Traditionally in Japan, when a person reaches their sixty-first year, they have lived through the entire sixty-year cycle of the traditional eto calendar of ten stems and twelve branches, and returned to the same year and horoscope sign in which they were born. The celebration of this not-small triumph is called Kanreki (pronounced kahn reh-kee). Kan means cycle, and reki means calendar. The celebration is also referred to as Honke gaeri “return to birth-year sign”. It has been popular in Japan since the Edo period hundreds of years ago.

Along with the 12-animal Asian zodiac, each person is born under one of 5 elemental signs (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water). These two cycles reset every 60 years. The honoree has been 5 times around the Asian zodiac with its 12 animal years, and so we get 12 x 5 = 60. As a result, a person is said to be starting their second cycle of life at 60. 

Here is a description of this coming year from my friend Koichi Barrish, chief priest of Tsubaki Jinja Shrine  northeast of Seattle:

HEISEI 21/TSUCHINOTO/USHI DOSHI/KYUSHI KASEI meaning the 21st year of the Heisei reign of current Emperor, 6th of the Ji-Kan 10 Celestial Stems Inner Aspect of Earth, Year of the Ox and a Nine Purple Fire Ki Year.

Year of the Ox, Signifies leadership, strength, power and stability. As for Kyushi Kasei it is the 9th number of the cycle of 9. It is situated in the south position which is at the top or head of the 9-star compass so it implies mental development and intelligence. 9 is the highest number compared to 1. Its color is purple which implies high rank. It is common sense that happiness visits the family who treasures life, ancestors and Kami. It is the sun above your head at noon and implies vigorous ki, especially mental ki. In terms of fortune it is the time to make a plan, to sow, to fertilize and to prepare for the future.

Kanreki is connected to the idea of rebirth, and so it is customary to give the celebrant a red cap, a red zabuton seat cushion, and a red chanchanko vest, all similar to those used as a newborn. Red is the color most often associated with children in Japan, the way we in America might use the term green as in “greenhorn”. Aka-chan - literally “little red one” - means baby in Japanese. In a symbolic rebirth then, donning red represents a return to the potentials of youth.

A 60-year old is expected to use Kanreki as a year of reflection. We examine our lives, evaluate our achievements, and use the time as a good opportunity to plan the direction in which we move as we begin the next sixty-year cycle of life. Thus dressed in red, the old one takes the seat of honor as children, grandchildren, relatives, and friends gather to wish a happy new life and many more years of joy and vitality.

An-shu Rumiko and I have a series of seminars, trips, special events, and our 29th annual Festival of training planned for my Kanreki 60th birthday year. I hope you will be able to join us at many of these.

On beyond Kanreki, there are additional longevity celebrations in Japan. I plan someday to enjoy telling you all about Chaju, the party year celebrated upon reaching “one hundred eight” in age.

Just in case any one else out there might be interested in some minor points about my life and how I ended up where I did, here are questions 1-4 and the answers I sent to Patrick and Rayford.

1. What interested you in ninjutsu?

I first read about the ninja in a James Bond novel in high school, back in the mid-1960s. I was fascinated with all the capabilities that they cultivated - physical defense, climbing and stealth movement, using the power of the mind to win without being perceived as an enemy.

I began karate training as a teen, and studied for 10 years. I loved it, but always felt that I was missing something - all the Japanese weapons like sword and staff, and the mind training aspects. In mid-1970s when I was in my mid-20s in age, I made up my mind to go to Japan and find the grandmaster of the ninja and ask him to teach me. Fortunately for me, I did not at the time know how impossible my challenge was, and so through good luck and innocence of spirit I succeeded.

2. Can you tell us something about your life before martial arts; for instance, about your parents and how life was like growing up?

Mine was a pretty typical suburban Midwest American 1950s upbringing. My father was a corporate executive, and my mother was a homemaker for us. There was nothing there to push me towards martial arts training. I somehow came up with that determination all on my own.

I saw bullying at school, and decided that I wanted to be able to stop that. I wanted to have the strength and ability to make there be peace when others may have opted for psychological and physical violence.

I saw a Lassie TV program as a child, in which a young Japanese boy was forced to defeat a gang of farmyard bullies, and then after doing that, he went around restoring the boys’ arms and shoulders he was forced to injure defending himself. He called the technique judo, and it was my first vision of Japanese martial arts in action. I was electrified. I vowed to learn that.

3. How did your life change after you took up ninjutsu?

My life really flourished, personally and professionally. I was learning all kinds of skills and methods that felt so right for me. I was gaining the insights and capabilities that would allow me to operate as a force for good in an often confusing world. Many people responded so positively to my message, and I soon had many eager students all over the world, and I enjoyed travelling to present seminars for their own students where they lived.

4. We’ve heard about how To-Shin-Do is basically ninjutsu, only modernized. What are some specific differences between the two arts?

Fights in 1500s Japan and 2000s America take very different forms. One big difference between To-Shin Do and classical ninjutsu is the emphasis we place in our classes on how fights start. In modern America, there is often a distinct lead-up to a fight - the way aggressors pose themselves, the way they interrupt a likely victim, the way they use words and emotion to start a fight, and the way they move as modern street fighter aggressors.

What we do in To-Shin Do training is to take the principles of authentic historical ninja taijutsu unarmed defense along with weapons like knife or stick and adapt those to the differences in the way aggressors fight today in America and Europe, along with the differences in the laws that govern self-defense in America today as opposed to feudal Japan.

Answers to the next 8 questions in the series will be published soon:

5. What makes ninjutsu and To-Shin-Do different from the other martial arts?

6. What would our lives be like here in America if you hadn’t brought us ninjutsu?

7. What have you been doing recently?

8. The ninja everyone know about in popular culture really are nothing like the ninja of reality. Do you wish that true ninja would play a bigger role in this aspect of society?

9. Why is it that ninja are often completely ignored in today’s history books (like textbooks, for instance), yet the books go on and on about the samurai for pages? Weren’t both ninja and samurai just about as interesting and important as each other?

10. How did you meet your wife Rumiko?

11. What was the Shadows of Iga Organization all about?

12. We realize this may be a touchy subject, but we heard you were recently expelled from the Bujinkan’s list of authorized judans. We would love to hear your personal take on what happened.

My young daughters were perplexed by their friends’ question for two reasons. One, the Buddha was a teacher, not a deity, so those who follow the Buddhist path to enlightened understanding do not “pray to the Buddha.” And two, he certainly was not a fat guy, and he certainly did not carry a reputation of being a guffawing jokester. Where did people get those odd impressions?

Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, or “the awakened one” became Buddhism’s founder over 2,500 years ago when he began to teach others techniques for approaching the direct experience of the true nature of reality and the true nature of the self in that reality. Born a prince, he renounced his inheritance and lived for years in the woods of India as a starving ascetic grappling with the questions of what life really is and why there is so much suffering in life and what could be done to eliminate that suffering. Eventually he found the answers he sought, and then devised a means to teach others a way to begin to break through to those answers.

I reminded my girls of the big statue in our favorite Chinese restaurant, the round laughing guy with the big bag of gifts.

They were still confused. Having spent half their years growing up in Japan, they pointed out to me, “Dad, that’s Hotei, not the Buddha”.

Well, yes, but most Americans do not know that Hotei (or Hotai in Chinese), famous in Asian culture, is “a buddha” but not “the Buddha” who was the ascetic spiritual seeker.

Is it possible that a glimpse of what is deepest truth in life can turn one into a jolly laughing philanthropist, bringing joy and gifts to all just for the fun of it? Hotei says so. So does Santa Claus.

So as we approach the holiday gift giving season, think of Hotei in Buddhist culture as filling a role like Santa Claus in the Christmas culture of Christianity. Help your friends be of good cheer, especially in this challenging economy. Spread some laughs. Give some gifts. Brighten spirits.

And happy holidays to you from An-shu Rumiko and me.

Isn’t that ridiculous? Who in the financial investment world can speak with a straight face about failure not being an option, when even America’s richest Warren Buffett has seen billions vaporized by the financial insanity of the last few months of 2008? Who in the computer world, which regards complete system crashes and virus-spawned destruction as routine and expectable, can honestly speak of no room for failure?

When Failure is Not an Option. Sounds so dramatic and imperative, doesn’t it, as though just by uttering those granite solid words, we can thankfully banish any probable worries about possible lack of success. Does it make me a cynic to state that the firmer a pitchperson speaks about what is inviolable and beyond challenge in the wildness of life in the marketplace, the more I suspect either an idiot or a conman?

Well of course failure has never been a cheerfully sought out “option” in my life, but sure enough, I have had to accept some failures along with my successes. It is possible that I have learned more about how to be stronger, cleverer, and more likely for success by examining what I did that allowed failure to happen, as opposed to learning from finding quick, lucky, and unpredictable success. How about you?

When I returned to America from Japan after living and studying ninjutsu there for the last part of the 1970s, I told my few American students at the time that I would agree to teach them under the condition that I would be permitted to make mistakes as I progressed through the learning ahead of me. I made them promise me, and they did. And predictably enough, when I was forced by failure to learn some valuable lesson in my 30s, many of those friends revoked in a self-justifying way their once upon a time quick agreement to my demand that I be given room to explore and grow. And then when I bounced back and advanced as a result of my newly earned dearly paid for knowledge, some friends told me they could never trust me again because I had tried something new and failed to generate success and I should have known better. By the way, you would not know those students to whom I now refer, because years ago they gave up their dojos and are no longer actively training. 

Most of my successes could have been colossal humiliating failures. I went to Japan to talk the grandmaster of the ninja into accepting me into his personal home dojo with his other 12 students. Ridiculous! I returned to America to introduce a new view of martial arts that posted its values at 180 degrees opposite of what everyone up until then believed to be true about martial arts. Impossible! I set out to get Rumiko to marry me. No way! I decided to be a writer of books. Doomed to disappointment! I decided to raise children. I decided to study leadership as a disciple of an Asian king. I decided to authorize other people to present my teachings in their own schools outside my ownership control. I decided that what I had to teach, based on all I had studied under others, warranted its own distinct name and identity as To-Shin Do. All absurd impossibilities! Those are just a few of my gambles in which failure was not only a major 100% without a doubt top of the list option, but was way more likely to result than was success. 

People who do not like me will accuse me of bragging here. That would be ignorant misreading of my words and purpose. Some day I will list my failures and what I learned from them, in case I am misperceived as gloating or showing off here, but for now I am sharing my experience of reality, and in my reality, the thought of failure not being an option is just ludicrous poser puffery. Come on. Be honest. Take a chance. Take a risk. Learn from the beatings you take and the coins that slip through your fingers. Possible failure is indeed one option. 

Of course, without challenging the possibility of failure, you will be more likely to remain safe. On the other hand, just trying to be safe does not guarantee you will be safe. Without risking failure as an option, you will never have the momentum to move into new ideas, new realms of strength, new abilities to be of value to others, and fulfilled capacities for making a difference in the world.

Of course I gave him permission. To forbid him exposure to that teacher would make me look like a coward. I would look like I was fearful that I did not have the goods to compete with another man.

I have experienced that kind of cowardice from the other end. Friends of mine have sponsored my seminars in their cities and run into just that kind of weak behavior. It is no secret that other local instructors, claiming to teach the same thing I learned from my teacher, have forbidden their students from attending a seminar with me. They use all sorts of pretenses to justify blocking their students from meeting me and seeing what this martial art is supposed to look like. But in reality, those teachers (and I) know they secretly fear they cannot compete against what I offer, and are really sweating what would happen if their students got a chance to train with me for two days.

Not being a coward, I had to OK my student exploring with that other teacher. But as a caring friend, I had to warn him against the spirit poisoning he would endure spending time with the individual in question. If he opened himself to that particular man’s influence, he opened himself to the power of that man’s twisted psyche full of haunted memories of authority figures disdaining him as inadequate. The teacher in question was a veneer of confident smirking sarcastic superiority covering a deep black hole of resentment for those who lived brighter than he, and beneath his pretended coolness his ego personality boiled in angry intensity.

Be very careful of even temporarily looking up to poison people, I warned my friend. Even a present of pure gold becomes poison if delivered in a radioactive box. He assured me he would be careful not to come under the spell of the polluting teacher, but I knew he had no idea of just how extremely difficult that would be.

So, how do you reconcile any possible appearance of contradiction in my above bluntly stated derision of those who block their students from meeting me, and my concern for my student working with another teacher? Am I being a hypocrite? Am I advocating one thing when I get to win, and something different when it works against me?

Well, the way I see it, your teacher and your training partners determine not only what you study and learn as a martial artist, but also who you develop into as a human being and how you walk in the world.

Where you train is what you become. Study in a disorganized rag-tag school and you are likely to become a disorganized low-expectations person. Study in a violent high-fear school and you are likely to become a highly violent fearful person. Study with a monstrous ego teacher and you will become a groupie instead of a person of power. Study with a bully and you will come to see you deserve bullying. Study with a teacher who lurches from fad to fad and you will find that instead of building steadily improving skills, you are always starting over with some new and different tactic for handling what scares you. Study with a loser who ridicules those more powerful and successful than he is and you too will learn to be a loser.

When it comes to others considering me as a teacher, I am always ready to be put to the test. I am willing to be judged and compared.

What you see is what you get. Look at my life, my skills, my books, my DVDs, my home, my family, my friends, my philosophy, my work, my impact in the world, and if you would like to have any of that in your life, train with me and I can demonstrate how to do it. I can teach what I have mastered. 

On the other hand, if you are more attracted to some other teacher who has a life and story and philosophy very different from mine, and that really appeals to you, you had better study there. He or she is the expert on living very differently from Stephen K. Hayes.

If you want to become the kind of teacher that lots of high quality people want to study with, you need to be the kind of student who is highly demanding when it comes to the teachers you spend even a short amount of time with.

DY and An-shu Rumiko and I spent two days taping for the documentary in New York City in spring 2008. We first did a day of interviews in the amazing Ninja New York Restaurant and then a day of action taping in a Brooklyn warehouse sound stage.

I think DY did a great job of embodying the visual action that Ninja Gaiden gamers enjoy seeing.
Watch it and enjoy. Great fun.

The few who do recognize it will likely be heartbroken to see it in this condition, a rundown water department depot in a small Ohio village.

In the 1980s, ninjutsu (and eventually To-Shin Do as 21st Century ninjutsu) got its start in North America in what came to be known affectionately as “the barn dojo”, or just “the barn.” This was a 3,000 square foot aged wooden structure originally built as a tobacco drying barn in little hidden-away Germantown, Ohio. When we were in Ohio, An-shu Rumiko and I ran classes and workshops at the barn. When we were in Japan to study or in the dojos of our friends and students to teach, we just locked up the barn.

In my book Ninja Volume 6; Secret Scrolls of the Warrior Sage, I describe in detail the 3 phases of learning traditionally ascribed to the warrior arts of Asia - shu, ha, and ri. In my life, my first years of martial arts training - the shu phase - were spent searching for and then studying with my ninja teacher Masaaki Hatsumi in Japan. In shu, I imitated everything I saw my teacher do, even when what I practiced did not make complete sense to me. I never much questioned why; I only pursued how.

I returned to America in the early 1980s when my Japanese residency visa ran out, and then Rumiko and I visited Hatsumi Sensei for training every spring and fall for several years. I was a student in Japan for months of the year, and a teacher in the USA and Europe the rest of the time. This was my ha phase - years of exploring, testing out, and adapting what I had learned by imitation in the earlier years.

In the west I ran into kickboxers, speed-slash knife fighters, and wrestlers, all of whom posed problems that were outside standard solutions provided in the literal form of the kata in the ancient scrolls of my teacher’s lineage. I learned ways to make the classical martial arts I studied in Japan work under the conditions I encountered in the West. These were the “barn days” of the 1980s. These were my ha exploration years. These were the years of why and yes, but what if.

I posed as a teacher, but I really was an explorer. In addition to trials of my ever evolving taijutsu, I spent time each year as security escort for the Dalai Lama of Tibet after meeting him in 1986. That exposure caused me to further develop my martial art as a compassionate (though no-nonsense) protection system underpinned by an intelligently spiritual view of why and how violence erupts in the heart.

By the 1990s, my daughters’ school schedules made it difficult to jet to Japan twice a year with my family, so we made Japan trips in late summer and I taught in my newly-founded SKH Quest Center dojo the rest of the year. The barn was too far outside the city to serve as a daily dojo, so we settled on Far Hills Avenue, Dayton’s Main Street. Shu imitation and ha exploration was now behind me. My ri ”new creation” phase was the advancement of To-Shin Do as ninjutsu principles and techniques interpreted for 21st Century Western world students.

Some of my friends were surprised by my martial destination of To-Shin Do, though it is the only place my shu-ha-ri could lead in the most real for me of ways. Some missed the barn so much that they could not even bear to visit my Quest Center to see how much I had grown. Like an elderly aunt who just cannot grasp that her mischievous child nephew has become an adult professional with a family, some are confused by growth. I was often cajoled by some friends to backtrack to my ha barn days identity of my 30s, or even further back to shu of my 20s in Japan.

No. I cannot - you should not - go back. You no longer fit the now outgrown identity, and you might even look ridiculous or pitiful trying to fit into the ways of the days now past. Be proud of your growth and enjoy the new friends that you have attracted in your phase of maturity.

Back in the days of the barn, people from all over the world told me it was the coolest dojo they had ever seen anywhere in the world, and it really was. But that was then, and now the once-glorious building is just sad to behold. But be of good cheer. You can come to my beautiful SKH Quest Center dojo right on Main Street in Dayton. It is the perfect dojo for these days, I have truly incomparable material to share, and it is the ultimate destination we were headed for all those years.

We sure could tighten it up. “I thoughtfully express the truth; I avoid the confusion of dishonest words” could easily become “I always tell the truth; I never lie”.

Yes but that would negate the oh-so-important point of why this is a code of mindful action and not a list of 14 commandments. There is an important reason our code of ethics is necessarily more wordy than an advertising jingle. This is a personal development program we run, not an expedient substitute for discriminating intelligence.

“I thoughtfully express the truth.” Note that “thoughtfully” in there. I have given thought to the impact of what and how I communicate. I am not a reflexively compulsive truth-teller.

Just because something is the truth is not reason enough to say it out loud all the time. What is the even bigger point that needs to be addressed or promoted in the specific moment? Sheer all-point truth telling for its own sake? Or is there some grander over-riding point or purpose in the moment? Think! Consider! Discern!

I once had a student who just had to put out there whatever she believed. If I ever questioned her critical comments, she would always retort with, “Well, if you can’t handle the truth…”

The awkward thing was that yes she spoke her mind, but she was often just plain wrong as to what was true. She expressed her views of how things and other people should have been, based on her views of how the world should have worked. She fervently believed what she believed, and her beliefs kept her stuck in a world where others were always held responsible for what bothered her. I gently urged her to see that if she more thoughtfully expressed the (OK, “her”) truth, perhaps her husband would still be living with her and her sons and daughters might still be speaking to her.

“I avoid the confusion of dishonest words.” Again the key is the non-reflexive quality of the “I avoid…” as opposed to a flat-out just plain “I never…”. You have to think to make this work.

Sometimes, when up against a monster of a person or group or situation, in order to promote the better good I may choose to avoid blunt mechanical pronouncements of all parts of the whole truth. I do not have to tell all that I know all of the time; I may need to speak tactically. Is this lying? What is the greatest benefit for all in this situation?

The purpose of the SKH Quest Center 14 Point Code is to create the best life possible by encouraging full ethical responsibility for our interactions with others. Take charge of your experience! Use the 14-Point Code of Mindful Action as a guide for making life more enjoyable and meaningful. But remember to think carefully about what you are committing to creating by means of your ethics code.

Taktser Rinpoche was a tireless fighter for Tibetan independence from China. He was abbot of Kumbum Monastery in the Amdo region of Tibet at the time the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army invaded and occupied Tibet in 1950. After Rinpoche left Tibet for exile, China tightened the occupation to absolute control following an uprising by the Tibetan people against the Chinese military presence in 1959.

A walk together at HH Dalai Lama’s 1999 Kalachakra initiation in Indiana

After escaping from China-dominated Tibet in 1951, Taktser Rinpoche lived for a while in Japan as a guest of the Honganji Temple in Tokyo. He eventually made his way to the USA, living in New York City and Seattle on the way to his long-term home of more than 40 years in Bloomington, Indiana. He left monastic life when he left his homeland, and married the youngest daughter of the 40th Sakya Trizin, in exile from occupied Tibet herself. He and his wife Kunyang raised 3 sons, and had 3 grandchildren. He was 86 at the time of his passing from our lives. In the photo above, we are celebrating Tibetan New Year with friends at his home in Indiana.

A loyal supporter of the Dalai Lama, Taktser Rinpoche did nonetheless take a stand for complete independence of Tibet, as opposed to the autonomy sought by his brother. Each year he participated in long walks and cycle rides to raise awareness of the plight of the Tibetan people. Rinpoche dedicated his life to serving the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people, and served in the early 1990s as the Dalai Lama’s representative in Japan. He wrote academic papers and books on Tibet, including his autobiography Tibet Is My Country.

An-shu Stephen at 38, Prof. Norbu just retired at 65 years old

I first met Taktser Rinpoche in 1987. I had just returned from a journey to Tibet and my first meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India in late 1986. The Dalai Lama told me he had a brother who was a university professor a short drive from my house. Amazing! I later went on to serve as part of Rinpoche’s Tibetan Cultural Center board of directors in the 1990s, and I assisted him and his family with events, programs, and presentations at the TCC. HH Dalai Lama visited the TCC five times, and I was honored to aid Taktser Rinpoche and his wife Kunyang with hosting tasks during each of his famous brother’s visits.

What a wonderful friend he was. From the first day I met him, he was ever the perfect role model for how to be the epitome of graciousness, generosity, thoughtfulness, and the most amazing humility. That is not just complimentary fluff talk to salute a departed friend; I really mean that. I will so much miss him and his influence as a role model in my life .

I call Chris a visionary. He looks at information technology that to most of us is arcane abstract futuristic speculation and then he shows me exactly what I as An-shu need to be doing as a communicator of our martial ideals right now and into the future. Turns out it is not abstract. It is not futuristic. It is indeed here today.

How do we become visionary? A visionary has a sense of what will be in demand tomorrow long before most others even recognize what is coming into fashion today. A visionary can look forward into the future and see what will be of great importance and need at some time yet to come, and at the same time, look at the present and see those currently overlooked or under-appreciated ideas, technologies, resources, and people that will someday provide the perfect key elements for effectively meeting those future challenges.

Vision can produce results from different approaches. One can be so familiar with a technology that new possibilities are discovered or recognized as the culture changes around the former vision of the use of the technology. Old dog learns new tricks.

On the other hand, one can be so immersed in the search for a solution to a given problem that new discoveries result from seeing the problem with fresh new vision. New tricks require new dog.

To-Shin Do, our martial art based on the techniques, principles, strategies, and spirit of ancient Japanese ninjutsu brought forward in a form highly relevant for 21st Century western culture, has been called visionary. I have been called a visionary. What does this mean, really?

In truth, the visionary martial art of To-Shin Do came about as an accidental result of my discontent with the state of martial arts training in the early 1970s, when cutting edge breakthroughs were knockout matches in a ring and stylized karate kata solo patterns performed to music soundtracks. Meanwhile, I was futilely seeking noble rescuer-protector warrior training. The ninja secret agents of a 1960s James Bond novel were my heroes. Most of my ’70s peers just snickered at me. Many openly guffawed when they heard I was off to Japan to find the ninja. I was not seen as a visionary. They thought I was crazy.

Then came the 1980s and Western politics and economy and social dynamics moved restlessly towards personal responsibility, personal potential, and personal preparation taking on a new glow following the confusing convolutions of the 1960s and ’70s. The legendary ninja - self contained general and commando, warrior and philosopher, anonymous shielder of the community who acted from protector compassion as opposed to champion ego - seemed to be a perfect hero in an age that promoted personal accountability.

What my buddies mocked in the polyester and big hair ’70s became the martial art icon impossible to top in the 1980s. Martial arts magazines could not print enough cover stories about the one American qualified by experience to speak of the ninja night warrior, moving silently in the darkness righting the wrongs of a cold and mechanistic set of world conditions. 

All this changed radically in the early 2000s. Self-directed masked warriors striking in stealth at large popular winners from a morality steeped in murderous violence against all outside their order were no longer ninja movie heroes. They were now zealot terrorists from a culture that hated ours to death. We were horrified, enraged, and infuriatingly helpless as these phantom warriors caused incalculable damage to our ways of life. Western financial stability and freedom of travel went into a tailspin, black-masked killers gloated and jeered us from internet video clips, and all our might was powerless to stop them. 

Predictably, the new martial icon of the 2000s became the lone MMA athlete stepping into the cage of rage to fight another man in a straightforward contest of brute strength and ability to tolerate pain. Nothing ambiguous. Nothing surprising. No way for a sneaky one to overtake a bigger one. Might makes right in the cage, and we in the West desperately eat that up right now. In celebrating the cage we grasp for what looks like control in a grotesquely chaotic world. We call it “no holds barred” but of course holds are barred and we wish with all our hearts that the bigger wars were like this too. The big guy with the superior fire power and the best technique and the righteous alpha male anger should win. In a black and white world, he would win, and he would be us.

What’s my vision of the martial arts once we get through the current financial, social, and political doldrums that cause us to desire pure escapism? When the cage has become too much a commercial entertainment product and the hype bloats to the point where the edge becomes a cliche and young people grow restless just watching while a select few pros participate, we will move on to real mixed martial arts. Grappling and punching and kicking and locks and chokes and pragmatism over stylization - the powerful reality that we call MMA or mixed martial arts today - will expand to include training for uneven 2 against 1 confrontations, sneaky weapons appearing in the fight, terrain and environment considerations, psychology and staging complexities, and the truth that sometimes the good guy who must win is not the biggest, baddest, and most furious. Add to that some training in how to develop vibrant personal health, how to realize a spiritual peace based on unity with a unified universe, and how to cultivate the heroic attitude of being big enough to protect others - a philosophy that feels so rich and good once you have tasted even a little bit of it - and we will be at the pinnacle of true mixed martial arts.

That is my vision of the future. Of course it is no surprise that I am clearly describing our ninja martial art we have been teaching in America since 1980. As To-Shin Do we can once again be the ones to help others see that there is a discipline where people can learn to retake control over their lives and learn to rely on themselves and the visionary community they come together to form in this increasingly fragmented world. Such a vision is what we need in the martial arts next. I’m betting my entire future career on that vision. Let’s watch and see.