KAPAI: Ding-dong of bullrush can teach our kids plenty

When we were kids growing up in middle Mount Maunganui the playground of our Omanu School was where we developed many of our social and sporting skills to take us through life. And for many of us Mounties the natural amphitheatre of Omanu School, locally known as the hollow, was where we battled for bullrush supremacy.
Bullrush or kingasini as we knew it was more than just a game for us kids and it was more than coming home with the sleeve missing from a shirt or a couple of teeth missing from the mouth. It was a lesson in life itself about how to look after your mates, how to choose your friends and how to outfox the enemy using strategic alliances and well planned moves.
The best bullrush exponents were not the big buggers who could cut a swathe through the middle of the hollow huddle, nor was it the fast and furious skinny fullas who usually skirted around the fringes before having a go _ only to exit stage left via a full frontal forearm.
No the bragging rights of bullrush usually belonged to the tacticians of the game who rarely were caught because they timed their runs to perfection, toward the weakest links where big gaps opened up wider than a Warriors back line. These same tacticians would be humble in their victory knowing full well they would face the same opposition tomorrow.
My strategy was simple for bullrush. I had seven sisters who usually had an admirer in the middle of the bullrush arena and I ran straight toward them knowing full well dropping me meant one of my sisters dropping them.
In fact the game of bullrush has groomed many a Kiwi kid into what they are today. I bet Winston would have been a good bullrush player as would many of our political leaders who can side-step an opponent by making them believe they are on their side. Talkback hosts like Willy Jackson and John Tamahere who purposefully polarise each other's opinion are masters at the broadcasting version of bullrush as are a few of our local leaders, both Maori and non-Maori.
Billy the Kid Faulkner and Murray the Guy from boys' college show signs of a schoolyard grooming in the bullrush pen and big Mo Moultrie would have been great to have in any defensive bullrush team.
We are about to see if the new kid on the block, Bridges, cut his teeth on bullrush. And I bet Bob the builder would have had a pocket full of marbles come playtime at school _ paying off the fat fullas before they could bring him down during bullrush.
And if that failed he would have told them all to get stuffed and bulldozed his way forward anyway.
Graeme Weld would have played bullrush with his gummies on and John Cronin would have sent out a couple of decoys while he did a deal with the weakest link in the bullrush back-line.
So is bullrush a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of our tamariki as some are saying? I think not.
Banning bullrush and wrapping up our kids in cotton wool is being way too PC. For my two bobs' worth a few dings and a couple of good dongs in the playground are all part of growing up, just ask local legend of the bullring Bull Allen.
And do our schools generate violence? Not in the 85 Bay schools I have taught in. Usually the violence comes to school from homes where anger is the currency of affection. And when this anger is dished out and downloaded from hard drives of unhappy homes, down to our schools, we need to crouch and hold before we engage in continuously blaming teachers for the failures in our whanau and families.
Perhaps we need to put ourselves in the bullrush arena and work out how to play the game of life fairly and squarely, before playing the game of blame with our teachers and schools.
Pai marire broblack@xtra.co.nz