In this paper I look at a set of teaching techniques and practices that I experienced as a student of traditional hula over the past twenty years. I explain the practices of ho'ike (testing by showing what one knows), 'aiha'a (getting grounded), pa'a ka waha/ ho'olohe (hold the mouth/ listen), and learning without palapala (paper) as I have experienced them in halau hula (hula school). I discuss how these practices have challenged my assumptions about teaching and impacted my understanding of the learning process and my identity as a learner. I then isolate key values that I find interwoven throughout these practices, but which I find largely absent in our contemporary, Western educational institutions. I conclude with a discussion of what I call a pedagogy of respect. This concept, which I have drawn from my experience as a haumana hula (hula student), has helped me to clarify my identity both as an educator and a learner, and has increasingly informed my own teaching practice.