Dr Ihirangi Heke and Atuatanga

Following a decade of teaching traditional Maori games, firstly as part of a University of Otago Physical Education degree and latterly as part of a Maori health initiative based out of the Tairawhiti, an interest in the origin of Maori physical activity in its’ own right came to life.

More specifically, I have become interested in not only wanting to know where traditional games came from but the whakapapa of physical activity from the time of arrival of Maori to Aotearoa. Important too, for my role as a health promoter, how could this interest in the whakapapa of physical activity be translated into creating a sustainable platform to support a contemporary interest in physical activity and consequent health. 

What I soon discovered was that pre-European Maori had a comprehensive array of training techniques at the highest level and included expertise in strength and conditioning techniques for power, agility, quickness, speed, coordination, flexibility, muscular endurance, strength and aerobic conditioning.

In addition these strength and conditioning techniques were garnered from their most abundant resource i.e., the environment that they lived in and shared with other living beings. That is, Maori looked to their atua (gods), kaitiaki (guiding animals) and tipua (spiritual animals e.g., taniwha) to make sense of their world and strengthen their control over their collective destiny (iwi, hapu, whanau). Maori began to look to the characteristics and personality traits of their atua, kaitiaki and tipua as guiding forces on which to build strength and conditioning programmes for not only the physical (tinana) attributes but also their mental toughness (hinengaro) and spiritual connections (wairua) to their environment.

Jumping forward some centuries later, Maori have come from being highly attuned to their bodies through their environment, to representing some of the worst health statistics on the global scale of indigenous health.

Based on the above, the intention is to build physical activity programmes that somehow use the environment in a contemporary manner to improve or increase Maori physical activity and consequent health. More concisely - this will be a global first of culture informing physical activity informing health.

In summary, this new initiative has been developed to build a socially and culturally valid approach to improving Maori health by; proving to contemporary Maori that pre-European Maori valued physical training and consequent health, that a more culturally and socially sound strength-based approach exists to counter the current deficit model and that, Maori may lead other indigenous people in the the shift to valuing their health. Lastly and with some irony, this means that many of the activities peculiar to Maori i.e., whakapapa,  tikanga, kawa, atuatanga, kaitiakitanga and tipuatanga may in fact be the key to Maori understanding the role of physical activity and why it should be valued because of it’s connection with our genetic origins.

Atuatanga based physical activity

It was massive to catch up with Dr. Ihirangi Heke in Gisborne.

Dr. Hekes been working on Atua based physical acitivties, where knowledge from our tipuna can inform our activities today.

It's all about recconecting, "what can we learn from our Atua and Tipuna that will helkp our whakapapa continue?

Since colonisation our health in general has taken a turn for the worse and the western system does not work for Maori so we need to find our own solutions, by Maori, for Maori from te Ao Maori.

We beleive we can find our solutions in matauranga maori, our tipuna learnt what was good for them by studying the environment and learning from the natural world of nga atua, their atea, ahua and their tamariki's traits that have helped them survive the test of time. 

Ki o Rahi and the other games are a great start but we need to start thinking about the next steps, where to from here?

At the moment it's in it's conceptual phase and we want to hear from you if you have heard any korero around this or have some ideas of what it may end up looking like?

Ngati Hine Health Trust Heritage Trail

Join the matauranga whanui team for a day of workshops, demonstrations and a mini tri series.

At Waitangi sports grounds in the Bay of Islands

18th of October, from 10am to 3pm

Open to all ages so great day out for the whole whanau. esp around the school holidays!

For more info you can email robyn@mataurangawhanui.org.nz

Naumai haere mai ki a Kahu Tamatea

We would like to take this opportunity to welcome Kahu to our regional team.

Some of you may know him from Turanga health in Gizzy, others may know him from his exploits on the rugby field with the Poverty bay team, but most will know him as the "face" in face book.

When he's not busy on line or txting his fan, he's running ki o rahi and other Maori games in the schools around Wellington

Good to have you on board bro!