World Fireknife Competition

One of the fun parts of being in Hawaii is the fun cultural festivals that occur. This last week was the World Fireknife Competition. The fireknife dance is a Samoan dance where they use nifo oti, or blade, with fire on both ends and spin it around in some pretty crazy ways. I was able to meet several of the main competitors in the mens division.

Last week I also helped organize animation workshops put on by BYU professor Ryan Woodward and his students about The Turtle and the Shark short film. I was even interviewed by a school writer about this event. As part of my job of filming and documenting everything this group did, we went to a TV studio here in the North Shore so that Pulefano Galeai could interview them on his Samoan show. While at the studio, we met Mikaele Oloa who was the 05-06 champ, and was then obliged to sit out for one year. He is 18 yrs old and is moving here from Florida. Through him, we met his doubles partner and cousin VJ. VJ is 16. The two of them won the doubles competition and then VJ ended up winning the singles division, and Mikaele got second. Pretty good trip for those boys!

The event went from Wednesday til Saturday and featured womens, doubles, youth (2 categories) and mens classes. There were some amazing performances that by far exceeded most things I have viewed before at the PCC.

Dolly also participated in the fireknife, along with Lisa Solis. They practiced for about 2 weeks for the event, and went for fun and to enjoy the experience. They got 3rd and 4th in the womens division. Both have some pretty serious burns and cuts to show off too! I just know I couldn't even come close to doing fireknife. You can see the detail of the knife. It has two sharp edges and a hook just to make things even more dangerous.