(Michelle Manu is a practitioner of Lua, an ancient and modern Hawaiian martial art. There are said to be elements of Lua in Danzan Ryu Jiu-jutsu, the Jiu-jutsu that was part of the original formation of Kajukenbo.)
Kajukenbo Okayama: Tell us about yourself.
Michelle Manu: Well, my name is Michelle Manu and I’ve been in martial arts for 40 years this year. I’ve taken hula since I was 3 years old. I was a professional touring Polynesian performer for 7 years and then returned to the midwest for about 5 years to continue helping my group. I started teaching Lua in 2010, and I’ve been publicly sharing it since 2013. My teacher (Solomon Kaihewalu) passed about 5 years ago, and there’s been a lot of evolution since his passing.
I always said I didn’t want to be married to a school, but I’m married to a school [laughs]. To my school, and to my dedicated students. That’s what I do. Who I am? I’m a mom, I’m a grandmother. I have a law degree (Juris Doctorate) and have worked in the legal field for 28 years. I always wanted to be a businesswoman, but I’m so glad that it doesn’t consume who I am, nor does it define all of what I am or who I am. I think when you have the responsibility, the kuleana if you will, of a kumu…
There’s “Kumu Manu” and there’s “Michelle Manu”. The personal, and kuleana side…they tend to clash. And usually what wins is the “Kumu Manu” side. I think me as a person, I take my responsibilities really seriously. I live and breathe, walk, talk, and eat Lua, probably to a point that would appear very “unbalanced” to a normal individual. But I think, also, the normal individual doesn’t share my same purpose: to protect, educate, and promote and share the Hawaiian Lua with respectful individuals. To try to destigmatize, and to bring awareness, to the fact that women had our own roles as warriors in ancient times, and we have our own roles here, today. We’re not competing with the men. We have our own value to add. That’s pretty much what I do, and who I am.
KO: You mentioned that you started teaching 2010. Was that just Lua?
MM: Yes, just Lua. I had to ask special permission from my teacher, because all of us were sequestered during our training. We weren’t allowed to go public, or speak about our training. Our paths were very much those of a soldier. We followed orders, and focused on our own development.
Michelle Manu and Solomon Kaihewalu, 2006.
But then there was a women’s group that reached out in 2008 and wanted me to teach them, the Pacific Association of Women Martial Artists, PAWMA. They reached out…and I don’t know how they found me…and I immediately thought “no, I can’t teach them, and I’m not even asking my teacher for permission. I would never ask if I could share the art.” But they just persisted. They were pursuing a theme, I think, of rhythm and sound, and they wanted to know “is there any such thing like a warrior art, or a martial art for the Hawaiian people.” So, I found the courage to eventually ask my teacher, and it was probably the third time talking about it that he said “I’ll talk to you about this now.”
And he said “Sure. Go ahead. You can share. But this is what you share, this is how you share it, and this is how many you share it with, and this is the time you can share it for.” So I followed his strict instructions, I went to the PAWMA camp that year, 2010, in Northern California, and I failed tremendously. I did exactly what he told me to do. But there’s no way to teach three different weapons, to 30 women, in 40 minutes.
KO: [Laughs]
MM: Just having to rotate to each of those rings, those groups, was extremely stressful. I don’t feel I was giving the proper attention to any of the groups, or honoring each weapon appropriately. I felt like a huge failure. So I came back, and my teacher said “How did it go?” And I said “It was horrible. It was terrible.” And he said “And what did you learn?” And I said “That I have to do it my own way” [laughs].
And from that point forward, I’ve been learning how to do it my own way. I’m not my teacher. I may move like him, but I’m not him. I’m a woman. We do more circular movements, where the men do more “a and b” straight-line movements. Of course we learn that if we train with the men, but generally we learn differently. We interpret things differently. And I had to find my own way, especially when teaching women.
KO: Your instructor had strict instructions for you sharing Lua, and you learned that you had to teach it your way. Do you think that was your instructor’s intention?
MM: Well, he probably didn’t want me out there teaching anyway [laughs]. I wasn’t ready. Even though I had been with him for 13 years at that point, and of course was a black belt and then some. Y’know, being a black belt, being a high-ranking black belt, doesn’t make you a good instructor. Those are two exclusively separate things. So one, I don’t think he was ready for me to ask. And two, I think he was setting me up to fail, knowing full well as a soldier I would follow his every instruction, so I could see that I needed to learn how to read the room, know my audience and their specific skill set and mind set, know what to teach, and know how to teach it. I think he set me up to fail so that I could succeed in the future.
I’ve found now, after all these years, that students can steer what you teach. They can stop and ask a question, not even about what you’ve just shown, and it lets you know that you actually need to put aside what you thought you were gonna go over, and instead go over what’s being asked. That, you don’t learn from an academic textbook, or notes that you have from class. This comes from your own sequestered training, where you are the library. You don’t need to look anything up, you just know.
KO: What is Lua, exactly?
MM: Lua is the only indigenous warrior art to the people of Hawai'i. So, Kajukenbo was birthed, and combined, and finalized there on the ʻāina, the (Hawaiian) land. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it was from the Hawaiian people. Lua is of the Hawaiian people.
We have several origin stories, but everyone always asks, like, “What is it based on?” and “What does it look like?” And I understand why people would ask what it looks like, because there isn’t much public display of it. You don’t see our lineages back home sharing readily with individuals that are not of the Hawaiian culture, for specific reasons connected with disrespect, or perceived disrespect. Today, in our taste-testing/connoisseur/“I’m a collector” martial arts culture, you see a lot of individuals go to a workshop, or pay for a private lesson with a master of a different art that they aren’t currently associated with. And then you’ll see them work what they’ve learned into their current art, and then not give credit to the art they took it from. While that may appear as a compliment in today’s time, it’s absolutely a huge cultural disrespect for the Hawaiian people and Lua as a whole. And I think that’s why a lot of the lineages on the ʻāina, not the diaspora per se, choose to only teach Hawaiians. They generally have a good understanding of what is proper and what is not.
We should already know, if you’re gonna learn something from a different art, from a different teacher, that you should give respect and mention that you learned it and are incorporating it. It’s important to allow others to know both what you’re showing and where it originated.
So, Lua itself looks a lot like the more ceremonial hula. I wouldn’t say “ancient” hula, because that’s known as “ha`a” (something similar to the New Zealand “haka”), but rather what we call “kahiko”. Not what we’ve seen in Kahiko in recent years, where you see a modern blend with the ceremonial. Kahiko hula is very strict. There used to be no smiling; it’s very purposeful. A lot of Kahiko’s motions are very rigid, very strong, like the “ascending hawk”. You’ll see the ascending hawk “non-contact”: it’s storytelling, and continuing our 'ōlelo, our history.
If you were to take those motions into “full-contact”, that’s a lot of what Lua looks like. It’s based off of specific animals and nature elements. We can combine many animals into one ai, or technique. So these are all different maneuvers, but they would be blended into one technique. Once you reach a level of proficiency in Lua, a level of fluency, then you’re able to transition from one animal, into the wind, into another animal, into the ocean, the waves. You know, into the tree falling to the ground, to another animal. So you start to see this beautiful fluidity, this beautiful display of all of that coming together.
There were those who were born into the Lua profession. They didn’t just do martial arts. They learned all about navigation, medicine, bone setting, horticulture, deep sea diving, spear fishing, long-distance running, warrior massage…they knew all of these as warriors. They needed them as they traveled, and they were deployed. They were the ones that were born into the profession of being a warrior; they were raised in it. And then there were those that were recruited, from other cultural practices, that were needed. Their profession then became being “warriors”. And third, there were those that were actually drafted.
That third group, the ones that were drafted, are really important. There are a lot of people out there that say “First and foremost, the Hawaiian people were warriors.” That’s not necessarily true. There was a kapu, a code set up for society, and everyone had their own roles. And they were all equal and valuable. Today, everyone wants to be the top influencer on social media, or the CEO of 14 different companies. That wasn’t the goal of the Hawaiian people back in the day. The individual farmer that was caring for the ʻāina was extremely important. They provided sustenance for everyone, including the warriors. And then you had the kahu, the “priests” who upheld the spiritual matters, knowing that if someone harmed someone else in this lifetime, it would cause a ripple effect into all the other generations to come. So, ho'oponopono, the spiritual practice of “making things right” comes from that. And that’s not like today, by the way, which was infiltrated by a lot of the Christian belief systems; it was the ancient ways of making things right, which didn’t always mean things were kumbaya/pollyanna/everyone having a lūʻau afterwards. It did sometimes end in death.
In ancient Lua, joint dislocation was very important, because we didn’t want to kill. It was more about stopping an attack, and “de-escalating” if you will, in our language today. But then as the king started to unite the islands, it did become centered on a lot of bloodshed and maximum kills. So the intention of using Lua changed, for the king’s purpose. And then of course he evolved, and started to incorporate metal weapons. He was so enthralled with metal weapons. And so, the role of the warrior changed, and continued to evolve, all throughout time, but largely after contact with non-Hawaiian cultures.
Lua is more than just a martial art. I see a lot of teachers just teaching the martial aspect. And that’s a shame, because they’re missing out on the whole “warrior” aspect. This is a battlefield art, so we don’t train static. We train with movement, right? It looks ugly, and it’s messy. There’s a lot more failure than success, but this is why we train. We gain more information on ourselves. Our distance, our balance. Drawing from our own individual library, from our training, over and over and over again, so you don’t have to think when you respond.
On the spiritual side, people will say “mind, body, spirit.” But it’s actually “body” first. That’s the tether to Mother Earth. It’s how we move about the world, and exist. If we’re not balanced, our mind doesn’t have clarity, and we can’t hear the spiritual. So I talk to my students about this too. Are you balanced? Hormones, minerals, vitamins, mindset. If you have a shit attitude, if you talk crap to yourself, if you’re talking crap about others and to others, that mana, that power, will actually hinder your own life. It’s like drinking poison or throwing acid on yourself. I know these are such “woo-woo” concepts to the world that we live in today, because we live in this physical, western, “civilized” world. But these are very important concepts to the Hawaiian warrior, if they’re truly studying everything that is Lua, and not just the martial aspect.
KO: Were men and women trained separately in Lua?
MM: Yes, that was part of the original Lua. Men and women were separated, and many of the elders will tell you that women were trained very quickly, very intensely, and that their version of Lua was actually deadlier. This is because of their roles.
One, they weren’t going off with the troops, to travel. They were staying home, watching the animals and the keikis (children), and all the items of value that were there. So they had to learn the Lua. They had to learn to defend themselves with what they were holding. Woman also, after contact (with non-Hawaiian cultures) and maybe a little bit before, had other reason to protect themselves too.
You had all these foreigners coming, and Hawaiians were a very sexual people. Procreation was very important to populate the ʻāina and have “hands” for the farms and for the land. These visitors came and saw these bronze women wearing less clothing than they were used to seeing, who were fairly open, without Christian ideals. Those visitors brought a lot of diseases, and there was often not a free exchange. From ancient times not all exchanges were fair, and even in Hawaii there were always criminals among us. They were of course punished accordingly, usually by a swift death. But then you have all these non-Hawaiian visitors coming, taking, and forcing women. Taking them on their boats, leaving with them. So women had to know how to defend themselves, but they couldn’t just duke it out; they would just go for the kill.
But even prior to King Kamehameha, in wartime, I know of one regimen that was all female, on the island of Oʻahu. They served as intelligence within the community. They were great at camouflage, they were great at using poisons, they were great at using their own homemade explosives. They’re not well-known, but it goes to show you that women in every culture, every culture from the beginning of time through today, were and have been used differently than male warriors.
My work on women warriors in my thesis was to show that every woman I came across in my research, women who were warriors in ancient times, was not just physically proficient and a killer, but was also connected to the “divine”. Every single woman-warrior of ancient times was “mystical” in knowing things she shouldn’t have known. Like “when to attack”, “how to attack”, “what to attack”. It’s really fascinating to read, and I think that’s with us too, today. It’s very much in the Hawaiian culture. There’s this equal balance of intellect and intuition. Women tend to be more warriors than soldiers. Warriors have to ask the “why”. Being a soldier, following your orders without fail, completing your mission successfully…you’re kind of relieved and alleviated from any type of personal consequence. You may have an opinion later and may deal with it, maybe in post-traumatic stress disorder.
When you’re a warrior, you know what needs to be done, but you ask “why?” “Should I engage?” “How should I engage?” Knowing full well, that whatever you do, you’re accountable for. I see this with the women. They internalize a lot. And it’s funny, because teaching women today, which I had never intended to do…they have to believe that they can do it first, before they even go into the movements. We work a lot on mindset. Versus men…men don’t care. They think they can do it, and if not it’s “Let me see if I can do it”. Then the men start working through the techniques, and they start gaining their conditioning and confidence. And then they do it.
But women, they have to believe they can do it first. Then the mana comes. Then they walk through it. Over and over and over and over and over again. Then it comes. Then comes the confidence, then comes the skillset. So it’s like ass-backwards [laughs]. It’s really quite interesting.
KO: When did you start teaching women?
MM: It was 2014. I was brought to Atlanta, to teach a self defense course. I walked in, and there was like…74 women. In this huge dojo. I crossed over the threshold, and I looked at all these women, women of all ages, and it hit me. It was that intuition I’m talking about. It’s like this voice that has no words, and it said “You can’t teach them like your teacher taught you. You can’t teach them like you learned.”
And I thought, “What do I do now? I’m literally about to teach a class, right now.”
So I took them through some drills. And the fitness level wasn’t there, the body mechanics and body awareness wasn’t there. But I did my best, and they loved it. Now I’m a wiser teacher, so I get to start slow and see where the students are; I can correct their fist position, their biomechanics. If we have good foundation, we really can do anything and not hurt ourselves. We should never break our structure to try and break someone else’s structure. And this is just normal stuff that we learn in martial arts, but for everyday women, it’s very challenging. Especially, I think, because a lot of women haven’t resolved issues of the mana that they’re trying to feel and contain, and then transmute it and use it in our defense.
A lot of women have experienced a rape, or sexual assault, and they don’t want to feel that familiar energy in their body. They don’t want that force coming at them. A lot of the training is getting them used to that. On the other hand, there are some women that are just like “I’m gonna take you on!” and their attitude…they already believe! So they come in, and they’re ready. They’re fun. I always try to pair them together.
KO: Lua is taught to people who are accepted. Is there a limit to what you teach?
MM: I teach non-Hawaiians, and I will always teach non-Hawaiians. I will always teach children, I will always teach women, and I will always teach same-sex. As far as what they’re shown, yeah, it’s limited to what I feel I can share publicly. I do reserve the deeper aspects of Lua for my dedicated students. There are others, like my brothers, who will teach everything in the martial aspects, to everyone and anyone. But for me, since my teacher left us, I’ve been incorporating more and more of our culture, which wasn’t taught to me. I feel it’s important. I feel it roots us. I feel it gives us respect for the origin and the land.
KO: What part do you think Hawai'i and Lua have to play in the present and future of martial arts and fighting sports?
MM: Well, we have a lot of pro fighters, male and female, that are coming up through all the professional fighting platforms, but (with Lua) I don’t know. Unfortunately we don’t see Lua prevalent in the islands as much as other arts that have come to the islands, and come through the islands, or have been blended. I think, if the elders back home have any say about it, it’s going to continue to be taught to only those that are accepted. And that’s gonna be it. I don’t see it being on any storefronts.
But as far as fighting and martial arts on Hawai'i as a whole, I think it’s never gonna end. Even though the modern day thing since the “aloha era” has been about tourism, there’s still this really strong mana and current of warrior energy, and I think some feel it and some don’t feel it. I think it’s going to continue to be a huge thing for everyone in Hawai'i, regardless if they’re BJJ, or Kaju, or all the Chinese and Japanese arts. You got some really great arts there. And a lot of people can bang there. It’s funny, they say the east coast has the bark and the bite, they say the west coast only has the bark, and then you have Hawai'i, which doesn’t have the bark, but has the bite. That’s an interesting culture there.
KO: Do you have any martial artists that you look up to?
MM: I actually don’t have any. I spent all my life sequestered…and we didn’t have social media [laughs]. There was no social media back then. I mean, I found my teacher through the Yellow Pages. So, it’s not like we had access to see what other people were doing.
So I don’t know any. I can admire skillset, but I don’t know who those people are. And the duplicity of people nowadays with social media…they may be a fantastic martial artist, maybe have a ton of students, but not actually be a good person. So, I really don’t have anyone that I look up to per se.
You know, mana doesn’t lie. So when I see someone, and I see that they’re actually training, and they have functionality, they’re good to their students, that makes me feel good. But there’s no one that I actually “look up to”.
KO: Despite Kajukenbo being from Hawai'i, a lot of practitioners don’t know the real meaning of important Hawaiian words, like “aloha”, “mana”, and “pono”. Can you tell us exactly what those mean?
MM: Yeah, “aloha” means “hello”, “goodbye”, and “love”. They’re all encompassing. In many ways, it’s like “to care for” too, like “malama”. “I’m gonna care for you.” But it’s much deeper. Each letter actually means something, and you can look it up. You’ll get different ideas depending on where you look.
“Pono” means “good”. So, “That’s not pono”, “That’s not good.” Of course, those who are fluent in Hawaiian will use it appropriately.
And the other one you mentioned was “mana”. Mana is…some people say “Oh, mana is the equivalent to chi…” It’s not [laughs]. It’s much deeper. Like in a lot of things in the Hawaiian culture, where one word can mean four to seven different things, as you break down the syllables. Like, I just found out last night, doing some research that “paalua” means “the magical arts”, and it encompasses all sorts of things. “Paa” also means firm or strong, or steady. And “lua” is “pit”. But “Lua” is also our warrior art. How do you reconcile that, you know? And then “pa lua”, missing one “a” is a school that teaches Lua.
So anyway, “mana” is very deep. “Mana” can mean internal mana, it can mean the mana in your surroundings, it can mean the mana of the islands, it can be the mana of a specific area, it can be the planetary mana, and the divine, the pō. When you’re talking about “mana” it’s a lot more than just force coming at you. And even then, when I teach, it’s always “Where are you throwing your mana?” “How much are you throwing? Twenty percent? Forty Sixty? Eighty? Are you bringing it back? Are you flinging it out, like you’re throwing a spear? Are you doing a figure-eight? Are you recharging your mana, like a wave, when that wave comes and hits you? When you throw something and bounce back, are you killing it, like a gymnast kills it on their landing? Or are you coming back like a roundhouse cartwheel, jumping and going into something else?
Mana, as far as Lua, is not just the physical aspect. It’s also your personal, spiritual mana. Are you who you say you are, when no one’s around? Who’s the warrior when she’s not warring? How do you live your life? Are you thinking, “What is pono?”, so that pono can continue. These are actual virtues for us.
You have a choice, when you allow people to affect you, and affect your mana. You can use it for good or bad. For those of us that live and breathe Lua, it’s important. Everything you do, every day, is important. And this is our job, to have that foresight, as warriors. If everyone could be better connected to themselves, and manage themselves properly…you know, you’re on the cliff and ready to kill somebody…give yourself a time out! Figure out what the hell’s going on. If all of us could do that, our world would look like such a different place.
So yeah, I do think it’s important. I’m not asking everyone to be “good”. At least give yourself the time to choose the most educated decision after you’ve sat on your intellect and intuition. That keeps us pono.
KO: What are your hopes for Lua in the future?
MM: My hopes for Lua is that more of our people will have exposure to it. That includes the keiki, the children. That includes the wahine, the women. And that includes the māhū, the same-sex. And of course the kane. The men need it too. But they’ve had a little more access to it over the last 200 years. It’s my hope that Lua doesn’t become as big as BJJ or Kaju. Sorry.
KO: [Laughs] It’s okay.
MM: It’s not the goal. The goal is to actually provide this to the people so that they have their identity back, so that it can erase some of this generational trauma. And so that those who have abusive tendencies, that are physically “full-contact”, can know they’re actually from a warrior lineage and need a place to train, and a place to focus that, instead of it coming out in destructive ways. We’ve lost our purpose in the culture, so that’s my hope for Lua: that it would be placed into schools, at all different levels, and that even our elderly will be able to learn cane techniques, and seated techniques, the “noho lua”, where they sit and work with what they have.
And just general fitness of our people. If they were to train, and condition, and continually advance, we wouldn’t have as much diabetes, we wouldn’t have as much gout. You would know that fuel is important for the warrior, and you would stop eating the shit foods and wartime canned foods that are prevalent and are all that most can afford.
And this is also my hope: that it will also help with mental health, because of the identity, and letting go of some of the generational trauma, and finding who we are. When you move in Lua, it rewires your body. And you just come to know certain things.
And I hope to be one of the ones that can bring this all to the people.
You can find Kumu Manu online at michellemanu.com, her Instagram page, Facebook page, X, and YouTube.
To read more interviews like this, be sure to check out Blood, Sweat, and Bone: The Kajukenbo Philosophy and The Path: Book Two of the Kajukenbo Philosophy, both by John Hojlo.