Basic Hula Steps

Basic hula motions/ steps:
Ka lewa- imagine a figure 8 movement behind your ʻpikoʻ. With weight on R foot, L hip is up. When weight is on L foot, R hip is up. This is a continuous motion that should not stop, but flow up and over like water. This motion is the hardest to execute and master. It should be added in every hula motion learned after this. The Lewa is the basic movement executed within all of the other hula steps.

Hula - also known as ka holo is your most basic and famous hula step. Always starting on your R foot; step together, step, touch. You will end with the your weight on the R foot and the “touch” is with the L ball of foot, then repeat to the left. Knees are bent. Steps are usually comfortable at no farther than shoulder width apart.

Kaʻo - also known as Ka lewa…with a step like you are walking motion…

Ka ʻaupuni - With weight on L foot, step on R towards L and follow with a ʻami. Usually done with a 4 to 8 count beat with knees bent. Continue around till coming back to face front.

Ka ʻami - with heels a few inches apart, toes slightly pointed out, knees are bent and movement is isolated to below the waist. Start with the beat to the back R side and move your ʻelemu from back R to a dip to front L side and out back to R front and repeat.

Lele ʻUwehe - Raise up on ball of feet and R steps over to R side step (1), L points front (2), bring L in next to R and bend at same time (3), lift heels and back down on 4th count, hold. 4 counts all together. Can be repeated on the other side for L lele ʻuwehe.


Hand motions can be just as difficult to execute as the feet motions, especially when doing ʻauana. Hula waves are the hand undulations that vary for different halau and all are acceptable. Some wave using very subtle movements with very little wave and fingers held close together. Some waves use big motions with a lot of wrist movement. I prefer to use some where in the middle with the lead being the wrist. What that means is that the wrist will be the initial lead in any hula hand wave motions, and the fingers simply follow in rhythm.
Later you may want to get the video for this hula to see just how the wave motion is done. The following are common motions of Hawaiian phrases you will read often in my style of hula.
Remember: Kuhi no ka lima, hele no ka maka. Where the hands go the eyes will follow.
Your right hand is normally the direction to follow with your eyes unless direction is given to follow the L hand. It is the basically normally used here.

Love motion - this motion is commonly done by bring both hnds from away from the body out at the sides towards crossing arms over chest. To a hugging like motion. This motion is reversed in the same manner from crossed at chest to outward.

ʻIke motion - always used to express a looking or seeking type motion. One hand is usually cupping at one eye and other hand is out 45 degree (d.) to signify the direction the eye should be.


Kaulana motion - this is often done with R out front p/d and L up high over head. Hands and arms are in a large L shape. Kaulana motion can be varied depending on the mele and face different directions, but this is the ‘basic’ description.

These are just a few 'common' descriptive motions. I will add more later. See if you can find these motions in a hula video!
.... until next time....remember:
~If your hips aren't moving, you're not dancing hula~
me ka ha'aha'a,
Mo'ikeha

I found my spirit....

Aloha kaua,
Two weeks ago Thursday, some of the halau went up to Kilauea, also known as Hawaii's Volcano National Park. The home of our volcano goddess Pele. It was a wonderful visit and a spiritually uplifting event. Although we are lucky to be allowed to grace this blessed island, we have not been able to get up to the volcano very often. Well, our visit had a focus. We wanted to go up together to not only perform our chants and oli for what they were intended for, which is for paying homage to this sacred place, asking permission to gather Hawaiian plants in the forest and the use of proper protocol... but one of our precious hula girls will be leaving the halau for awhile to return to Japan and her family.

So our visit was a happy yet, bitter sweet one. But we needed to go and give thanks to Pele for allowing Tomoko to study hula at the local community college and with our halau. When we first arrived we went to the visitors center which, allows you to learn about the Kilauea and the variety of living species that live there. At the center you can learn about the plant life that is so important to hula. A definite 'must see' for any hula practitioner.

Ka'ohu & Tomoko
After wards we left to create wonderful lei po'o that we would wear during our hula. I showed the girls the hula mound that is near the art gallery and how it faces towards the crater and although, we have been asked, the girls have yet to dance there. Ahonui and I danced there many years ago. We hope to take the halau there some time soon.

Our journey was to go to the Jagger Museum area to hula since, the crater rim road is closed due to Madame Pele's ever increasing flow of her domain.
That was alright, we were allowed access 'behind the rope', so to speak, for the halau to spend time alone with Tutu Pele and her beautiful home.... I found my mana there again... My spirit that had been locked up inside for lack of 'not getting out more often'... The clouds had cleared especially for us,... the cold soon changed to warmed our skin,... and what one park ranger lacked in 'aloha', was accepted with heart felt gratitude by another.

We danced for Pele with much more gratitude and servitude for giving us this opportunity to be with her and our sweet Tomo,.. for which she danced especially for, to again give thanks for her learning all that she could, for now, about hula...
Hula is a never ending journey, that will take a lifetime. When I say that I found my spirit, I am only speaking for myself, but i know that we were all surrounded by the spirit of the place, the mana that envelopes you and cradles you close to the heart...overlooking the beautiful site of the hula girls in the foreground of Kilauea, while great, white, billowing clouds floated up and out across the crisp blue sky... I felt my heart strings pull not only for my hula girls, but for the Hawaii that I have loved for so long. It told us that to be there and dance and chant is saying that you believe all that you have learned and continue to learn in hula, to be true...and you feel it to be true... And by dancing hula, we are happy to show others what we believe in....

No, hula is not just for entertainment. Hula is life that carries mana. Spirit. My spirit...and when I am outside and chanting or dancing, well, that is where my spirit is best.
Mahalo Tutu Pele, and mahalo Tomo...come back to us soon.

Living the Aloha Spirit....

Aloha Kakou!
Please follow us at http://livingthealohaspirit.blogspot.com