Every ancient culture had this piece, especially those with a strong warrior class.
Exercises for strength.
Hindu, Greeks, Spartans, Samurai, Chinese, and the list continues. Yes, ancient Hawaiians had hula, lua, farmed, and so forth but after continuous research, I have yet to find any specific accounts of strength exercises.
The most I found was in the book Lua: Art of the Hawaiian Warrior which mentioned:
In training new students, the ʻōlohe would first ensure each student’s limbs and body were supple. Students leaped, crawled, dodged, hung from legs and arms, performed somersaults, backbends, and other moves.
Physical education emphasized body development, and endurance practices such as breathing exercises, gymnastics, tumbling, calisthenic and weight lifting.
The physical education piece seemed quite broad to me. But what caught my attention was the weight lifting component. Earlier, I wrote a post titled Is Weightlifting a Hawaiian Practice? to which I concluded, yes.
One of the big tests of strength during ancient times was rock lifting or hapai pohaku. But as one who has dedicated his life to strength, I know there was more especially because of the numerous historical essays that praises the Ancient Hawaiians to have muscular, strong, and good looking bodies.
Another essay “Polynesian Bodies” – Why Polynesian Bodies Build Muscle Better, said:
Polynesian people are descendants of those early mariners that crossed the great waters and became the original inhabitants of the South Pacific Islands. In order to survive those long cold oceanic journeys, their Polynesian bodies evolved to develop maximum muscle building capabilities as a means of generating and preserving body temperature.
and continues to…
In the absence of the extreme physical labors performed by our Polynesian ancestors, and the readily abundant food in western cultures, it is no surprise that Polynesian bodies have a tendency to gain unsightly body fat. This storage of excess energy was a survival adaptation for the days of leanness prevalent in the island cultures, but completely absent in western cultures.
With today’s health issues amongst Native Hawaiians, I can’t help but think of strength training and exercise as the missing link. As a culture, we have perpetuated and preserved many of the practices like hula, lua, la’au lapa’au, lomilomi, farming, and language but yet the health aspect of Native Hawaiians continues to decline.
That’s what I’m interested in.
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To me, it seems that the culture continues to strengthen but not because of the overall health. The bigger picture. Child obesity, adult obesity, diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension, drug addiction and alcoholism still plague Native Hawaiians.
Why?
I believe it’s because of the missing pieces of exercise and strengthening one’s body through physical activity that our culture doesn’t pay enough attention to. They talk about it but don’t take action. And if they do take action it turns into an ordeal of not being Hawaiian enough. But that’s another topic for a different day.
2 Responses
Great article! Especially the last section “why?” There seems to be a renaissance of learning, and uncovering arts that were almost lost, which is so inspiring! But, there is a constant pull back to “is this Hawaiian enough”. Focusing on that, as opposed to focusing on uncovering, preserving and then actually evolving — could be the issue. I read another post about your position on lifting rocks vs. lifting weights – that was a great example of this. It happens in all disciplines, Lomi, Hula, etc, all the same. The health issue I feel is a similar symptom. People are reconnecting with tradition, kalo, farming, as you mentioned, and being proud of that connection. But, the diet is still spam : ) We need to live Ku, not talk about it, and we have to embody the principals without being afraid to evolve the practice or tools available (lifting rocks vs. weights). Spam and alcoholism is not a Hawaiian tradition. In my opinion : ) Nice article, and I appreciate the work! Aloha nui loa!
Mahalo for the comment Kekoa. But you hit it right on the dot about having the ability to evolve especially with the resources we have today. For me, physical performance invigorates honest self expression which is part of the journey towards living Ku. Aloha my braddah.