The 16-year-old Queen’s High School pupil, from Dunedin, won the Manu Korero Maori Otago Southland regional speech competition in June, came second with her band at the Otago Smokefree Rockquest three weeks ago and was a member of the winning team at the 2021 Te Hautonga kapa haka competition at the weekend.
The active teen said each of her activities was an important outlet for her.
Speech competitions, which she had only started doing recently, gave her a way to speak against oppression and to voice how she felt; music gave her the ability to express herself artistically and kapa haka made her feel connected to who she was as a person and where she came from.
She began drumming when she was 7, but had only recently joined her band of musicians, Fool of Stars.
It was her first band and it felt good to be able to support others and introduce her own ideas to the mix, she said.
Kapa haka had been part of her life since she was 5.
"I’m tired all the time, but it’s worth it," she said.
Despite her busy life, she made sure to leave Sundays free for church and resting up.
There was something special about resting after a long week of training and school, she said.
"It feels like you’ve earned it."
She also got great satisfaction from knowing her band-mates and the members of her kapa haka group were working just as hard.
Her different activities helped her develop interchangeable skills, but no factor to success was as important as discipline, Cai said.
Fool of Stars would be submitting its performance video for the Rockquest nationals later this week.
The national finals for the speech competition were in September, and the kapa haka finals would be held in July next year.
