Wierd timing.
I actualy sparred with a Maori just last week.
He was brought up on Maori martial arts and also studies Kyokushinkai Karate (sp?) and a bit of our internals.
If you ever want to find out just how quickly your balls are capable of retracting into your abdomen, get challenged by a Moari.
Seriously he was actualy a very nice guy and we had a lot of good fun mucking around.
He also showed me a fair wack of his traditional arts, mainly the spear.
I was darn impressed with his spear work, it was mixed in with dance as is a lot of Maori arts now but you could still see many very applicable movements.
From what he told me and also what ive read:
Maori arts are pretty much tribal and will vary depending on the tribe which initiated it.
There is a large element of dance to the movements and anyone who has seen the NZ Rugby team will know that Maoris like intimidating people though dance.
One of the more interesting aspect of the art IMHO was the use of fear and emotions. Maori fighters will poke there tounges out stamp there feet and generaly look like they want to rip your head off and feed it back to you with a spoon.
They will also shout loudly at oppotune times and will use a mixture between very hard powerfull movements and quite soft supple ones to try to confuse.
Another thing i found interesting was the way that force was generated.
Nearly all movements where round in some way and basicaly none where strait. He would use a bit of straits and crosses but the majority of his hand works was either backhand or large slapping style movements - also some *mean* hook punches.
The only thing i could really attribute this to was the build of most Maoris being so large accross the sholders. I tried to imagine a Maori guy doing Wing Chun and started to come to a bit of an idea of why so many of there movements are so large, i mean heck if you have that much mass you may as well make good use of it.
All in all it was a good experience and im looking forward to training with the guy again.
PS That websites school seems to be in my city, if i get a chance ill drop in there over the next couple of weeks and post back with some impressions.
Last edited by jon; 05-07-2003 at 06:51 PM.
Up and down, forward and backward, left and right, its all the same. All of this is done with the mind, not externaly.
------------------------------------
Shaped dragon and looking monkey, sitting tiger and turning eagle.
"I wonder how they would do against jon's no-tension fu. I bet they'd do REALLY WELL."
- Huang Kai Vun