February 27, 2015
Whakapapa link to exercise regime
An Auckland Maori public health provider says telling Maori they need to exercise for the sake of their health doesn’t work, and a new framework is needed.
Leonie Matoe from Toi Tangata has spent the last three days at a hui a tau of Maori health and fitness experts at the Otago School of Physical Education in Karitane near Dunedin.
She says they were looking for new frameworks derived from kaupapa Maori.
The hui looked at the Dr Ihirangi Heke’s concept of Atua Matua about drawing on the Maori knowledge bound up in concepts like the environmental deities.
"Think about your maunga and the knowledge and the connection that you have to your maunga, but then you might ask have I actually been to my maunga? Have I walked that maunga? Have I connected with the whenua in the space of that maunga and have I learnt anything of the history and the knowledge that is connected with me? You find that in the pursuit of that knowledge the physical activity, the movement is just a by product of a much bigger and meaningful activity," Ms Matoe says.
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