05 August 2009

While I am away



It cheers the weary soul.

But reveals the frailty of memory: seeing a haka so timid and self-conscious was a shock. I don't remember it like that, is the haka then, far from being a traditional war-dance, actually a modern phenomenon? And did you notice that in 1973 they performed the dance facing across the pitch - at the cameras

And the sizes of the players, some of the 73 All-Blacks would look small in a modern club U17s (I am not joking)

Here's what the haka looks like today.




(HT: Sackerson)

5 comments:

M4GD said...

Haka peaceful or not who cares! I find Rugby So hot and so sexy!
…that’s the extent of my knowledge :-)) A love poem must ensue:

"He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,

Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow

Your breath has time to straighten,
Your brain to bubble cool, --
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul."

Emily Dickinson

M4GD said...

I had my third acupuncture session today. It was unexpected. They had a cancellation. For the first time, I used it to relief a headache/sinus pressure and not on the back. Results: I feel quite light headed. I can’t say dizzy. Extremely relaxed is more appropriate – similar to the feeling you get when your head is way up in the clouds where the clouds look like the way you see them from an airplane window: white, puffy, and fluffy... It has been two plus hours since the session ended and the feeling is still the same…

pascal said...

What a wonderful runner was David Duckham. Who compares from today's players?

Botogol said...

duckham is a stand-out in those highlights, isn't he? I thought so as well... I settled down to watch the welshmen and suddenly there he was...

I don't know. Jason Robinson was perhaps as elusive, without being so powerful?

Brian O Driscoll?

Burgin Streetman said...

silly boys and their games... i prefer leap frog and tiddlywinks.

my mother cried when elvis died too.