Inner Warrior

All Blacks performing the haka

I love the haka.  I can watch the New Zealand rugby team perform The haka  over and over again and each time I feel deeply moved.   I  am not much of a rugby fan nor am I a scholar on the  Māori people, but still there is something about watching these men with thick necks chant and pound their chests that feels very familiar and energizing to me. 

The haka is a traditional ancestral war cry, dance or challenge practiced by the Māori people of New Zealand. It is a posture dance performed by a group or men women or children, with vigorous movements, stamping of the feet and chanting. The New Zealand rugby team's practice of performing a haka before their matches has made the dance more widely known around the world.

I didn’t know about the Haka before Jorge showed  me a video on You Tube and immediately I could feel the power of the ceremony. There was clearly something more meaningful going on than preparing for a rugby match and when I read the translation of the chant it become apparent that the players were manifesting a deep inner strength.  I think we tend to rely solely on the physical strength of the body in order to be victorious, especially in sports, or the intellect in the more traditional world, but the haka expands the places where and how power can be found.  Through their stance, gesticulations, facial expressions, use of their voice and the action of doing this ritual as a group, the players manifest a belief in themselves, their community, ancestry and a conviction that they have a right to be standing on the earth.  This intensifies their physical strength and ruby skills and probably has something to do with why the New Zealand ruby team is #1 in the world.

 These are Maroi men performing the haka with a 

translation of this version of the chant

Well, I don’t have a strong sense of ancestry, personal history dating back before I was born nor an abundance of physical strength, but the elements of the haka have been really useful to me, not for playing rugby, but just for living my life. I am not Maori, so I don’t choose to copy their ritual, but recently, through movement, particularly movement that engages in resistance or opposition and by exploring sound deep in my gut,  I have found that I too can access this kind of inner force and fierceness.

This is a visualization of my inner lion- 

at least for the moment

On some level, we all need to be warriors to get through our lives.  In contemporary society we have many modalities to help us find the strength and grounding to survive.  A lot of these methods rely on words, thinking and the skills of the logical mind, but I am finding that the body holds much of our untapped resources and energies that can connect us to our animal nature.  Here we find the part of our being that roars, defends our ground, pushes our energy forward with fierceness and believes we have a right to stand our ground on this earth.  I'm finding it a good place to turn to for strength. In any case , it's certainly better than relying on coffee to get through the day.