Mau rākau lessons with taiaha taking place at Karamū High School. Photo / RNZ, Alexa Cook
By Alexa Cook of RNZ
Classes in mau rākau, traditional Māori martial arts, in Hawke’s Bay are seeing a surge in demand with numbers more than tripling in the past year, especially for wāhine.
Established by Johnny Nepe Apatu, about 150 Māori and Pākehā aged from 6 years old to over 60 are picking up the taiaha to learn mau rākau.
Inside Karamū High School’s gym on a cold Wednesday night, dozens of Nepe Apatu’s pupils come to greet the kaumātua with a hongi or a hug. The 70-year-old local is the driving force behind mau rākau’s revitalisation and is passionate about inspiring younger generations.
“It actually teaches you to be humble, it teaches you to be resistant. It teaches you to become a leader and it also teaches you to assist in helping people to grow and develop,” he said.
In the past year, numbers have grown in the region, with three classes now being held in Napier and Hastings. The two-hour sessions are all taught in te reo and are run by volunteers and parents. Nepe Apatu told RNZ he sees people from all walks of life join up.
“We’ve got people who have difficulty with expression, have difficulty around other people, have difficulty speaking.”
Nepe Apatu’s mau rākau teacher was Sir Pita Sharples, who was taught by war hero Colonel Arapeta Awatere. And now it is Awatere’s grandson, Te Otāne Huata, who is working alongside Nepe Apatu.
“We’re in this whare, not just so we can bang sticks together, but we are also here to connect to our ancestors, connect to the ancient knowledge systems that they had back in the day and bring us closer to who we are as Māori and our identity,” Huata said.
He said while mau rākau was not solely responsible for turning some people’s lives around, it did play a big part.
“I see that quite often, but I suppose when you get here you’ve already gone over the hump.
“This whare is very important as a place to support the transformation of rangatahi [youth] ... although there is no need for transformation if you start here,” he said.
One of Nepe Apatu’s newest pupils is 14-year-old Peyton King, who describes mau rākau as a type of meditation where there is a safe space to express herself and release tension.
“Because I have a lot of siblings at my home and I get angry at them because I’m the oldest ... I can’t put my stress out on them so when I come here, I get rarked up.
“It’s not just about fighting, it’s about protecting yourselves and your family, it gives me a lot of confidence since (i’ve experienced) bullying from schools,” Peyton said.
The mau rākau classes are proving popular among wāhine, with a big increase in women picking up the taiaha in recent years.
“When I heard that they invited wāhine, I got so excited, I was like yess! That we feel included in something we actually want to do,” Peyton said.
Her classmate Kara Huata began the course about six years ago.
“It’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. It’s really cool to see more wāhine here and getting involved ... it inspires me,” Kara said.
Like other martial arts, mau rākau has eight different stages or levels to progress through. There are 15 types of “strikes” and 15 “blocks”, where the athletes are constantly moving their bodies and shifting their energy.
It is about much more than just physical exercise though. Nepe Apatu told RNZ it had been a valuable tool in steering many away from a life of crime.
“Mainly because the purpose is there is a focus, there is a sharpness and there is lifting yourself up,” he said.
As a suicide awareness co-ordinator, Nepe Apatu had also seen mau rākau literally save lives.
“There are all sorts of people we meet in this job, not just people who are suicidal, but people who might not even look like they are suicidal, but they are.
“It’s about identifying the different traits that steer towards harm. A lot of it is based around trauma, trauma they’ve grown up with and trauma they can’t release.”
It’s a trauma he has experienced first-hand, growing up in the 1950s and 1960s when he was punished for speaking te reo Māori.
“And I don’t mean just strapped, you’re getting bloody wallopped – they did everything possible to shut you up,” Nepe Apatu said.
In 1975 Nepe Apatu pushed himself to learn more about te reo, and 43 years ago when Pita Sharples developed the first ever curriculum for mau rākau, Nepe Apatu picked up the taiaha too. Mau rākau is now being taught all over the world.
“It gives me great satisfaction ... it’s something that I embellish, and I can instil that in others,” he said.
– RNZ