, and we are just now setting things in motion.
- Stephen K. Hayes
