Julia Carmen (00:00):
This is Julia Carmen. This is our podcast today of the Indigenous Wisdom. And I am frigging excited and stoked and happy and joyful. And when I have somebody that's a guest that I really admire and think, who is this man? Who is this person that has come into my life? So I would like to introduce Kika, and he's going to share, we're just going to do a talk story, which I love to do with he, because we get together and his partner, angel, he'll give you his proper name, but I call him Angel, his partner. We just go off. I think we could hang out for days and not take a break. So Ka, come on to the show.
Kawika Alfiche (00:51):
Aloha to everybody listening. So my name is Kika Cultural Center. So my name is Ka, I'm the ULA for, and I'm also the director for the KA Hawaiian Cultural Center. And we're located here in the island of South San Francisco as well as Napa.
Julia Carmen (01:21):
Yep. Okay. Well, Kika, I know when we met, let's just start there. So people know that we do know each other, right? So
Kawika Alfiche (01:32):
Yes.
Julia Carmen (01:33):
How do we meet in the physical form, human form, the human form on each other in that other realm? Yeah.
Kawika Alfiche (01:43):
So we have a space here at our cultural center. Our cultural center in South San Francisco is also where we live. It's where our school is. And my mom used to live with us in the unit downstairs, and when she moved, we wanted to keep the space available if ever she came back to visit, which does often. So we decided to put it on vacation rentals. And one day I get a message from somebody named Julia npa who, and I was like, huh, I'm like a Hawaiian in our Hawaiian space. How perfect. So that's how it started. You stayed here at the cultural center to prepare for, from what I understand, to prepare for your coming retreat. And we spent a long amount of time conversing about all kinds of different things.
Julia Carmen (02:41):
Talk about cheese. Yes, completely. I left, I go, oh, I think I tm I too much.
Kawika Alfiche (02:53):
No, no, no. Never too much with me.
Julia Carmen (02:59):
I was like, oh gosh. Yeah, I remember that conversation because it really did feel like, I mean, I know that I've known you folks prior to being in the human realm. It just felt very at home and yeah. Yeah. I just remember that nobody was there. I think that was 2021 and we had just gotten our vaccine, our second round of vaccines, or the first one or whatever, first one, I think. And I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, should we do this or shouldn't we do that? And then we were, you probably don't know this. And then we were the only ones there. I was the only one there
Julia Carmen (03:40):
Basically.
Julia Carmen (03:41):
I didn't know that. And then you just went, oh, you could have had a barbecue, you could have had this. And I go, oh, I did enough, because I was so shy, believe it or not, folks, I was really shy about honor people's space. Yeah, I don't want to get into it yet. So that's when I realized. And also too, it was a haven because you created something there. Can you share with them what you created there?
Kawika Alfiche (04:06):
Yeah, so we call it a little haki, which is like a small Hawaii. There's this term that is used, it's called puka in Hawaiian language. Puka is like, if you imagine a lava flow, and then it kind of smothering everything, but there's these little holes, these little pukas, a little forested spaces that don't get covered. So it's like a forest in the middle of nothing but lava bed. So we tried to create a space like that here in the middle of downtown south San Francisco. We have our school here, a little library, which is where we were first talking and hanging out, and we have land, we're growing native plants, Hawaiian plants, and we're here four or five days a week singing and chanting and dancing and doing all things that I consider holy or al or just playing good. We're here doing that. So I think that's what helps lend to this feeling of being in a haven because it is really a nice peaceful little space we have.
Julia Carmen (05:14):
Yeah, the hummingbirds all the beautiful, oh gosh, it was just in 2019, I lost a really good friend, Jacqueline, and she comes to me in hummingbirds, is a hummingbird form, and I, they were just all over and they would come to the window and I would just have this talk story with Jacqueline and she'd goes, see girl, you found a place. Because I was so, it was during that time of pandemic and everything, so felt like I had my buddy there. So it just brought a lot of soce to eye. So where else have you done this? You're talking about these little areas. What do you call them in Hawaiian? Okay. Yeah. So there's another one in Puka. There's another one in Napa and where else?
Kawika Alfiche (06:04):
Yeah, so we've been looking, so we opened this in 2003. I'm a recording artist. I write music and sing Hawaiian music. And with the fun made from the music and classes and stuff, we are able to purchase this area in Salt City that we're at. So being here is great, but I felt like we needed a little bit more room, places that we can do what we want to do and what we have to do without people in the apartment next door looking down on us.
Kawika Alfiche (06:33):
And ideally the space would have water somehow, whether it was a pond, a lake, or a river. And the biggest catchall was it'd have to be within an hour from the airport, which is where we're at now. And we found this space, and actually yesterday is our four year anniversary. We closed on the space four years ago and we found we're up in Napa. It's a close to three acre space. We have no neighbors. There's two rivers. And we got it from a family who's been there for four years. And there was many people who wanted the space and they just was like, oh, no, we want to go work with the Hawaiians. They liked the idea of what we're trying to do with the space, which is to make it another puka, a little space to get away. But for those of you who just so that there's a visual, there's two rivers, there's a property, there's a house, and the house has four bedrooms, and we made it into a four bedroom, four bath, and we have a dance hall and then a few cabins and a tree house. And it's a really nice space for us to be able to do what we do
Kawika Alfiche (07:50):
And for Tia to do what she does and to be immediately connected, well disconnected from any physical people, but connected to everything else.
Julia Carmen (08:03):
Yeah, I love it. I think this is our third time going to be there. We're going to be there in eighth, in May next month. Yeah,
Julia Carmen (08:11):
This was the other thing. When I do any retreats, I feel that the land has to be, it has still and honor the ancestors that have been there. I never take people on any property where it's not settled. So you and Angel shared with us that you folks, and it's up to you, Miho, if you want to share it or not. Well, of course you shared us with us, the tribe that was on there, the native folks, yeah, the indigenous folks that were there. And then however else, whatever you did, I guess it's okay. You said you did some ceremony about being there. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
Kawika Alfiche (08:55):
Well, for me, ceremony is the moment we start moving our bodies. Yeah, that's true. Sometimes the ceremonies are light and some are heavy, some are big. But yeah, we're exactly like you. The only reason why we moved forward in that space and then even this space that we're at now was because everything felt good. We knew that whoever was there before was taking care of the space. And I mean, we all have our own ways of feeling things are good or bad. And for us, it was a really good feeling from the time we walked into the space. But I did a little research, so we have ancestral roots that take us through here. Also, on my mom's side, we are lonni through San Francisco area, so this is really home to me. Besides being Hawaiian and all these I, I'm a mixed bag of many things. But the space there, the people that were there centuries ago were called the Wao people. And of course that's like a post contact name for them. And I think that within the first month of being there, we started, everything was on Zoom. So we started all of our classes up again on a camera
Kawika Alfiche (10:14):
And something, well, I hear things all the time. So Kumu was like, get your Pahu, which is a specific type of drum, get all of your pahu back up to par because we haven't been dancing with this drum in a while. So we started drumming and dancing. These PA is a shark skin with a coconut trunk, and we hit it a little bit differently than the gourd. And those dances are a little bit more elevated. They're the highest form of offering that we have. So we did, and immediately we just felt like an audience. It was just an overwhelming feeling of a bunch of people watching, but in a fun way, not in a scary way, but we just felt like everybody was looking in through the windows and then clapping after whatever we were doing.
Julia Carmen (11:06):
Yay.
Kawika Alfiche (11:07):
So that was the biggest sign for me that, well, we're already there. So it was a way for me, they came out to be like, okay, you guys are okay. And then you came and you're like, this place is cool. And I'm like, okay, we're good.
Julia Carmen (11:24):
Oh yeah. Anytime I do what I call an aerial where I look in the non-physical realm to check things out, and I did check it out, and then I go into the physical and just cross the T's and dot the i's and I talk to the folks just so that everything's copacetic. I haven't used that word in a time, but just so everything's right on. And I don't know if you shared that story, that ceremony with I or not, but that's beautiful Kika, and I love the way,
Kawika Alfiche (11:57):
Thank you.
Julia Carmen (11:57):
You shared that everything's ceremony because Right on. I had a challenge with that word because I feel the same way. You do mijo and then a lot of times people will put on social, not you don't do that, which is great. Peterle, all this ceremony, sacred ceremonies on social. And I go, oh, no, don't do that. I'm like, oh. I'm like, oh. But then I'm going, my ancestors said, well, everything's ceremony like you said. And I said, champ, but isn't that sacred? And they go, yeah, they're sacred. And then there's ceremony. You get up, brush your teeth, it's a ceremony. No, that's a ceremony. So you don't smell around other folks, right? So there's different degrees, right? Yeah. So I'm glad you said that out loud. I didn't know. Yeah, it's a real, you're talking about the old into the new and the new into the old, and that's exactly what you're doing. You and your halal, and you and I've talked about that, and it's from the old is a lot of, I think, and not just in the Hawaiian culture, but in all native indigenous cultures that I've worked with, the old is very punitive on how
Julia Carmen (13:24):
Everything's taught. It has to be a certain way. If it's not that way, then you're not doing it right. And because we had a lot of European, the over culture, whatever, they came in and everything got turned around, twisted around, and then religion got in there. So there's a lot of things that I'm like, I don't think that's your peoples, I think that's the influence of this
Kawika Alfiche (13:55):
Christianity or some other religion,
Julia Carmen (13:58):
Or
Kawika Alfiche (13:59):
There's a lot of borrowing that happens, especially when we have cross-cultural ceremonial. And it's one of those things where it's only my generation. I feel like my generation is free to express ourselves, ceremonially any way that we want, whereas a generation before us was, that's wrong, that's blasphemous, or whatever the things that were placed upon them. But in one sense, I'm full on a traditionalist, but because I recognize, and this is for me as a hula person, I have to understand the foundation of things. And then you say you can see the things that were kind of pieced in that were maybe not particularly a Hawaiian thing. You can see, oh, this looks like this was an indigenous thing from the States, not from Hawaii. At least I understand foundation of something. But at the same time, yeah, it's 2025, so I'm going to move my body and my space and move in my ceremony based on who and what I am today. But I know my foundation and we have, and when you say punitive,
Julia Carmen (15:06):
While we
Kawika Alfiche (15:08):
Have a box that we have to stay in as hula people, it's like, you can't do this and you can't do that. And the box is slowly pushing out into a hexagon shape. But for a long time, what we were doing was wrong. That's wrong. Don't do that. And that's scary.
Julia Carmen (15:24):
Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. And nothing on any elders or anything like that. I'm going to go over here for a little second because a long time ago, I used to teach, we had a treatment center where we would train different folks from different areas on our approach. And most of the clients were from the court med courts, but we had a lot of people from the different tribes all over the country coming in and learning what blah blah. And the biggest thing that a lot of the trainers that would come to get trained on our approach, so they can get certified and get and service their people on the res or wherever, the rancherias or whatever, they would say, the elders are really punitive. We have to do it this way. We have to do it that way. And then I just blurted out, which I probably should have, but I did, and I said, well, all you need to do is respect your elders.
Julia Carmen (16:24):
This was a long time ago, so I'm an elder now, but I wasn't that I was probably your age. So I go, you need to respect your elders. I said, but respect them and honor them for all the sacrifices they made, but meaning we can't change them. Just love them. And I said, until they all die off, off, then you can take what you need and then move on and make it something that's going to be for the new folks coming in. So basically take what you just said, take those that square, and then build it from there. It was like, because a lot of these folks came from tribes that they never got off the res, they never got off. They were coming to us like, oh, they love Pacifica, they love the ocean, all that. And they said, oh my gosh, Julia, I never thought of that. I never thought that they're all going to have to leave. They've done their job. I can't change them. And I said, no, the more you try to change them, the more angrier they get. They look at that as disrespect. Yeah. So honor them and then take on what? And then, yeah. So I want to go back to something
Kawika Alfiche (17:42):
For
Julia Carmen (17:42):
Folks listening to this that have never heard. What is he talking about? What is that?
Kawika Alfiche (17:49):
Oh, yeah, yeah. So hula specifically. So Kumu translates to source, we use it as a word for teacher, but in hula we have a lineages. So Mike Kumu, his name is Ray Kaka, and he was based in Hilo for many, many years. And his Kumu, his uncle George La, and he's the one who started the Mary Monarch many, many years ago, which is a big hula festival that happens in Hilo. So I'm very, very fortunate, and I always recognize them in their names because without them, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. They've really laid out a path for me. But uniki is a word for a traditional ceremonial passing of the guard kind of thing.
Kawika Alfiche (18:45):
And I graduated as a ula, me and five other people, they've taught thousands of people. Uncle George only graduated about eight over his 50 or 60 years of teaching. And Kumu, my Kumu only graduated six of us, and he passed away not long after. So it's us now. And we at some point will do the same for our students. And our job is to carry on our traditions and our traditions and our dances are very specific. This is the box, do the box, just the box, and then maybe write a song, and then you can create a new box kind of box. But that's your new stuff. They're cool with that. They're cool with writing things and doing new things. But the older things and the movements, they want us to keep these movements because Hula was banned for 67 years, and a lot of dances were lost. So when we were stuck with these seven particular dances that are still intact, we have to maintain those things. But then last generation are good with saying, okay, build upon that now create new things that are in likeness to that. But for today,
Julia Carmen (20:00):
Oh, that's beautiful. You might've shared that with me Mi, but I didn't realize that it was just eight and six, eight with, I didn't know that
Kawika Alfiche (20:11):
George and six, with Kumu and this, we have this saying called, it says, and that means not all knowledge is contained in one school. And that then translates to every school has their way of doing things. So it's not right or wrong. The way that our school did it was my teacher's teacher, my grandfather's teacher is going to only uniki so many people. If you go to other lineages, they have mass uniki where they graduate 30 or 40 at a time. And that's great. I mean, just we respect that, but we won't do that. We can't do that. We're not allowed to. Maybe somebody a generation from now will be like, yeah, let's graduate a hundred people, and that's fine. But right now we're kind of maintaining what they've been doing.
Julia Carmen (20:59):
You know, what miha the attraction to you folks and folks like you. When I say myself, I don't come alone as you know, that come with my ancestors and the school and all that. And that's how the School of Thought Walls is. I only have a handful of students, well, a little bit more than a handful, and they hang out with me for quite a while. I was always surprised, but it's never been hundreds at one time. And when I leave, I could say, I probably say less than 20 completed their movement. That makes me want to cry. I've always felt like, how is this getting into this really physical world? Is that sustainable? But somehow I've been able to do it, and I'm like, okay, this is working, but I'm not into having a bazillion students. Yeah, I mean, I love teaching and having retreats, and that's something else. But students, and then seeing them walk through or webinars, I'm do webinars and things like that, but there's these few that come that become part of the work. And when I say the work, I'm talking about what they bring to the table. So little different than being a Kumu, whatever
Julia Carmen (22:37):
People bring to the table is their work. And then from there, we create the words for them. So the guideline, there's only one guideline, and that is to have unconditional love for self and unconditional trust. I have to have that first and then have that remembrance for kaka. Kaka, come see, come see you. And then you be, you'd be the Kumu. Yeah. Yeah. Basically. Oh, go ahead, mijo.
Kawika Alfiche (23:10):
Oh no, I was going to say I totally see what you're doing with your students is what Mike Kumu did with the small group of us, which was, it was like the master teaching the senses or the master teaching the grasshoppers. And that our little cohort of students, it was like the ones that he was entrusting a big lump of things too. Yeti had all these other fledgling students who were there who are not meant to be in this smaller group. And that's kind of like how Hula works. And I have that same thing where I'm working with very specific people in my group. I have, we just hit our 30th anniversary, so it was only one right hand, which was my angel, my right, my spouse, and my angel. And then this past anniversary, I've designated three more. And the funny part is they're all older than me. I just started teaching. Isn't that cool? I dunno how that happened. Yeah, there's a lot. I started,
Julia Carmen (24:17):
It's a lot behind the, I started,
Kawika Alfiche (24:20):
Yeah, a little early. I think my first teacher, my first kuo passed away and I was 20, I was 19. And then my second kuo had me start my class when we started immediately. And then two years later she said, okay, this is your group. And she said, group, not halal. So she didn't scare me. So I think I started a little bit earlier than normal and not, and it wasn't my fault. It was Auntie's fault. Exactly. Yeah. So most of my students were older than me at that point.
Julia Carmen (24:58):
Yeah. Well that basically, when folks, I don't advertise, I don't think you do. Oh, come work with me and be whatever, be a Kumu. At least that's what I don't, people just come and they show up. So I say the sea of the Sears. So people usually come to I when they're wanting to create something, they're already successful, a lot of them are successful. They already
Julia Carmen (25:26):
Have done whatever. And I go, Julia, I want to be in love with myself in such a healthy way that I can create something that will provide something for the rest of maybe humanity in my family or whatever. And I said, okay, come on. And so most of the time, I don't even know what people do for a living because it's not that it's, or their career, it's about them seeing themselves and working from that space. I always call it a remembrance. Just remember you and who you be. Yeah. But talk about Uncle George. I love that man. I never met him a few times because I lived in Hilo for a little bit, and he was a frigging character. And
Julia Carmen (26:11):
When I walked into your Halal to your place in South City, I didn't know he was the lineage. And when I saw his big picture there, I said, well, shit, uncle George, no wonder because when he passed, when he passed, he did his transition. He showed up in my group and I said, oh, okay, good, George. Hi, how's it going? And we had lots of talk stories, right? Not every KU that passes people in Hawaii would go, oh, this died and that they come to you. I said, no. They go, really? Then why did that person come to you? I said, I dunno, I don't pick them. They come and I say hi. And so when Uncle George came, I said, oh, okay, what do you got? And he goes, oh, I got that. And then when I saw his picture, I said, oh, I think I came home and I told somebody, or my daughter, I said, oh my gosh, do you know whose picture? She goes, mom. And I go, I guess I have talk story with Kika at some point.
Kawika Alfiche (27:17):
And your daughter's a hula person too, so she knows the
Julia Carmen (27:20):
Yeah, she does. Yeah. So share with us. I know your other teacher. I don't see him, I don't talk to him, but Uncle George, he's very playful. At least I knew that he was when I met him a few times in Hilo. But also too, he's playful, but so much knowledge and so much knowing and so proud of you. Just so proud of you. It just overwhelms me when I think of when I visit with him. He's so good. He's so good. Look at him. I go, I know, right? That's the coolest thing. So share with us your time with him in the human realm, if you can. Yeah. Well,
Kawika Alfiche (28:13):
I will say that I know without even before even meeting him, I knew that I was going to have some kind of connection to the man and what I love about him. So I am a lot like him in certain ways where I love to play. I love to play and have fun, but I'll work equally as hard. Or we'll say I work really hard and I play just as hard. And when I say play, I mean enjoy every situation possible, but when it time to work to be focused and work hard on that thing. And he was exactly like that. And also, he was just a great performer and just was able to capture everybody in the room. And he is a little man. He is like 5, 4 11, 5 feet tall or really, really tiny guy with a huge personality. But he was, to me, the master of the masters. The teachers would go to him, the KOLs would go to him to learn whatever it is he wanted to share with them.
Kawika Alfiche (29:23):
And outside of being a great performer, performer, a master of the masters and an overall really, really fun guy, he was very fierce. He was able to wear different hats very comfortably and freely, which was to be the master of the masters, to be an excellent performer and somebody who can capture an audience and to just hang out with him. He was hilarious. And I think the last part is he was also a very, very fierce person. And so all of these different personality and traits that he had that made him and many Kumu, you have to have some of that. He had it all.
Julia Carmen (30:19):
One thing I love about, I really do, I have a lot of respect and love for any, any ceremony teachings and which everything you just shared, you had, you are so right. And I've been hanging out with you and Angel, and it's that mixture of love, respect, humor, but sternness and staying in the box and then moving it around. Sometimes when there's a lot of humor, sometimes folks think of that as, oh, I dunno if it's a boundary thing. I think, yeah, a long time ago, a long time ago, when I use a lot of humor and a lot of, just because the work that I do is deep and it's very sacred. And so I used to use maybe a little bit more humor than, and then people would kind of look at me like, oh, and then I go, so I had to adjust through the years. I didn't have a physical person teaching me. All my people were, yeah, I had some mentors, but they weren't like, I have set up or you have set up a place where people go and check in with folks. So it took me a long time to get that formula. And I'm not saying we all have it at the beginning, but to have that formula of being that person that's leading, I call 'em the point people, you're a point person. You lead the folks to where they need to be to embody that, which they need to. And that is being a Kumu. Yeah.
Julia Carmen (32:05):
So this is your life's work, right?
Kawika Alfiche (32:09):
Yes, definitely. It's what I do every minute and every hour of every day, even when I have another job that doesn't have anything to do with Hula, but Hula is involved in that also how I move around in it.
Julia Carmen (32:22):
Yeah. What job is that? Did you tell me? And I didn't know.
Kawika Alfiche (32:25):
So Kiai Angel, my other half is been in real estate, has had his own company since he was 20. And I grew up, my dad worked for airlines, but he is also a realtor. And he always said, don't ever rent anything. You buy something before you rent. So he grew up with that mindset. So I kind of got into real estate very, very early. I was also 2021, and I bought a house before I bought a car. And so anyways, him being in real estate and me and us two getting together, I've been in real estate too for the past 30 years now. So sales and rentals and leasing and remodeling and that kind of stuff.
Julia Carmen (33:11):
Oh, that sounds wow. That no wonder, okay, now I want to enter
Kawika Alfiche (33:16):
Yeah,
Julia Carmen (33:16):
What you just shared. Okay. That's a big piece. That is a big piece. I know folks that do that fulltime, right? Your honey does it full time, but kind of sort of not because he's with you, but before we started talking story on the show and record recording, I was like, oh my gosh, you're on Facebook, you're on Instagram, and you're here. You're there everywhere. You mentioned something, you're doing something in San Francisco and the city, tell us what you're doing. I'll be quiet now.
Kawika Alfiche (33:50):
So our Halal, our school hit 30 years in 2024 last year. And so what I've done is designated for the first time ever three students to become what we call Akai. So that means a student teacher, they have the rights now to be able to teach if I'm not physically there,
Kawika Alfiche (34:10):
Which is what Kiai has been doing now with me. He's been my right hand for the past 30 years. And for me to designate this was a big deal. So my first assignment was, okay, you two go start a class somewhere. I'm not going to be a part of it on a daily basis, but I'll go and check in. So we're now going on a year and two months, this class has been together. And in two weeks we're going to have their first ever, we'll call it a recital, a performance of showing what they've learned through their teacher, which is not me, but with our lineage. So these are Lineage songs, our staple, some of them are staple chants and dances. They have to learn how to move their bodies. They have to learn how to sing the song. Sometimes in harmony. They have to learn how to make the lays that they're wearing on their bodies, that kind of stuff.
Julia Carmen (35:01):
And where is it in the city? Where is it in San Francisco?
Kawika Alfiche (35:05):
So we started teaching at the Harvey Milk Arts and Cultural Center. It's on 50 Scott Street, so we call it the Castro class in Castro area. And it's a really beautiful building. It has a ballroom, it has a dance room, and it's right in our price range to be able to rent an hourly basis to have regular classes there. So we decided to do it there.
Julia Carmen (35:27):
That's great. Where else are you? I mean, you go to Japan, you go to Mexico. I don't know where else you go. Maybe you go to other places. I don't know, but that's kind of what I see you doing. Yeah.
Kawika Alfiche (35:40):
So Uncle George was one of the first ones to have circumnavigated the Globe teaching hula. Back in those days, they were like, you shouldn't teach hula to people who are not Hawaiian kind of thing. And that was a way of trying to protect. But he did. He knew that he was supposed to. And then Kure, my Kumu intern also did that. And since they're both not with us, I'm kind of just continuing that work. And Japan is, I have a class in Japan, and I do this in other areas called Papa Ka, which means like foundation building class. But they're only teachers, they're not students. They have their own schools. And I'll go and visit their schools and do a fun class with them. So I get to know them and they can see that I'm an actual person, but I really just work with the teachers. And this is Japan, and I'm a resident of Japan. So I live there there probably eight times a year for anywhere between seven and 10 days. But in Mexico is,
Julia Carmen (36:41):
I didn't know you were a resident of Japan.
Kawika Alfiche (36:44):
Yeah, because there so much, it just made more sense to get residency as opposed to applying for part-time visas, work visas every trip. Yeah, it just made more sense to do that.
Julia Carmen (36:57):
Oh, wow. Okay. And then Mexico.
Kawika Alfiche (37:01):
Yeah, Mexico. So a lot of my training came from me meeting my Kumu Re down in Mexico because I'm close. I'm here in San Francisco, so I go down and take classes with him. And by the second or third class, I would be the one teaching the class and would sit there, he would go outside, smoke a cigarette and yell at me. And Kumu was like, freaking kaka, knock it off, stop telling people the tea right on. But because of the pandemic and Zoom, and I've had people who've been learning and taking workshops with me for the, I've been traveling for the past 25 years and all kinds of places. So being on Zoom now was an opportunity. I just said, Hey, you've been taking my classes for the past 15 years. Do you want to come to be a part of the Hal and Dances every week? If so, it's going to be every week on a camera.
Kawika Alfiche (37:59):
And
Kawika Alfiche (38:00):
I asked very specific people, and most of 'em said yes, for sure. And so now when we have class, there's people from, I don't know, Netherlands and UK and Philippines and Australia and all over the place. So we'll go visit them too once a year and have just community classes. The community classes are meant for people who kind of want to learn a bit about things. And then at some point people decide, oh, I want to learn more about hula. People gravitate to hula. I notice because it's an easy way to get grounded and feel connected with very simplistic movements. They don't have to do much to feel that connection. It happens almost immediately. I know this for some people.
Julia Carmen (38:48):
What is hula? I know what it is, but what is hula miha
Kawika Alfiche (38:53):
To me? I think from my perspective, hula is a way for us to dig our roots into the earth, let our spirit soar to the sky and connect and converse with the environment kind of all at the same time. So hula are stories, they're written stories, I'll say they're written prayers that describe things that are happening around us in the environment. So in that sense, it's like conversing with the world around us, whether it's the wind, the rain, the trees, or whatever's growing around us, but also a way for our spirit to kind of lift out of our body and connect and be connected and move. And then I think the last part, hula to me is we're healers. Our job is to balance energy. We're energy balancers, so we're pulling energy from above and below, putting it into ourselves and then pushing it back out after it's been filtered to make things better. I like to live my life thinking that that is what hula is to me. So then it gives us a bigger, bigger purpose other than just
Julia Carmen (40:06):
Entertaining. That is beautiful because a lot of folks, when they think of hula, and I'm sure you know this, so people go to Hawaii or whatever, and they come and there's these luaus and things like that. And a lot of times it's not hula, it's cohesion, which is nothing on cohesion, right? Yeah. So you just said entertainment. They're looking for the entertainment. And I've heard folks that will go, I'll just out my mother, she doesn't like the water, she doesn't like Hawaii. My sister said, I'm going to take mom to Hawaii. I said, she doesn't like Hawaii. Why are you taking her there? So anyways, she went there and then I said, mom, how did you like the hula, the dancing? She goes, oh, in Spanish. Oh, they just did the same thing over and over. I'm like, well, I guess you could say they do because I understood it, right? Yeah, Mexican. So she's like, okay. I didn't want to even try to explain it to her because she wasn't feeling it right. But I
Kawika Alfiche (41:21):
Think
Julia Carmen (41:22):
She's probably pretty much the norm. If you're a tourist, I'm not talking about somebody go taking a class. So the way you shared it, I think it's to show respect for hula in that way. Yeah. I'm sure there is the entertainment kind too. Yeah.
Kawika Alfiche (41:44):
Yeah. I enjoy and love entertaining. We do that also. We are, I mean, perform in every year we perform for over, I want to say over 10,000 kids in schools throughout the year. And it's entertaining. But to me, that side of my work is where, this is where I love to try to put on my Uncle George shoes and be the entertainer to be entertaining.
Kawika Alfiche (42:10):
But
Kawika Alfiche (42:10):
It's our job as entertainers, we could either just entertain or we can entertain and educate. And so I choose to educate, and I use a lot of comedy when I'm doing that. And then at the same time, we're not just entertaining our job as hula people. We're still in ceremony. There just happens to be physical people watching us. So we like to take on that perspective when we're entertaining that we're just sharing our ceremony on a
Kawika Alfiche (42:39):
Stage.
Kawika Alfiche (42:40):
I see. And it may not be as elevated as the private ones, but it's still a ceremony. And I give them, I like to give an audience, your mom, if your mom was there, I would try to give something for her to hold onto so it doesn't look like the same thing over and over. It does. It can get really, for me, if I went to opera, to me, it would be the same thing over and over. Ballet would be the same thing. I think it's our job as entertainers to give the audience something to chew on so they're not just like, oh, it's that same thing. Right?
Julia Carmen (43:14):
Yeah.
Kawika Alfiche (43:14):
And I love luaus.
Julia Carmen (43:18):
I'm not saying anything, I just No, no, I do too. I mean, I enjoy a good luau for I, yeah,
Kawika Alfiche (43:28):
I don't want to do them on a daily basis, but I don't mind going to them once in a while.
Julia Carmen (43:33):
I like the kind where it's locals. I have four sons, and when the boys used to get, now they're grown men. They're your age. And they used to get into, oh,
Kawika Alfiche (43:46):
They're 30.
Julia Carmen (43:48):
Yeah. Oh yeah, they're 30. When they used to get, they would scrap, okay. Their dad and I would go, Hey Pete. I said, Hey, they need to do an imu. I mean, they learned the Samoan way of doing one because they used to hang out with a lot of Samoans, right? Yeah. Because we were here, there weren't a lot of Hawaiians that they knew of. So we would get everybody together and then we would have the boys get the pig down in half Moon Bay, I don't know if they still have, get a live pig. They pick it out and have it whatever, and then bring it home and dig the hole and let the fire department know there's going to be fire in our back.
Kawika Alfiche (44:32):
That's awesome.
Julia Carmen (44:33):
Yeah. So that's the kind. And then they'd come all, I mean, they were probably smoking, whatever and drinking. We would leave the house. We would go to a hotel because it got too smokey. Right.
Kawika Alfiche (44:46):
Then
Julia Carmen (44:46):
We'd come back and the boys were fine. So
Kawika Alfiche (44:49):
Awesome.
Julia Carmen (44:49):
I miss that part. And oh, the pork was so good a chi. That's the kind I like. Yeah. So it's more like a family thing. Yeah. So I miss
Kawika Alfiche (45:00):
That. And the food cooked inside the earth, which it gives it a whole different,
Julia Carmen (45:05):
So is there anything else you'd like to share with the folks? You know how to put things in a package? Because I'm like, what else can I thought of asking? You answered? And then you put in this nice little package and I went, okay, this dude knows what he's, he's a performer. He knows how to waste time. Let's just put it that way.
Kawika Alfiche (45:33):
Yeah, no, and to go back to what you were saying earlier, no, we talked about things, but we're in a situation now where I'm supposed to share things. And I think when we're together, especially with your students, with your, I wasn't going to say disciples with your followers
Julia Carmen (45:53):
Word. No. People take it as a religious thing, but it's not really,
Kawika Alfiche (46:00):
Well, to me it's kind of all the same, right? I'm usually probably listening. That's why I love to sit and listen to the things that you have to say. And if I'm invited, I'll share. But in this case, it's my job to share. So that's
Julia Carmen (46:18):
Why I'm talking so much. No, I love it. No, I'm loving it. What could be, I know I asked you, but I'm going to interrupt you. The last time we were there, one of our, my students, her mother passed and you folks were, so the E and flow and how you honored her and her mother and things happened on the property, and I knew it was her mother in the nonphysical playing with us and was concerned. I thought, oh, I told it's okay to, I told Mon, I said, oh my gosh, I hope they don't throw us out because I know that's your mom doing blah, blah. And then Angel came in and said, oh, who's doing that out there? And I go, oh my gosh. I said, well, I'm sorry she left. And she's showing us stuff. And some people, they're afraid of it. And I'm always careful not to assume anybody knows anything. Just I understand it and that it's not going to freak them out. And you folks were not at all freaked out, thank you. And you were like, no worries, no worries. It's all good. We got this and it's all good. And if this goes like this, well we're gone. It's all good. So I just,
Julia Carmen (47:45):
Yeah. So that's that sacred piece there that I just loved how you took care of her. It was very difficult for her during that time.
Kawika Alfiche (47:55):
I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. And she was where she was supposed to be, I guess, right at that. I'm glad she came back and was able to continue spending time with you folks as you guys are a magical little group. And I felt so at home with you guys at home, and you are amazing Tia. Oh, thank you. I think I'm immediately, well, I gravitated to you immediately when we first met for more reasons than one,
Kawika Alfiche (48:21):
But
Kawika Alfiche (48:22):
You make me feel right at home and to be able to share freely and not feel confined in any of the things that I've experienced. So thank you for allowing me to be so open.
Julia Carmen (48:34):
Oh, yeah, yeah. With you and Angel to definitely being home. It's like when we started, I've known you folks in the nonphysical realm forever. And then when folks see each other in the physical realm, and it's not anything to do with age,
Kawika Alfiche (48:55):
But
Julia Carmen (48:55):
In the human realm, there is that respect. If one's showing up a little bit older than the one, yeah, it's really cool. But yeah, this world is big, but it's not at the same time. It's kind of interesting everything. But to have you folks do your work in all over the world, bringing that, I'm going to use the word, I don't know, do you use aloha? I use the word love, and I think that's, Aloha can be so many things, right? You share the love and your grace with everyone and that, yeah, that is not, that's not something people do genuinely. I hate to say, I hate to say this, but sometimes it's like I'm not a cynic, but in fact, I'd see other ways sometimes my friends when I was younger, go, Julia, you're too nice. Are you too this? And I said, well, if they're doing that, it's on them. It's not on me. I don't know what to do.
Kawika Alfiche (50:03):
Oh my God, that is me in a nutshell. Oh really? That is exactly how I am. Absolutely. I'm exactly like that.
Julia Carmen (50:09):
Yeah. I can't get all twisted about stuff because if I do, then it hurts me. Yeah,
Kawika Alfiche (50:17):
I else
Julia Carmen (50:17):
To say. Yeah. So I'm like, well, we're going to be there next month and everybody's looking forward to hanging out at Napa. And the river will be running, right?
Kawika Alfiche (50:32):
The river is running. Yeah, things are green.
Julia Carmen (50:35):
Oh great. Yeah, it's wonderful. It's great. And yeah, this is your time, Miha. So anything else? And then we're going to wrap it up. Wrap up. I just feel so happy to be talking story with you and having some little ChemE with you too at the same time.
Kawika Alfiche (50:53):
Happy me Also, thank you for this time. To all the listeners, thank you for making the time to listen to our little conversation here. And please visit us or just type in my name. If you listen to my music on YouTube or something, the cultural center gets a very small credit from just listening, so listen to my music. I think you'll enjoy it. It's Hawaiian
Julia Carmen (51:19):
Based on Hawaiian. Yeah. Well we will definitely have that in the show notes so that you folks are in for a treat if you haven't listened to Kika. So Kika, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it with your busy schedule. I Chihuahuas, you made the time. It was like you did it. Yes. I was so stupid. A few people I want on this year. And you were right up there in the top five. Awesome. Like the top three actually. Yeah. So thank you so much for being on the show and we'll talk story again.
Kawika Alfiche (51:52):
Totally. My pleasure. I look forward to it
Kawika Alfiche (52:44):
Of my Come with me.
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