The Sticks

One of the areas that we visited while at the Maori village was childrens games. Kids were taught it but it was to strengthen their hands and give them skills to defend themselves later in life.

The sticks were about six inches long and round, two of the women gave a demo, then they moved to sticks that were longer and they twirled and twisted them. The wrist movements were incredible.

Next they asked the chief to choose two men and two women to come out.  I was chosen! What the ? Not knowing what was coming next, I stepped forward to join the others.

First we had to learn some words, turned out we were learning left and right.

 Once we learnt the words, she would call the words and we needed to leave our stick and move to the next one. A few goes and we got them all right, then the sticks were moved further out. This time the other girl and I went out after two turns. Certainly did make one think.