His mother was a well-known theatre actor in Japan; his father was in the U
S
military
Family moved from Japan to the United States when he was 5
Began developing his own form of martial arts, called Chuu-Shin, in 1978
In the 1990s, worked with football players who wanted to incorporate martial arts into their training; he later created Ninjah Sportz as a program to combine sports and martial arts