This website consist of all of the classes that Paumalu Yoga & the Arjuna Institute host at the Sunset Beach Rec Center. The Sunset Beach Rec Center is a City & County of Honolulu space. We rent the space from them, month-to-month as a private 501c3. All of our classes are donation based. We only offer a few classes as the space is used by many different programs. We are always trying to add more classes, however it is entirely up to the availability of the City & County staff and their programs. Our goal is to offer donation-based classes for our community in their community center.

What is the significance of “Paumalū”?

If the area known as “Sunset Beach” was referred to with it’s Hawaiian name, it would be called “Paumalū.”

Paumalū would be the ahupua’a in which Nina Alena Beatty resides in today.  Some of her weekly classes are also taught in the area.  Ahupuaʻa is an old Hawaiʻi term for a large traditional socioeconomic/ geologic/ climatic subdivision of land.  The ahupuaʻa consisted most frequently of a slice of an island that went from the top of the local mountain to the shore, often following the boundary of a stream.  The Hawaiians believed that the land, the sea, the clouds and all of nature had a certain interconnectedness which is why they used all of the resources around them to reach the desired balance in life.

Paumalu means “taken secretly.” This reference went back to the days of kapu when a woman who once caught more octopus than was permitted there, had her legs bitten off by a shark.  In another legend, an ali`i (chief) of Kaua`i named Kahikilani crossed the hundred miles of open sea between his home and O`ahu just to prove his prowess in the great surf there. It has be said that Kahikilani also had an unfortunate affair with a bird maiden and ended-up petrified. His image, complete with a petrified lehua lei around his neck, stands on a barren ridge above Paumalu Bay (Kammieland).  This rock can still be seen today!

An ariel view of Paumalū.