Maori battle chant
Performed before rugby games
Is it offensive?
Every match.
I believe that New Zealand teams in any sport might claim the right to do a haka in some form pre-game, though it seems to be an exclusively male ritual.
Watching the NZ basketball team (the Tall Blacks) i.e. squad of 7 foot tall scrawny white guys) perform Ka Mate is frankly a hoot.
I look forward to the time that a Kiwi makes an Olympic 100m final. The haka would fit in well with the other pre-race mind games they play.
It takes real balls to pull off a solo haka, especially in response to the entire regiment doing a cibi tau first.
Thanks, that was refreshing =)
So here’s what I’m missing - in all the American sports I’m familiar with, there isn’t any sort of pregame thing where both teams are just standing facing each other on the field for any period of time. Is that a normal rugby thing, that the All-Blacks happened to use for the haka, or did they just start doing the haka and the other team felt compelled in some way to stand and watch it?
For a basketball example - in the NBA, both teams will warm up on the court at the same time (I think), each team on their own half court. If one team stopped warming up and started doing a performance of some sort, I’d guess the other team would stop for a second to see what the hell was going on, then continue their warmup.
Yes, and hockey players warm up on their own side of the ice. But anyone who crosses the line is asking for it.
That isn’t a ritual, just warmups.
So in rugby matches that don’t include the All-Blacks, do the teams line up and face each other for some period of time while not warming up? If so, why?
Yes. Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa all have their traditional dances that are performed before the match. One of my favorite moments from RWC 2015 was this, the Tongan Sipi Tau followed by the NZ Kamate haka.
As I wrote in the other thread the last time this came up, when I played in college we had a very politically incorrect fight song that we huddled up and sang before kickoff, and other teams had their own traditions.
I really fail to understand why people who apparently don’t even watch much rugby have their panties in a twist about this.
My panties aren’t even slightly twisted. I’m just curious how it came about, since it would be effectively impossible for the major American sports I’m familiar with, besides pro wrestling. So it sounds like in rugby there is a generally accepted pregame ritual where the teams face each other and put on a show for their opponent, and the haka is just the most famous of them.
It only really happens if either of the teams does a Haka. As has been mentioned, several countries from the region have a variant.
I think you’re over-generalizing. There isn’t *necessarily *any pregame antics. Go watch the Springboks vs. Japan World Cup match on youtube (you really should, it’s great match).
At the beginning, they sing the national anthems and then start the game, there is no “stare down” period.
The answer, as with so many things in life, is it depends.
Also, I think you’re wrong about it being “impossible” for American sports.
Look at team introductions for the NFL. Players run out onto the field accompanied by fireworks, blaring rock music, people running around with giant flags, gouts of sparks and flame, and dozens of scantily-clad cheerleaders while the other team has to just “stand there like a bunch of spare pricks”, in the immortal words of bucketybuck.
Here’s an example, this nonsense took over three minutes, versus the maybe 30 seconds it takes to do the haka. And just look at the mascot at the beginning doing that “war-like” dance! He even pounds the ground like in a haka!
I agree that NFL intros are way over the top. But in that video, I don’t see the opposing team standing in a line and watching it.
There’s a New Zealand All Blacks elephant-polo team that comes here every year and does a Haka at the start of the tournament.
No one forces the other team to watch the haka. It is done because of respect for tradition or because the team chooses to face it as a show of their own determination.
I think te comparison to the NFL intros is valid because the other team is on the field, or on their sideline, and they are certainly not able to plan or do drills while that din of sound and fury is going on. They are forced to endure a 3 minute spectacle. If they chose to link arms and stand on the 20 yard line it would be the same thing opponents do during the haka.
Jarred Hayne should teach his team a haka for them to use at games.
It would be the high point of the game for the 49’ers.
The New Zealand Badminton team was called (for a brief time) the Black Cocks. Apparently, their Haka was the most terrifying of all.
Really, the Haka has only come into prominence as a ‘sacred’ ritual in the last 30 or so years. It has always been done before NZ rugby games, but up until the 1970s it was frankly a bit embarrassing. I think it was the captain Graeme Mourie who decided ‘If we have to do this thing we are going to do it right’.
Here’s the Haka from 1978:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBCpPGNDr1U
How much warming up do you think visiting NBA teams playing the Bulls were doing during that introduction by Ray Clay to the backdrop of “Sirius”?
[quote=“Wallaby, post:98, topic:736192”]
Here’s the Haka from 1978:
[/QUOTE]That is without a doubt one of the whitest things I’ve ever seen 