This post is kind of weird since I am doing this more on a whim than anything else. In this post I am going to be talking about something called the Haka dance. You may or may not have heard of it before, but it’s been there for many 100s of 1000s of years but it only became well known once the New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks started performing it as a ritual before the start of every game.
The All Blacks have been performing the Haka dance before games for many years, but several other New Zealand sports teams like The Kiwis, The Hawks and The Ice Blacks have also taken to performing the Haka before their games now.
The Haka is originally a traditional war cry/dance or challenge from the Maori people of New Zealand. It is also performed on special occasions like a wedding or a celebration of some sort. There are some misconceptions over the Haka, the most common one being that it is only performed by men and also that the dance is an energetic, almost violent one. But there are many different variations and forms of the Haka, some of which are done predominately by women.
Some are performed by men, women and children.
If you go on the internet and search for Haka dances you will find a lot of them, but my personal favourite is this one performed by the school boys of Palmerston North Boys’ High School.
Now while watching various Haka videos is entertaining by itself, I also want to say that you should try doing the Haka yourself. I’ve been doing it myself every now and then and it is a real workout (in case that wasn’t obvious from the videos). The dance really gets your blood pumping and since it’s pretty much like an exercise, it benefits you both physically and mentally. Don’t believe me? Check out my exercise post (put link here); it will change your mind. Anyway the Haka dance I have been doing is called Kamate (I think, at least it is part of the chant); it’s a much more simple dance than some of the others, here is an instructional video on it.
The video is meant for kindergarten children but adults do the dance too. As I said before, it is rather simple but it is a work out, especially if you do it five or six times in a row. I usually like to do it with the chant so I play this video while I am doing it.
So if you are up to trying something new and different to work off your stress as well as get a good workout, try out the Haka dance. And if you’re not into it that’s okay, you can just watch the videos, after all there are a ton of them and they are entertaining. So go ahead and try the Haka and bring out a little bit of that warrior spirit inside you.
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