By Wanda A. Adams
Assistant Features Editor

HILO, Hawai'i — My choice right now is literally to blog or eat but I've just got to get down a few impressions before running off to the Miss Aloha Hula competition; if we're not outta here by 4, we won't be able to get the seats we need to properly photograph and report on the event.

You probably think that media get VIP seats but actually, we don't get seats at all. We get passes that allow us to sit anywhere in general admission that hasn't been claimed by someone else. This makes it imperitive that we be more than on time, using the two hours or so before the performance to organize ourselves, talk to attendees and, in the case of photographer Deborah Booker, jockey for position with the other photographers in the scant few feet of space allowed still photographers, located just along the edge of the front right ramp.

I've now spent several hours in rehearsal, watching halau that realistically have little chance to win or even place, and also halau that are serious contenders with long winning traditions at their backs (as well as two new halau that I confidently predict will be crowd favorites from Minute One).

I love the privilege of sitting in on these practice sessions every bit as much, and possibly more, than watching the "real thing." (And it is a privilege — at any moment the kumu hula have the right to ask that the room be cleared except for staff and KITV personnel and you have to go.

So many scenes stay with me when I think about rehearsal:

Sonny Ching of Halau Mamo O Pu'uanahulu lying on the stairs leading up the stage, with his head at the level of his dancers' feet, watching intently.

Olana Ai of Halau Hula Olana smiling in exactly the way a mother watches her children, her face suffused with love for these young women she has brought so far.

Kapi'olani Ha'o, whom I will forever think of as the happy kumu, bouncing along and clapping her hands, literally skipping in and out amongst them, shadowing various members of her kane as they danced their lively 'auana number, reminding them by her own face and gestures to keep smiling, to close their stance to improve their 'ami (hip sway). She was enjoying herself as though she had not a care in the world; her alak'ai, kumu 'oli (chant teacher) Keali'i Gora played the bad cop, correcting, shouting out orders.

Today, Manu Boyd's Halau O Ke 'A'ali'i Ku Makani got into town at 8, drove straight up to the volcano to pay their respects to Pele and then dropped back down to town for their stage hour at 1 p.m. Boyd, well known to Merrie Monarch audiences for his past job as a KITV commentator, first took his all wahine group through basics just as he would at the outset of any hula class, stretching and relaxing the group with the familiarity of ka'o, kaholo, hela, lele u'ehe — the building-block hula steps. Then he gently coached them. "All the distractions, everything we had to do, is all behind us ... Now we have this experience. Now we do our dance."

There's so much more I could tell but I've got to go put my hair ornament in place (purchased today at one of the craft fairs that are going on every three blocks here). Cannot go to Merrie Monarch wid' da heah anykine.

I'll blog you again tonight with some Merrie Monarch tips for those of you who are headed this way either this year or next, and a hot trend I've spotted.

A hui hou!