Stephen K. Hayes
Stephen K. Hayes |
Black Belt author Stephen K. Hayes began his martial arts career in Ohio as a teenager in the 1960s, and he has spent his entire adult life pursuing perfection through the study of the Asian martial arts and spiritual traditions. A husband and father of two daughters, he is a writer, teacher and ardent student of life. He was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1949, grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and has lived and traveled throughout North America, Japan, Europe, the Arctic, China, Tibet, Nepal and India. A 1971 graduate of Miami University of Oxford, Ohio, Hayes majored in theater. During the years he lived in Japan, he used his professional acting skills in a broad variety of Japanese TV and film projects. Most notable to American audiences was his role alongside Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune in the NBC samurai epic Shogun. In 1985, Hayes was inducted into the prestigious Black Belt Hall of Fame for his years of pioneering work in introducing the legendary Japanese ninja martial arts to the Western world. He was awarded the extremely rare rank of judan (10th-degree black belt) by grandmaster Masaaki Hatsumi of Chiba-ken, Japan. In 1997, 30 years after beginning his martial arts training, Hayes founded the martial art To-Shin Do, a mind and body self-protection system based on ancient ninja martial arts principles but updated for application to modern threats and pressures. The 1998 Black Belt Yearbook referred to Hayes as a “legend in the martial arts,” and he has been featured in publications ranging from Black Belt and Inside Kung-Fu to Playboy and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Hayes is the author of 18 books that translate the timeless knowledge of the East into pragmatic lessons for contemporary Western life. He is one of the best-selling martial arts authors of all time, with many books published in a variety of languages around the world. Hayes worked with Black Belt Books on a six-volume ninja series. In the final book, Ninja Vol. 6: Secret Scrolls of the Warrior Sage, Hayes imparts four decades of wisdom and insight, giving readers scores of new technique demonstrations and describing the experience that made him an internationally recognized warrior and educator. Hayes has taught and demonstrated effective self-protection skills to military and law-enforcement groups, including the U.S. Air Force, the FBI, and members of Britain’s elite Special Air Service. He has also worked on special projects under contract with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. In the 1990s, Hayes regularly served as a personal-protection escort and security adviser for the Dalai Lama. In 1991, Hayes underwent formal ordination to become a teacher in the 1,200-year-old Japanese esoteric meditation tradition. As spiritual head of the Kasumi-An Dojo, he continues to offer instruction in both the meditation and martial arts traditions of Japan. Hayes is chairman of the board of SKH Quest, a media and educational company dedicated to promoting the benefits of training for self-development, and he spends much of the year traveling the world as a seminar leader, teacher and lecturer. For more information about Hayes, visit skhquest.com. Click here for more profiles! 
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