Michelle Manu never dreamed she'd become a kumu (master) of lua, the ancient secret Hawaiian martial art, but now she's teaching a new generation how to connect with their inner warrior.
The lua was banned from public display two centuries ago by Queen Ka'ahumanu after hearing “the cries of amazement from horrified missionaries who saw the lua being played at a ceremony.”
It then “remained hidden within the hula” until hula was also banned a few years later.
For Michelle, one of five children whose father is of Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese and English descent and whose mother is of Norwegian, Danish and Scottish descent, discovering that was a challenge in itself.
Michelle's father turned his back on Hawaii and his family to pursue an education in California at a young age, and for reasons Michelle never understands, she and her siblings were forbidden from tracing their Hawaiian roots.
But she continued to want to know more.
Michelle's family moved frequently during her childhood and she was often an outsider.
“Being a girl… [and] “I was mixed race, so there wasn't a lot of diversity back then. There was maybe one other Hawaiian family in my high school,” she told ABC's Stories From The Pacific.
“Most people [didn’t] I don't know what Polynesian or Hawaiian is.”
But Michelle said being a “newcomer” so often had its benefits, such as teaching her perseverance, and that she was able to be exposed to Hawaiian culture from an early age, despite her father's prohibitions.
At the age of 15, she moved to Chicago where she met a Samoan-Italian family and began performing traditional dances with them.
It was a grueling schedule, with as many as 11 performances a week, each lasting between 45 minutes and two hours, and Michelle would go to the gym, sometimes twice a day, to keep up her cardio.
She said she loves hula but doesn't yet understand the martial arts aspect of rua, which has not been easy to find since it went underground.
“So there are a lot of Kanaka Maoli. [native Hawaiians] “I've never seen Lua, I've never had any exposure to Lua,” Michelle said.
“And unfortunately, it remains a secret from those who still want to learn.”
Eventually, she found her kumu, Olohe Solomon Kaihewalu, but it took all the perseverance she had honed as a child to join his class and prove herself.
She wasn't allowed to speak to her future mentor in person. She would call, and he would hang up. She would call, and he would hang up. But she knew this was one of those “pivotal moments” of his life, so she kept calling until he finally relented and invited her to come observe a class.
“They were a beautiful group, they moved like a military force, and you could really see the respect they had for their teacher,” Michelle recalls.
“8 years of bullying”
She enrolled the next day but had a hard time gaining the respect of her classmates, who saw her as a nuisance and an outcast because she was a woman.
“[They said] My mana was going crazy. I was going crazy. Really going crazy. I was not healthy. [but] Training healed me.
“he [ Ōlohe Kaihewalu] “He was a very beautiful man, but he was also very tough. A very old-fashioned man. He was educated by his mother and his father, who were educated by their parents. I took it very seriously because what I was learning was lineage.”
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She described her own initiation as “eight years of freshman bullying” that involved numerous physical injuries.
“I had to endure all those classes. I broke the right side of my rib cage, had multiple concussions, broke all my fingers. I think I blacked out once, but I can't really remember,” she said, laughing.
“I broke the inside of my hip. I think I just forgot about it. After a while, I just keep going back and get through it.”
“I think my teacher wanted me to quit, but I'm not going to give up. I've been through so much before, during and after training that nothing can shake me physically.”
“I bite. With my teeth. Forget about technique. When it comes down to it, I'll go for it until my last breath. That's my motto. It's not over until it's over.”
Michelle never imagined she'd one day become a kumu, but now she has embraced the role, even if it means taking a slightly softer approach than her revered teacher.
“There is only one Olohe Kaihewalu. [was] “It's amazing, it's very rigorous, it's tough and it's fast. I want to be all of those things, but with velvet gloves on,” she said.
“I don't want to do it out of fear or intimidation. I want to do it out of nurturing, to say, 'Listen, I'll meet you wherever you are and I'll show up because you show up, but you've got to show up and you've got to give me your best shot.'
What it means to be a woman warrior
Michelle said her goal is to educate people about Lua and make it more available and accessible.
“Our culture is written from a very male perspective, and sometimes it's not even written from our own hand,” she said.
“So many Kanaka believe that women were not part of the Lua tribe and that they did not have female warrior ancestors.
“I'm here to tell you that's not true.”
She said the word “warrior” has been overused, misused and become a cliché.
“Men pride themselves on being warriors… but ordinary women don't like that term because we don't want to go to war. We don't want to hurt anyone… because we are the protectors,” she said.
“To me, being a female warrior is intelligence. Masculine Kuu and feminine intuition, Hina. You can't have one without the other.”
“And that translates into every area of our lives: academics, personal relationships, professional relationships. We can use this warrior wisdom in everything we do.”
Michelle's teaching focuses on intentional movement, considering the body, mind and soul as one, and she says this starts with treating the body “like a family member that can't look after itself, rather than thinking we can tell it what to do.”
“It gives us a message, and that's really appreciated,” she said, “so I really believe that if you set a mental intention before you start moving about why you're moving, it brings everybody together and harmonizes… then you get the most out of the movement.”
“If invited [home to Hawaii] Teaching…it's great to see them [students] Going deep into your inner self, [they think]”Oh, this is why I was created this way. This is what I was missing.” And that energy wells up throughout our bodies and changes things.
“The actual movement is medicine. You don't have to take medicine. You don't have to drink alcohol.”
“For us Polynesians, we believe that our bodies are conduits for this mana, and the more we move, the more we heal.”
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