Reece did extensive research during those years. " When I first started working with hula kahiko I studied in The Bishop Museum.  There's a section of the museum called the Ray Jerome Baker collection and he did some of the first photographs in Hawaii.  And I actually went back to some of the drawings that Captain Cook's crew were painting or drawing of the dancers.  I went back and studied the earlier costuming."  I would sit through the (halau) practices and watch what they were doing.  And I would hang out with the halau for two of three years and then I'd go on to another halau and what I found was each kumu hula, each teacher had their own style.  They had their own little family.  I worked with about six or eight kumu hula over the years. "