Joe Maurantonio was born in NYC in the 1960s. At a young age he became interested in Arthurian legends and Samurai lore. The chivalric ideals of the European knight-errant (knygt erraunt), Chinese knight-errant (youxia), Japanese warring-states samurai (ronin), and American cowboy (wrangler) appealed to him in many ways.

Mr Maurantonio initially trained by himself, with friends, relatives, and through literature. In high school, he joined an austere martial arts school but continued researching other traditions... he knew something was missing in his training.

During a trip to Hawaii, he found an interesting book about the ninja warriors which caused him to buy more books on the secret fighting art of ninjutsu. In less than a year, he was training in the Bujinkan.

After a few years (1986), Mr Maurantonio met Masaaki Hatsumi (34th headmaster) of Togakure Ryu and moved from NY to train full time.

Thereafter he began working on his first Japanese translation project and writing a few articles for magazines and newspapers.

In 1991, Maurantonio-shihan was awarded the title of shidoshi (teacher of the warrior ways). The following year (1992), the Bujinkan New York Dojo opened its new training location in Bronxville, NY. They celebrated their 16th anniversary at that location in December 2008!

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