OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts

[Lavaere]

Originally Posted by Panpiper

By the way Lavaere, just a short addendum to what I said in my above post to you. I just looked up the exact nomenclature of Kapa Haka and I should amend to what I said. It is the Haka that is martial, not the Kapa. That said, it is performing the Haka in the Kapa that probably makes the learning of it more fun, so definitely take both seriously.

Yeah Kapa Haka is the whole think, where as the Haka is basicly the war chant/battle cry I guess. Of which some Haka Tane(Male) use Patu or Taiaha.

As for thanking teachers, that is so hard to do. Kapa Haka is very much a cultural thing here and everyone basicly learns some during there school years. And those schools that don't teach it will atleast make sure the one performed by sports teams is atleast known.
So you have school teachers, community elders, family elders, kapahaka groups I've been in. So many different instructors over the year.


Come to think of it I just remember one time when I was around 10. We were to perform a Haka with Taiaha. So the elder that was teaching us the song and action also went though action killing blows with the weapon. I remember him telling us.
Hit them with the shaft end and knock them to the ground. Then the other end which natually was a carved face, the protruding tongue be the spear part and go for soft parts boys. Eyes, Armpits, Groin, Belly and the such.
Now that there down take your Patu, not those wooden ones you have but you Jade Stone Patu and you can crack open there head. And being a Maori you go get yourself a good feed of brains and take there knowledge.

To bad when the English came to colonize New Zealand they gave us guns. So that we could shoot from afar instead of close combat.