It is very sad to grow up and realize some of the heroes from your past are not worth respect. Such is the case with Stephen Hayes.
Yes, most of us in the Bujinkan would never have been made aware of this art if it were not for him. But the fact is that most of us in America wouldn’t be living here if it were not for Christopher Columbus, and we are quite free to point out his faults. And in the end, Hayes has always done what he did for his own financial gain and ego and not for anyone else.
But the case of Hayes does make a good cautionary tale for others to learn from. His ego and thirst for money led him astray. Many of us didn’t see it because we didn’t want to see it. He was a hero to us, so we looked the other way and made excuses. Now that we have had our eyes opened, we need to point this sort of thing out so maybe others won’t follow the wrong person.
It needs to be said clearly that what Hayes is doing, and has been doing for decades, is his own thing and really differs greatly from what Masaaki Hatsumi of the Bujinkan is trying to teach us. He goes his way, we should go ours if we claim to be learning Bujinkan. When you are not very skilled, it is difficult to even tell the difference between them. Back in the day, all we could tell was that Hayes seemed to know more than us. Now that a lot of us have gotten much better than he ever was, we can look at what he does and what the Soke of the Bujinkan does and see how they differ so greatly. Sadly, there are many, many people not that skilled, or have been seeped so much in Hayes’ version of things that they try to see what Soke does through eyes conditioned to see by Hayes.
It is quite clear, what Hayes does is derived from the Bujinkan, but he has had to fill in several blank spots in his knowledge with something he has come up himself. We all tend to do that, which is why we need to go back to a qualified teacher to point out that we are coming up with things on our own instead of what Soke teaches.
It is kind of like how if your radiator belt snaps you might be able to get by for a short while with using your own belt. It is not optimal, but it might get you into a mechanic. When we don’t know something in martial arts, we improvise the best we can. But it is not the best way. The danger of going your own way is that you will never really again have a teacher come by and show you the improvised stuff you came up with on your own can be corrected. A deeper problem is that we really can’t even see if we are doing improvised stuff or what the teacher wants us to do. That is why we need teachers to push us and point out things we were not aware of.
Toshindo and what Hayes has been doing even before he formally created that art is like repairing your radiator belt with your dress belt. It is not what Soke is teaching, based on the real life experiences of Takamatsu Toshitsugu and it is not like Hayes tested it out in real combat before he started teaching his own thing.
In martial arts, you can either try to follow the lessons of those that have been in combat like the samurai of old, or William Fairbain and his shooting system or you can go down to the local biker bar and invite them all to perform fellatio on you. In the Bujinkan, we try to follow the first route and go on the same path people like Takamatsu Toshitsugu took so as to survive just as they did. Since Hayes in not on that path, and has no experience with violence serious enough to call the police over, his stuff really has never been proven and it will be the students that pay the price for any faults in it. Hayes will cash their checks, and they will end up in the hospital.
I look at it like this, if you teach knife defense you either keep going back for correction and more training or you have personal experience with defending against a knife. No matter how good you are, you can always be better. Going to those with more experience than you in what you teach is your responsibility if you teach others. In the tradition of the Bujinkan, that means that ultimately you go to Soke if there is no one else that can teach you.
If you have faced a few knife attacks on you, then you have personal experience that trumps training in the dojo, so not going to a teacher that has no personal experience with facing a knife is justified. And if you don’t teach knife defense, doing sport or tradition instead, then you aren’t responsible for the lives of your students.
This is the problem I have with 99 percent of modern created arts, including Hayes’ Toshindo. They don’t go to anyone to improve themselves with a tradition that links back to someone who fought for their lives, and they have never faced a knife or otherwise fought in order to make it home alive. It is about their ego with no responsibility to those that look to them to teach them how to survive.
And let us face it, Hayes is all about ego and money.
I denied this to myself for years. But events caused me to wake up. Hayes’s ego is legendary, and I would dare say he is best classified as a narcissist. That is why he has gotten to a certain level, but mastership is forever beyond him.
When someone points out that he is doing something differently from Hatsumi, or not been truthful, his response is typically that they are haters, or that they are jealous of him. That idea that his critics are jealous is a clear sign of his narcissism.
But to get good, really good, at martial arts you need to acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them. That is beyond the abilities of someone like Hayes.
As an example, I can point to his godai system. I have dealt with this before, but the short version is that you will never hear anyone in Japan say that a technique is earth based, fire based, etc. The five elements are used as a counting system for the san-shin, cornerstone of how to develop good movements in the Bujinkan but not taught by Hayes. The only conclusion is that Hayes screwed up because of communication issues (easy in Japan, trust me) and came up with the godai, but can’t admit he messed up. If he did, it would show just how little time he actually had training while he was in Japan and how little he managed to understand. For someone with a huge ego and wanting to make himself rich off of teaching, admitting mistakes is simply not possible.
The same goes for things like the straight ninja sword, the development of ninjutsu as an underground resistance by Buddhist mystics, etc. We all make mistakes. But if we are wise we try to wait a while before we go public with something instead of rushing to get it out as quickly as possible. When we goof, we admit it and learn from the experience. Not Hayes.
This is why he has been trapped at the level he is at for decades. If you want to grow, go to someone that can point out your mistakes and rub your nose in them. It can be frustrating, but everyone that excels at anything has gone through the process. Take a look at Olympic athletes, MMA fighters or whatever, their coach screams at them pointing out ways to improve.
But for someone that tries to present themselves as a master, publicly being dressed down like that risks both ego and cash flow. I have seen it time and time again in the martial arts. Those that market themselves the most as masters get left behind by the person who quietly tries to eliminate all the errors in what they do with little fanfare. The best guys I know in the Bujinkan probably would not be familiar to most of you.
And then there is the matter of ethics. If a teacher has no integrity, there is nothing that you can learn from them that can’t be learned better elsewhere. If someone goes to the length of lying to make themselves look good, then they have crossed over the line and just aren’t of value as a teacher.
I was at least reading about ninjutsu long enough to remember when the word from Hayes was that Hatsumi Masaaki was not accepting anymore students. Obviously, that was not true. But for a while people refrained from doing exactly what Hayes had done and go directly to the source. Hayes set himself up as a sort of Moses that talked to the masses, then went up the mountain where only he could talk with the power that controlled all. It isn’t just me, I have talked with too many old timers that say that Hayes told them that they were not permitted to go to Hatsumi unless Hayes arranged it in some way, which of course never happened.
This sort of lie to keep control is a perfect example of the warning signs that should keep people away from bad teachers. Of course the lie could not be kept up, Many people at that point started to distance themselves from Hayes NOT because they were opportunists, but because they knew at that point they could never trust Hayes or his motives again.
Then came the end and Hayes’ response to it. I was kind of caught in the middle of that.
For years, Hatsumi would tell people his problems with Hayes in private. Public denouncements aren’t really the Japanese style. But word got around inside the Bujinkan that if you wanted to learn the real deal, Hayes was not the place to get it. Hayes put these stories down to rumors spread by people jealous of him, showing his narcissism as well as his desire to control things. For years he had not shown up for any classes with anyone better than him in the Bujinkan, and before that you might say that he was in class, but not as a student.
After years of absence, Hayes finally showed up to Japan to train… for a single class unannounced. Remember when I said that public denouncements aren’t really the Japanese style? I was there for that class. You could tell that the Japanese were caught unaware he would be there and he wasn’t welcome. But they didn’t want a screaming match in the middle of training. Actually, Hayes wasn’t even trying to do what Hatsumi showed. He seemed more interested in taking pictures of himself for the most part. The friendliest thing I saw happen to him was when he was invited to demonstrate a technique, only to have Hatsumi immediately show a variation that pointed out all the problems with the version Hayes showed.
I was there for that class and saw it with my own eyes. A day or two later I got a call from my teacher who told me to be at the next class with Hatsumi, and he indicated that I should expect something very interesting to happen with Hayes.
But Hayes didn’t show up. He left Japan after a single class. He put up dozens of photos of him in the dojo and said it proved that all those that said he wasn’t training were lying.
Hatsumi didn’t like being used like that. I was involved in translating for him at least two times as he sat down visitors and told them in no uncertain terms that Hayes was incompetent pond scum in his eyes. Still, he didn’t make a public announcement, which Hayes probably knew he wouldn’t and took advantage of.
With Hatsumi doubling down on telling folks Hayes did not represent the way he wanted the art to be taught, eventually Hayes was pressured to try the same stunt again. He showed up, just as he did before, to a single class. It didn’t work as well the second time around. I wasn’t there, but everyone in Japan heard about how Hayes was ordered in the middle of class for all to hear to go with Hatsumi and the senior teachers for a meeting afterwards.
Within a few hours, people who were there were calling and telling others what had gone on. For Hayes, it was brutal. Not a single person that was there has disagreed with the fact that Hayes was chewed out in front of the group by Hatsumi and told he could never come back to train or represent the Bujinkan. At least one of the senior Japanese teachers screamed in his face, which is unheard of in Japanese culture. The folks living in Japan heard this, but we kept our silence on the matter, not talking about it in the open on the internet.
Hayes had a perfect chance to walk away at that point. If he wanted to do the right thing, he could have not mentioned being dressed down. But he could have said that after a discussion with Soke Hatsumi, he was cutting his ties with the Bujinkan to walk his own path. This is a very Japanese way of doing things, keeping a certain amount of face for both parties. Hatsumi would have mainly ignored anything from Toshindo if the cut was clean.
Instead, a few days later I was on a message board when a Toshindo student shared an article by Hayes talking about the pleasant meal he had with Hatsumi and how Hatsumi had pledged his support for what Hayes was doing.
Oops.
Hayes has enough experience with Japanese culture, and Hatsumi, to know that they don’t like to air dirty laundry in public. The meeting where he got dressed down was largely out of the public eye. We all knew what had happened, but Hayes was given a chance to cut his ties without a lot of embarrassment. Instead, he must have thought that he could get away with his version of the story and not pay any consequences.
Well, the results were that Hatsumi ordered his name taken down from a list of the older students in the middle of class. It might not sound like much, but anyone that lives in Japan and knows the language and customs can tell you it is a big thing to do that. He also said that he does not mind if people refer to Hayes getting “hamon”, which is expulsion from the style.
Since then, Hayes has naturally not been back, but he still refuses to acknowledge what happened.
In his rather narcissistic fashion, he describes the taking down of his name like this,
“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.”
Yes, as always, Hayes tries to put off the truth by claiming people are jealous of how awesome he is. The fact is, I know the Japanese student that took it down and he did so on orders directly from Soke Hatsumi in the middle of a class.
When you train with someone, you really need to trust them. Hayes’ stance on this issue shows that he is quite willing to lie if it suits his purpose. It should not be a surprise that much of the stuff he claims to have learned in person from Japanese instructors was instead picked up from books and videos. What he teaches is often half learned at best.
Talk to the Japanese, or be used as a translator for those asking the Japanese about Hayes, and you get a picture of someone that really didn’t show up to class too often, nor seemed willing to set aside his ego to really learn. Talk to Soke Hatsumi if you really doubt what I say. Hayes never really learned all that much while he was in the Bujinkan, and now that many of us have spent many times the amount of hours under instruction from Japanese teachers, we have come to see the flaws in what he does. Many of course don’t have that experience and still believe that he is a good teacher of what Hatsumi does.
Hayes has gone his way, and you can either follow him or what Hatsumi has to teach, not both. Hayes now hangs out with frauds like Frank Dux, Ashida Kim and others, unconcerned with their lack of ethics. For him, it is all about how he can make more money.
It is really disappointing to find out a hero from your childhood is all about ego and money. But there comes a time when seekers of truth can’t deny things anymore. Hayes is not a source for what Hatsumi teaches, and we who want to learn fully the lessons of the Bujinkan should stick to our path and let him go his.