New Zealand’s Maori has completed a unique and troublesome, difficult diving. Can shoot a 32-foot water jet.
The Olympic athletes pass the ring during the US Olympic diving trial
Once a diver qualifies for a Paris match at a US diving trial, the former Olympic athlete passes the token to the next generation.
Certainly there is a belly flop. Cannonball. bomb. But there’s nothing better than “pop the manu,” a unique and difficult type of diving completed by New Zealand’s Maori, which can shoot a 32-foot water jet for all the biggest pool splashes.
The cultural traditions of decades have become so popular that Auckland’s annual World Championships are held at cash awards, with the latest in some such events over the past 20 years.
Now, Georgia Tech scientists are organizing exactly what these divers are doing to create large-scale splashes.
“It’s extremely difficult to master, very dangerous and requires millisecond control,” said Pankaji Rohira, a post-doctor researcher and co-author, who is co-author of the paper “Learn Manu.”
A Georgia Tech team of experts in liquid dynamics and biomechanics spent several months tackling the issue.
Mechanics learned involves analyzing over 75 videos of people doing manoo jumps, taking lab members to the Georgia Tech pool and making over 50 trial jumps.
Finally, researcher and co-author Daehyun Choi has built a hand-sized robot called “Manubot”, which can mimic the body movement of a diver during a Manu jump and test the exact angle that is optimal for creating the maximum water movement.
Allows maximum splash
The completed Maori jumpers are found to contain certain movements made within just 0.14 seconds, as seen every four years during the Olympics.
“It’s all about making a V-shaped body during water intrusion and creating a specific set of body dynamics underwater,” Rohira said.
Specifically, the best manu jumpers form the perfect 45° V with a body in the air. Then, as soon as they touch the surface of the water, the diver will return and kick, straighten their bodies.
This expands the cavity that forms when the body enters water. The height of the splash corresponds to the size of the cavity. The time of cavity collapse is known as the “pinch-off time.” Gravity pushes water back vertically, creating an upward jet of water.
“It’s basically the amount of energy trapped in the water,” Rohira said.
Technically, the first splash created by the body of a diver entering the water is called the crown splash, while the second is called the warthington jet, which is caused by the collapsed cavity.
Extreme body control and split second timing are required. The V-shaped body must be at a 45-degree angle to create the fastest and best Worthington jet, while ensuring diver safety.
Rohilla said when a diver is jumping from 3 meters, the rollback and kick motion must occur within 0.14-0.15 seconds of entering the water. It is about 10 feet tall.
The higher the jump, the less time the diver has to perform the rollback and kick.
“It looks easy, but it’s actually very challenging,” he said.
Manudiving can be damaged
Researchers warn that Manu Manuver can be not only difficult, but also dangerous and painful.
“The more you jump, the faster the reaction time, so it can be very dangerous,” Rohira said.
In particular, if you miss a 45-degree landing type, the water can slap the diver’s back with a lot of force.
“It hurt some of our teammates. It was extremely painful,” Rohira said. “It can be a dangerous sport because it can even damage the spine.”
Some pools in New Zealand do not allow manu diving, including one area where a child was injured.
a Maori Cultural sports
The sport dates back at least decades ago and has become an important cultural tradition in New Zealand.
The name most likely comes from the Maori word “manu,” meaning bird, but suggests that the sport is a shortened form of Mangere, a popular Auckland suburb.
It’s gone from what people did for fun to show off their talent as a competitive sport. In 2024, the first Manu World Championships took place in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital. Other competitions appeared to go back at least back to 2011.
This year, Wellington has more than $23,000 in prize money. The jump height ranges from 3 feet of water for children to 16 feet for adults.
Divers can compete in the traditional manu style of V-bomb, but new styles have also been introduced, such as Gorilla, Cannonball and Co.
Competition uses high-tech cameras to calculate the splash height of each diver to ensure fair scoring.
“Thousands of hours of practice”
The fun of manu diving is making things people love on a large scale, given the amount of splash observed in places where kids play in the pool.
It is also the exact opposite of the clean and minimal splash required for competitive diving, and scoring in part depends on generating as little splash as possible as divers plunges into the water.
“We call it ‘ripping’,” said Filtonne, a dive coach at the University of California, Davis. “The minimum amount of splash correlates with the highest score.”
Making a splash is just as difficult as making a big splash. “You want to be as streamlined as you can get,” Tonne said. “It will take thousands of hours.”
