Ninja Festival 38 Review

Thirty-eight years ago, a pioneering American martial artist created an annual gathering dedicated to sharing the Ninja martial arts secrets that he brought back with him from his adventures in Japan. Stephen K. Hayes trained with the head of the Togakure Ninja Lineage as well as Mikkyo and Tendai Buddhist Monks, and when he returned to the west he brought with him a fighting style and personal development system unlike anything else.  Thirty-eight years ago Mr. Hayes began teaching this system through seminars and he held a large gathering in an unused scout camp, thus the Ninja Festival was born.

Fast forward thirty-eight years and you find us here, in November of 2018 and the 38th Ninja Festival has just wrapped up.  Participants from all over the United States and some from England convened near Dayton, Ohio to train and grow together in the martial art of To-Shin Do. To-Shin Do is what An-Shu Hayes (the system founder) created from the martial arts, meditation, and spiritual development technologies that he has studied.  To-Shin Do teaches students techniques for dealing with angry attackers who may try to strike, choke, wrestle, of come at you with weapons. It also teaches you strategies to deal with the probably the hardest to defeat adversary of all, your own unchecked mind.

Each of the Ninja Festivals have a theme and this year’s was “Evolution”. Classical Togakure Ryu (old style ninja family system) kata were brought into our 2018 world by exploring the “Santo Tonko no Kata” or “the escaping rat” series of strategies.  These techniques were taught to ninja espionage agents to allow them to escape if caught while performing a “behind the enemy lines” mission. In practice, they were designed to: 1. Keep the identity of the ninja agent hidden 2. Escape from the “guard” who discovered the ninja 3. Cause confusion as to what just really happened so that the “guard” may just write the whole thing off as just an odd situation and hope that they stay out of trouble from their superiors. In other words the response and technique can’t be so brutal or obvious as to cause a major alarm.

Another running theme of this year’s Ninja Festival was “Eyes of the Dragon, Eyes of the Snake”. This was referring to the ability to see things from an overhead perspective (useful in planning) and to see things from the point of action and how both of those abilities were important.  One of the Festival participants even recounted an old Japanese legend about a snake that “evolved” into a dragon after proving itself and resides under Mount Fuji. Plus it was cool because of the whole “Snake Eyes” Ninja thing. Go Joe!

Friday night Festival kicked off with a black belt only training session that was led by An-Shu’s Stephen and Rumiko Hayes. To-Shi, or San-Dan (third degree) and higher belt testing happened privately after the black belt session.  Friday was wrapped up by Kyu (belts prior to black belt) level training that was headed up by Ian Sanderson of the Boulder Quest Center, Justin Panza from Chapel Hill Quest Martial Arts, and Matt Herbert from the Dayton Quest Center.

Saturday morning  began with a warm up led by Shane Stephens from the Dayton Quest Center followed by an introduction of To-Shin Do school owners and then the An-Shu’s. The Hayes’s set the groundwork for the weekends exploration and the training commenced.  Several of the Santo Tonko no Kata principles were explored before we headed into break out sessions. The first set of break out sessions were: 1. knife stab defenses, 2. small person secrets, 3. and breaking MMA (mixed martial arts) rules. The second set included a meditation session and defenses against a “baseball bat” swing.

Mark Sentoshi Russo, the head of the Tampa based Quest Self Defense school led a mind science exploration of the “San-Mitsu” principle.  This was a unique opportunity to explore how we can take charge of what we can take charge of to affect outcomes in our life.

Dennis Futoshi Mahoney taught a session also that explored releasing pressure to break your opponents balance.  He co-taught this with his student Theresa Murphy and they showed the Festival participants some of the drills that they use in their LIVE (Lessons in violence evasion) women’s self defense courses.

Before the black belt demonstrations An-Shu Hayes and the Shihan Kai leadership team sat for a Question and Answer session that everyone really enjoyed.

The black belt demonstrations were especially great this year and belt promotions and awards presentations followed.  One new second degree, three new third degrees, and one new fifth degree were promoted during this festival. A Gomma, or fire, ceremony followed the presentations and Saturday night ended with a party celebrating everyone’s achievements and successes.

Sunday morning began with a Ryu Tai Dragon Body Yoga session led by An-Shu Rumiko before we began our training.  We worked on strategies to perfect our Ganseki-Nage front throw before two really incredible break out sessions. Scott Akitoshi Bragg led a class on “Avoiding YouTube Knockouts” where video clips of street attacks were viewed, dissected, and prepared for.  The other session that was a huge hit this year was an “Adrenal Stress” training opportunity. The attackers wore these “Centerline” protection suits that allowed the participants to go “all out” and strike with real power. The attackers also “barked” at the participants to get their adrenaline up and to simulate the feelings of an authentic street assault.  Really powerful training!

After lunch James Kentoshi Norris led a training session that centered around the Fifth Degree level material of Muto Dori sword defenses, where the unarmed defender must deal with a sword wielding attacker.  Following with the Evolution theme we instead explored an attacker drawing a knife instead of a full size Japanese katana.

An-Shu Hayes finished the Festival with a “San Mitsu” meditation to send us back home with a new plan for living our life in a powerful new way.  Truly transformative.

This was one of my favorite Festival experiences, and that says a lot considering that I’ve been to 19 of the 38.  An-Shu Hayes plans to do something a little different for next year and host three smaller festivals rather than one big event.  If you are a serious student of To-Shin Do do yourself a favor and make sure that you attend. The Quest community truly is, in my humble opinion, the best community.