At 20, Hope Moke is one of the youngest in the national waka ama team. She tells Aaron Smale how she got her start, and how she made it to the world championships in London.
On most days late in the afternoon you can find Hope Moke and her club members paddling a waka ama canoe up and down the Waikato River near the Turangawaewae Marae in Ngaruawahia.
And all those hours have paid off. Moke was part of the Waka Ama NZ team that won several of the top events at the world championships in London recently.
"Our elite campaign went well. We pretty much took out every category - the 500m W6, the 1500 W6, and 500m W12. I made the final in the singles. I had a nice holiday as well."
Moke’s athleticism could have taken her in any direction. When she first took up waka ama around five years ago she was making rep teams in hockey. But the draw of the water and the different environment led her to switch from hockey stick to paddle and she’s never looked back.
“It was pretty much the whanaungatanga, it’s really family based. I got this urge - wow, I like racing. Oh my gosh, I like winning. That pretty much stuck.”
It was the close-knit Turangawaewae Waka Sports Club in Ngāruawāhia that gave her the start and the support to reach London. But she's also got some goals on the national stage in her sights.
“The goal is to take the national title for the singles. It’s been held by the same person, same wahine for the last seven years. Her name is Akayshia Williams, she’s in the elites team with me. I tell her, I’m coming. She’s a robot!”
If there’s a country that sets the bar in waka ama it’s the tiny Pacific nation of Tahiti, surrounded by the biggest ocean on the planet and with a deep history of sea-faring. Moke says many teams base their technique and tactics on the Tahitians. The senior New Zealand paddlers have drawn on the Tahitian style to build their own.
"They've just incorporated it in their own way to suit them. We watch Tahitian races just to give us the idea of what we should be looking like. If you want to be the best you've got to paddle like the best."
"We do take a lot of their techniques and the way that they paddle and sort of how we paddle over here, like body positioning, where they position the hands on the blade, where they enter, where they pull out, stroke rate to stroke sets, having a plan throughout the race. I'll do like two sets fast and three sets long, pushing the middle."
When she's not on the water Moke's at Waikato University studying for a Bachelor of Sport Health and Human Performance.
"It's more of a lifestyle to me now, reaching this level."
For many, the integration of sport and learning about the history of the waterways they train and compete on gives them a holistic experience. At 20, Moke is one of the youngest in the national team, but in her club team she is one of the seniors, paddling alongside teenagers who are still at college.
The sport took hold in Aotearoa in the 1980s. New Zealander Matahi Brightwell saw waka ama racing in Tahiti and brought the sport back to Aotearoa and there are now more than 3300 members belonging to clubs across the country with regular competitions throughout the season. Brightwell was recognised in this year’s Queen’s Birthday honours, being made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Modern waka ama are based on the outrigger canoes and waka common throughout Polynesia for hundreds of years. The paddles are shorter than those used for rowing, making the vessel more manoeuvrable. The outriggers give the vessels stability and are also used in activities like fishing. The modern waka, usually made of fibreglass, can get expensive - a single seater can cost around $8,000, while the six-seaters are around $15,000, with some of the top-end models from Hawaii costing over $30,000.
For the sprints, the distances range from 250m for kids through to 1500m for the adults. Long distance races are anything between 5km through to about 27km. Longer solo races cover around 32km in open ocean. One major event is the Poor Knights crossing, in Northland, starting at the Poor Knights islands or Tutukaka.
In 1981 the International Polynesian Canoe Federation (since renamed the International Va’a Federation) was founded as the international body for outrigger canoeing. The sport has a local resonance with its connection to Polynesia but it also has a global following, including in the US, Europe and Asia.
See www.wakaama.co.nz for more info.
