In the lead up to the Rugby World Cup how appropriate it is to mention the physical and mental advantage doing a pre-game physical performance (aka haka) gives a team.
I remember hearing that someone did a study which showed that the haka gets all the necessary muscles in the body ready for a game of rugby. I can’t find any trace of such study, but doing the haka has to be better for you than standing there watching it.
Mentally it has to be good too. This is as long as it does not send the players ‘over the top’. A sports psychology course I took once taught me that more arousal is not necessarily a good thing when it comes to sport performance. There comes a time when the athletes ability really starts to deteriorate. Basically the more the better – to a point – then you crash and burn. With the amount of help players get these days though, I am sure they will not be overly aroused.
By far the best of these pre-game war dances is that done by the All Blacks of course.
Here is a summary of some of the other different types of war dances from with-malice.com
