Stephen K. Hayes was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1949. He grew up and attended school in Ohio, where he graduated from Miami University in 1971, with a degree in theater arts - he began his study of the oriental fighting arts in the summer of 1967, and founded his own training hall in 1973.
The author was a personal student in the home of Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, the 34th Supreme Master of Togakure ryu ninjutsu. While living and studying in Japan, Stephen K. Hayes became the first non-Japanese in the history of the Togakure ninja tradition to be awarded the rank and title of Shidoshi, or "teacher of the warrior ways of enlightenment", which gives him the authority to supervise the Togakure training system in the western world.