Why Ori Active?

Ori  - Ori Tahiti translates into "Tahitian Dance".  My mother started dancing when she was young and started teaching me when I was 8.  I learned Hawaiian, Tahitian, Maori, and Samoan dances and I fell in love with all of it - the dance, the music, the culture - I couldn't get enough, and still dance with a group every week.   Starting in the mid 1980's there were Hula groups that would host seminars and they flew instructors in from Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, or New Zealand for a weekend and we would learn dances, attend lectures, and of course make life-long friends.  I still attend these seminars at least once a year in the midwest.

Active - I have always been involved in fitness.  Started working out regularly in a gym in my early twenties and also did home workouts to VHS tapes (and then DVDs).  I started buying and selling some workouts on eBay and found it to be a way to make some extra money.  I turned that into a business in 1999 and that eventually turned into our website - www.totalfitnessdvds.com.

Putting Ori Active Together - Since wearing athletic wear everyday started to become more popular I have been searching for Hawaiian or Tahitian prints that I liked on workout wear.  I couldn't find any and my friends in Hawaii couldn't find any that they liked either.  It tended to be wild/loud floral prints which wasn't what we were looking for.  I was looking for something a little more understated and more sophisticated.  After looking at yet another wild floral print on a pair of leggings I said to a friend of mine "I could design something better than that".  She said "you could!"  Eventually she convinced me to go for it and Ori Active was born!  A big Mahalo Nui Loa to Gloria because without her this dream would not have come true.

Here's our group performing Ori Tahiti last year.

Stay tuned for my next post - the process - certainly not as easy as I thought it would be....