For any of my students to become kumu hula, they need to be stronger in the Hawaiian language. They need to have better understanding of the poetry of the chants and to understand the kaona or the hidden meaning of the chants. I require them to learn all of the kuahu chants and the dressing chants. In addition I think it is very important that kumu hula are able to choreograph, create, write, take a chant from the 1600s or 1700s and put it into hula movements today.

I cannot say that what we do is what the teachers of old would do. It is good that some hula masters perpetuated things exactly as they were taught to them. And it is through their teachings that we will always have what was from a time before us. But that is not my job. My job is to perpetuate hula in the ancient styles and not to be too loud or outrageous in the kahiko movements. It needs to be done within these guidelines. You need to maintain tradition even if it is choreographed today. Most importantly a kumu needs to be strong spiritually. Kumu also means foundation or base and if the foundation is not strong, you cannot build upon it.

I believe that hula is getting back to being performed more in the traditional manner. There was a period when the hula was getting a little too wild; too many introductions of other dance forms, especially to the hula kahiko. I think it turned around due to the revival of other aspects of our culture like the 'olelo, oli, planting, la'au lapa'au, navigation, huna, lua, weaving, amongst others. I hope that people like myself and my fellow kumu hula are looking to keeping things traditional yet conductive to our times. The hula has changed over time and I think that this is a good thing or it is my belief that the hula would die. I think each of us breathe our own breath into our dance, our haumana, our halau. This need is why we are kumu hula. That is what makes each of us unique, different. If we did things the same, there would be no need for different halau. A handful would suffice and we would be unable to document our times.