Stephen K. Hayes — Nine Gates Press ninjutsu manual (1992)

What this book is

Stephen K. Hayes is the principal Western popularizer of ninjutsu — specifically the Bujinkan tradition of nine integrated Japanese martial-arts schools (the Kuki Shinden Ryū, Togakure Ryū, and seven others) consolidated under Masaaki Hatsumi in mid-twentieth-century Japan. Hayes was the first non-Japanese student permitted to train under Hatsumi, was awarded high-rank certification in the Bujinkan, and was inducted into the Black Belt Magazine Hall of Fame in 1985. He is the author of more than a dozen books on the tradition, of which the spiral-bound Nine Gates Press volumes from the early 1990s are among the most working-copy oriented — designed to lay flat on a dojo floor while a student practices.

This particular volume covers the technical curriculum — stances, strikes, joint locks, throws, weapon disarms — of the Bujinkan ninth-warrior tradition. The spiral binding indicates a manual intended for active training use rather than a coffee-table reference. The 1992 publication date places it in the wave of Western interest in Japanese martial arts that followed the late-1980s ninja-cinema cycle and the steady diffusion of Bujinkan instruction across North America through the 1990s.

Why it matters

The audience for Hayes’s 1990s spiral-bound Nine Gates Press volumes is small but specific: Bujinkan dojo libraries, serious martial-arts-history collectors, and students of how Japanese martial arts entered the American training landscape. The press itself was Hayes’s own imprint and the print runs were modest; surviving copies in working condition come up periodically and tend to find collectors who’ve been quietly looking.

The back-cover author photo and the brief biography — "well-known book author, adventurer, and teacher of the Oriental martial and meditative arts" — are characteristic of the period’s self-promotional convention. The "Mikkyo esoteric tradition" reference signals the broader spiritual-and-martial framing Hayes brought to his Western teaching.

Multi-part bibliographic record

How it came in

Donated in May 2026 through NMLP. Donor scenario anonymized.

Where it’s going

Routes through martial-arts specialty channels. Likely buyer: a Bujinkan dojo or instructor, a martial-arts-history private collector, or a 1990s ninja-cinema-era nostalgia collector.