Rumiko and I traveled to the city of Tajimi municipal dojo for a demonstration of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu sword by Mouri Keisuke and his small group of students on the morning of September 11, 2011. As I walked in the dojo, my question that morning was, “Does anybody still teach old style tachi battlefield sword technique, or only stylized formal modern methods that make up sword training in Japan today?”

What I learned in the 1970s as old-time ninja combat methods and now teach in our dojo as To-Shin Do seems so different from what usually passes for Japanese swordsmanship. Somehow, on the 10th anniversary of the unexpected attack on New York City by suicide stealth agents in airliner flying bombs, the question of how old combat tactics evolve into valuable new lessons seemed appropriate. If we do not truly understand the old ways, how can we use their wisdom to build new effectiveness today?

Amazingly, before I could even ask my question, Mouri Keisuke’s demonstration and explanation started right in with old style tachi, something almost never seen anymore. His teaching plan for us began with the answer to my yet unspoken question.

Rumiko and I were impressed that he had put together a program and invited a newspaper reporter and significant business friends to make an event out of it. Rumiko and I even got private lessons from top teachers attending the seminar. So many times, masters of ancient methods are not very adept at promoting the value they offer the world, and too often languish in tiny training halls where few can find their treasures. Some call that “being traditionally reserved”. I often think of it as “being inept and unsophisticated”. Mouri Keisuke was clearly a different sort of traditionalist. How wonderful!

After training, ten of us walked to a soba noodle shop for lunch and conversation on a day of 90 degree heat and intense sun. Over lunch, the teacher asked me the probing question of why the usual Bujinkan kamae was so often pictured with the front leg extended too far out with the knee too straight. He was at ease enough with our relationship to comment that he felt it was too difficult to move quickly from such an over-wide stance.

I was very impressed that Mouri Sensei had apparently done on-line research as to what I teach and what my original ninja teacher and his students are teaching. I did my best to answer carefully, without criticizing some of my teacher’s students for either not knowing enough to teach well, or not caring enough and just letting students do what they wanted without forcing proper discipline on them. In the end, I gave a non-committal answer suggesting there was a wide range of quality when it came to my teacher’s students after my books had opened flood gates and his dojo had become a huge international training hall operation.

At any rate I was impressed that he asked a probing question. So many just sit in silence presuming to know things they actually do not know. Maybe sword master Mouri Keisuke holds the same view of always having a question ready as I do. An important lesson for all who would be masters some day, huh?

They lack a seasoned mature presence, and they lack an inspiring realistic system for teaching how to deal with dangerous people.

Are you mature enough in your presence (we’re not necessarily talking years-of-age here) to inspire successful people to want to engage you to help them advance?

Are you aware enough to come across as someone that matters, someone that is making a difference in the community (…as opposed to being some twitchy young dude who mimics all the fads and cliches in appearance, language, and bearing, someone who radiates, “I’m trying real hard here and hoping you will chip in and help pay for all my fun.”) ?

I can teach other teachers good real-world martial arts. I must admit that really is not a likely business target though. I have few takers when it comes to getting a better martial art for an existing school; teachers stay pretty locked in emotionally to what they earned their black belt in, even when there are better things out there. On the other hand, there are school owners who have no grounding at all, and easily fall victim to chasing down a newer sweeter “flavor of the month”. Many school owners want to “roll” since Brazilians made that popular in the 1990s. Where were they when folks were snickering at me for teaching ground technique in the ’80s? And what then is the next hot thing to blossom? Fads come and go.

Success in the martial arts business is not about superior defense technology, it seems. It is about recognizing and delivering what makes people feel strong, decisive, and capable. Therefore, my next-few-years work is in the inner realms of warrior protector spirit. I believe martial arts school prospects in most towns are looking for authentic confident presence. They just happen to enjoy martial arts as a great way to get there. Yes, every teacher says s/he will deliver that, but truth is I see a lot of teachers who do not even have such maturity and stability themselves.

You can join us if you are brave enough and sincere enough, and ready to let go of the fad addictions that seem to motivate so many of your lost martial arts school owner peers.

I will start a next chapter in my teaching in 2012 after one more trip to see friends in the Himalayas next spring. I want to deliver training experiences to promote the inner strength and outer sophistication that seems to be so forgotten in our martial arts image of today. “Martial mastery, all-organic, no artificial additives, free-range, no cages”. The real deal for a world that seems to be growing more and more challenged and confused every day.

Maybe I will find some brave men and women ready for a fast track experience to what us 1960s martial artists admired in the rough and tumble grand old Asian men who headed the training halls back then when martial arts first came to general America, and what forward thinking people admire in spiritual teachers today in the 21st century.

Let’s see who shows up.

That habit comes from ancient biological survival mechanisms. Scouting for the bad takes top brain priority because survival is a primary need. We have to scan constantly for what could snuff out life in a heartbeat. Goodness is nice, but badness is important. And if we find no threat, then we become suspicious. What is hiding out there to overtake us by surprise?

So, how do we keep the alertness without it overwhelming us? How can we loosen the tightness of focus on the negative to permit more appreciation of the bright and beautiful?

We can only do that through reprogramming training.

You are very busy, so here is a short but powerful routine I do each morning and whenever I find myself dulling out or hardening up too much during the day. It only takes a couple of seconds.

• Slowly take in a very deep breath and hold it for just a second or two.
• Reflect on how fortunate you are to be aware of your potential as a bright light bringing goodness, peace, sanity, and stability to the world.
• “I am alive with significance”
• Slowly breathe out.

• Slowly take in a very deep breath and hold it for just a second or two.
• Reflect on how amazing it is that you are tuned in to the truth that every moment of every experience brings you closer to fuller realization of your potential.
• “I follow my path with purpose”
• Slowly breathe out.

• Slowly take in a very deep breath and hold it for just a second or two.
• Reflect on how blessed you are to attract into your life just the right friends, guides, and mentors who share what you need and encourage you on with their example.
• “I am tuned in to finding living examples of what I seek”
• Slowly breathe out.

• Finally, remind yourself that when you get off track, you will remember to do this exercise.

Not in Dayton, Ohio? You can go to our on-line store to get access to all the training aids you need, from books and DVDs to instant downloads of technique lessons to official To-Shin Do uniforms and training shirts.

I felt caught in the trap of the game with no idea what I should do. I just trailed along uncomfortably through my teens and early 20s. Then I left for Japan at 25 and my life blossomed. “Oh-ho! So that was what I was supposed to be doing!?”

Here is a message from Alan Watts – early interpreter of Buddhism in the West – as suggested to me by my friend Tom Callos:

In our SKH Quest Center for Martial Arts, we have students practice a talking meditation in the 3rd week of every October addressing, “I really know I’m alive when I…” and fill in the blank as many times as possible in one minute.

For most, the exercise is way harder than it sounds.

But I did promise to give the request my most sincere consideration.

Napoleon Hill (a classic read, still valuable today) wrote that choice of spouse is one of the most important determinants of your future success. From watching and observing so many people over my decades, I would say it might be the most important thing that determines your level of success in life. If you have brilliant knowledge and skill in the marketplace but are anchored down by a miserable private life, it will be almost impossible to set sail.

Your home and the people you share it with are supposed to be your refuge, your safe haven of recharge and regeneration, your lounge of warm support and boardroom of cool collaboration. In all the best ways, you are a team of the heart.

Some of my friends tell me their home is not a refuge and not a safe haven for them. They lack a partner who sees and supports who they are and what their gift is and what they are destined to do and become. Their partners actually make them feel guilty for being who they truly are. And yes, a few of my friends are actually the problem in the home themselves; home is not a haven because they do not know how to tune in to others and do not know how to express properly what they need.

If you are spending more time working out knots and smoothing out disruptions in your home than you are solving problems out in the marketplace, your market endeavors are bound to produce the diminished results that come from reduced attention and distracted effort. If you are inspired by high ideals, wining a battle in the marketplace is called advancing the welfare of all; winning a fight at home is called breaking everybody’s heart.

Building and maintaining a warm and happy refuge of a home is much harder for young couples today than it was in my grandparents’ age, I believe. It seems that our culture no longer supports and expects happy homes. My observation is that our society actually prepares individuals to expect disruption and discarding; when things become even mildly displeasing, others encourage us to “do what makes you happy” (usually means take the easiest way to bail out of a difficulty) as opposed to “do the best thing for yourself and all involved” (usually much more demanding of attention and effort, and so more difficult and discomforting).

Any relationship will have its difficult moments, even the relationship with yourself. Have you ever let yourself down? Have you ever done something that just was not your best and felt bad about it? Have you ever said something that you regretted because it was not the best expression of who and what you are, and wished you could have re-done that moment? Have you even been so tired or distracted or stressed that you were less polite and encouraging to a loved one than you wished you had been? Have you ever looked less than your most attractive? In spite of those times, are you nonetheless still a good person who wants to do his or her best? Of course you have to answer yes.

Now take a deep breath and ask, “If I cannot always operate at tip-top best shape, why on earth am I expecting others I to do for me what I cannot always do myself?” Give ‘em a break now and then.

My number one suggestion when it comes to happy home life is to pick your partner wisely. Do not let convenience or accident make the choice for you. Know what you are looking for. If you do not know what to look for, see suggestion three below.

My number two suggestion is to want to enjoy happiness more than you want to have things be a certain way. Want to be happy. Look around and find what is right and happiness-inducing about the people in your home, as opposed to obsessing on “wouldn’t it be nice if” conditions that are not going to happen.

My number three suggestion is to find a person who lives the life you want to live, and then convince them to be your mentor, and then follow their advice without argument, especially when they suggest you do something in a way you would not usually want to do it.

I also make those same three suggestions when people ask me how to get more out of their martial arts training. Pick your art and school wisely, focus on what is good about your training, and do not argue with a mentor who knows how to do what you do not know how to do.

The Kasumi-An is specifically the house I live in and the dojo and meditation halls in my house. People come to that Kasumi-An for private lessons with me. By extension, Kasumi-An also refers to the training curriculum system program taught in all dojos across the globe that operate as branches furthering my work in the world.

Kasumi translates from Japanese to “haze” in English. There is the obvious homonym where “haze” sounds like “Hayes”, but beyond that, ancient legends from Japan’s warrior past often give kasumi an association with the lore of the ninja. For example, the recluse mountain yogi Kasumi Gakure Doshi was the teacher of Daisuke Togakure in the historical Japanese tradition I studied on my way to developing To-Shin Do. Kasumi implies that the enemy thinks he sees and knows what and who we are, but he is deluded and we encourage him to hold that delusion.

The An is a place of refuge, usually a small cottage temple on the grounds of a larger temple to which warriors or monks could retreat in the old culture of Japan. The An is a place you can go to get a break from all the craziness in life, all the heartbreak and heartache, the frustration, the overdone pointless competition, all the meanness, all the compelling distraction from what is truly important. Taking refuge in the An, you get your batteries re-charged, your juices re-bubbled, your vision re-focused, your intentions re-calibrated. You get back in connection with the touch of life itself. On retreat, you get back to what is real for you, or you practice arts or meditations that allow you to expand to new broader horizons what is real. After your time in the An, you are ready to re-enter your community refreshed and renewed and re-pledged to making the world a better, healthier, saner, safer place for all.

Shu in Japanese means one who runs an operation or facility of some sort. The common translation is “master”, but it really implies more like “facilitator”, in the sense of being the stable master where horses are trained, or range master where firearms are taught. An-shu is then retreat master, or “one who facilitates the retreat cottage”. I hyphenate the title so the English hints at the two Japanese kanji letters for An and Shu that form the word; it could just as well be written Anshu.

An-shu is a very humble title of service, deliberately chosen in my mid-40s when I went from 30 years as a self-oriented student of the martial arts to a new focus on assisting others to find the martial truths that I had attained. An-shu is not a ninja title as such. Yes, I am aware that a few individuals pretending to a past of “secret ninja training” have adopted my An-shu title in imitation; that is so predictable that there is little I can say about it. You cannot properly be titled An-shu if you are not head of an An.

Others suggested I use an impressive title like soke, which means “original founding family”, or saiko shihan, which means “top-ranked master”, or kan-cho, which means “training hall headmaster”. Those are oft-used titles for head of a martial group, but those seemed to miss the mark of what I wanted to communicate. I want to be on record as a person who vowed to devote himself to assisting others as a guide on the path. An-shu as “custodian of the spiritual inn” seems warmer and more in line with my focus these days in my 60s. No need for a grand and formal high-falutin’ title, because as I have often commented before, my real rank is “Stephen K. Hayes”, the most honest and powerful title I could use.

This also appears with an explanation in the SKH Quest Hombu Dojo On-Line Community.

NA-MA-KU
Namah
Homage

SHI-CHI-RI YA-JI-BI-KYA NAN
try-adhvikanam
to the three worlds of

SA-RU-BA TA-TA-GYA-TA NAN
sarva tathagatanam
all Enlightened Ones!

AN BI-RAJI BI-RAJI
Om! Viraji viraji
Om! Undefiled and pure

MAKA SHYA-KYA-RA BA-SHI-RI
maha chakra vajri
great diamond-truth wheel

SA-TA SA-TA
sata sata
attain ultimate benefit

SA-RA-TEI SA-RA-TEI
sarate sarate
attain our fullest potential

TA-RA-I TA-RA-I
trayi trayi
indestructible, inevitable

BI-DA-MA-NI SAN-BAN-JA-NI
vidhamani sambhanjani
purify three sources of karma

TA-RA-MA-CHI SHID-DA-GI-REI
tramati-siddha-agrya.
unify with powers of wisdom.

TA-RAN! SO-WA-KA!
Tram! Svaha!
That’s it! So it is!

The more I learn, the further I search, but the valley just grows deeper.

I see no finish ahead. Such is the path of my life.”

…a motto for me, an honored present from a much-older martial master friend, adapted by him from his own motto to fit what he believes he sees in my life.

Whether I like it or not, I admit to seeing the story of my life in there.