Stephen K. Hayes

Stephen K. Hayes (born September 9, 1949) is an American martial artist and writer.

Early life

Stephen K. Hayes was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and raised in Dayton, Ohio. He graduated from Fairmont West High School in Kettering, Ohio, in 1967. He began formal training in the martial arts as a teenager in the mid-1960s.

Hayes attended Miami University in nearby Oxford, Ohio, reportedly because he "heard they had a judo club". It turned out to be a Korean Tang Soo Do school, not judo, but Hayes remained. In 1971, he graduated from Miami with a Bachelor of Arts degree, having majored in speech and theatre.

Martial arts career

In the 1970s, Hayes traveled to Japan to seek out authentic ninja masters. In June 1975, he met and began training under Tsunehisa Tanemura and then after Tanemura left Masaaki Hatsumi, who refers to himself as 34th Grandmaster of Togakure-ryū ninjutsu and is the founder of the Bujinkan (武神館) organization.

Hayes returned to the United States with his wife, Rumiko, in late 1980 when his Japan residency visa expired, and began teaching and authoring numerous books and magazine articles.