Hi,

Lion Dance has been very strongly associated with Southern Chinese martial arts for hundreds of years (since the fall of the Ming Dynasty). The Shaolin Temple you refer to practices Bak Sil-lum (Northern Shaolin) and the Northern arts are not associated with Lion Dance, so of course you would not see Lion Dance practiced in the Hunan Temple - but then whether they even pratice real Shaolin or just contemporary wu shu is...well maybe we should not go into this here.

All the Best!
'Kam' -Wes Cameron, Si-Fu - Shaolin West Kwoon

THere southern shaolin too
lam sil lum(south shaolin)
bak sil lum(north shaolin)
where u tink hung gar...choy lay fut....wing chun came frm??southside

Hmmm.....So What is your point? Did you not correctly read my post? Did I not speak of Southern and Northern Shaolin and their ties and lack of ties to Southern Lion Dance? I would say that anyone involved in the Chinese martial arts knows the origins of the arts you mention (Hung Gar is Southern, Choy Lee Fut is a combination of Southern and Northern, Wing Chun is Southern...well I do not think I want to draw a whole lineage chart for you here)....so again...I do not understand your point...perhaps you are just confused! Oh, by the way, it is Nam Sil-lum (or Siu-lum).

'Kam' - Wes Cameron, Si-Fu

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but "i tink" that Hung Gar was originated by a monk "frm" the north that went to the south... of course it is famous in the south because the famous practitioners were from the "southside".

"bai bai",

g

Hi,

Well my kung fu school doesn't have a formal lion dance instructor, my sifu only knows kung fu. but he knows what it's suppose to look like, and he knows the history and all that. we all know how to lion dance though, how well? my opinion is biased of course. but i'll be honest, we're crap. i play the drums, and from my vantage point i picked up what i know from watching the guys perform. they in turn apparently learnt from videos and good ol hard practice. well now those guys have left, and i've been teaching the newbies how to dance even though my main role is the drummer. personally, i don't think it's too hard to pick up, but maybe that's because the stances used are from kung fu, it'd probably be alot harder for me if i didn't know the stances beforehand. what i have noticed though, is that people with bad kung fu and no foundation are also bad at the lion dance. the people who's kung fu is good, they're the ones who dance well. unfortunately, i don't think my teaching is too good as the guys aren't very good besides ones who's kung fu is good, so i don't know whether that's a reflection of my teaching or not.

Linda

btw, there was a thread about jumping over the lion to get inside the head, we skip over the lion. but i've seen ppl casually walking over the lion, and sometimes even step on it! isn't stepping on the cloth bad luck, or just common disrespect?

I would think that stepping on any part of the lion would be bad in pretty much every way. Just like you don't want to step on climbing rope because it damages it. And god forbid if someone were to pull on the tail while it was being stepped on...

Andy

Hi,

Well the old story is that the Hunan temple was destroyed by Ching troops and five monks (five ancestors) escaped with some going south. Here in the southern sil-lum temple at Fukien, one of the monks -actually the Abbot Gee Sin developed Hung gar to suit the geography of the area and the revolutionary need for an effective non-flowery fighting method to overthrow the ching...so although the monk was from the north, the style he developed is that akin to the south and he based it on tiger moves. Later Hung gar was further developed and other forms were added to the system by various si-fu. It even has one kuen from the north - Butterfly Palm set - but sets from one Hung Gar system to another, depending on lineage can vary....but in the Hung Fist...all are one family.

All the Best!

'Kam' - Wes Cameron

tehre is no correct way to spell chinese word on here n no u didnt say anythin bout the southern shaolin unless im blind so my point were there is a southern shaolin too..i reread the post..u said somethin bout southern martial art..but not southern shaolin...unless im really blind

and shaolin be shallin whether it be northerm or sooutherm town...don matter

Hello Fellow Lion Dancers around the world.

I know this is probably a petty pet peeve of mine and I realize a lot of these emails have typographical mistakes in them, but can people please post in the real English language?

The use of slang makes it hard for a lot of people to understand the posts and since I'm quite sure that we have a fairly literate and educated group like this why don't we reflect it when we post? I realize that we have an international community here and I can accept that people from outside the US probably will not have full command of the English language as we all do, but I find it hard to believe that we can have a mature intelligent communication about Lion Dancing when we post in slang and intentionally misspell words.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Keith
Kei Lun Martial Arts

ohhh no it is not.... there is a big difference...if you are not ignorant about the differences that is.

Kam

Well - i guess you do need to get glasses!

Fellow Lion Dancers Participants,

Yes, I agree with Keith in using English properly whenever writing post. It is kind of hard to assume certain words in your message if you are using abbreviations or slangs that the general public does not understand. It doesn't have to be in a proper sentence structure like in English 201 but at least it should be readable.

Sincerely,
Ernie

Okay, I have to share this odd dream I had last night, but it's kind of long, so if you don't have time to read it, don't worry about it...

This dream involves real living people, but I don't mean any dissrespect to them or mean to imply that they would act like this in any way in real life. So here goes:

Sifu Doc Fai Wong from San Francisco was hosting a choi cheng contest in a big hall and the place was packed out with teams of lion dancers. I was dancing in the head of a Malaysian style red fat san lion and my brother was following me around playing the drum. I have no idea who was in my tail.

I tried rolling, but the first time my timing was off and I hit the back of the lion head instead of using the rim. I remember thinking I needed to get back into practising--I hadn't done it in too long. The second time my tail was slow and I told him/her so. The third time was okay.

Then I watched as another lion head jumped over his tail landing on his back and rode around piggyback on his own tail. That made me think of trying the "hurricane kick" over the tail mentioned a few days ago, but I didn't do it.

Then came the firecrackers. They looked like sticks of dynamite bundled in threes and dumped all over the ground. Initially the popping drove most of the groups back, but I played a "happy lion" and then approached cautiously, as did a few other grooups. This seemed to be part of the test. When they were on the ground they looked unlit but would suddenly flare up and explode. The test was to rest the bottom of the lion's mouth on them until you thought they were going to explode and then jump back.

Someone I don't recognize, but in my dream I knew his name was Ben was sitting near them holding his 3-year-old daughter. He picked up some of the firecrackers because they looked unlit and showed them to me saying, "Remember when we were kids and we'd always look for these after a lion dance?"

I kicked them out of his hand shouting, "No! Drop them, they're lit!" and as they hit the ground the fuses flared and they exploded.

Now it was time to face the cheng. It was set up so that there were 2 square tables, one on top of the other one. In three of the corners of the lower table there was an empth bowl and two raw eggs. In the fourth corner there was a christmas tree stand holding a long pole with a white napa cabbage tied to the top. There were screws sticking out all over the pole.

Nobody wanted to do it, they all either backed up or kept dancing ignoring the set up. Sifu Doc Fai Wong was standing there holding a roast duck stuffed with something to give to whoever wanted to try to solve the puzzle.

I made a cautious approach to study it, and didn't think it looked too hard. But I kept thinking there had to be something more to it that I wasn't getting or else other people should be willing to try it. I even say the Yau Kung Moon team backing up.

I made an approach, holding the head low and cautious, moving really slowly, still undecided if I was going to do it. My mom shouted form somewhere, "Chris is goin to do it, go get Po-po to come watch!" And I saw my sister run off.

Sifu Doc Fai Wong smiled and held the duck out to me and said, "Come try." My mom asked him what was in the duck and he said it was part of the puzzle that needed to be solved.

The room went silent except for my brother drumming and everybody was watching me. I wanted to try but I kept thinking there was something I wasn't getting, so I approached really slowly but kept looking around to see if anyone else was going to do it.

Finally Master Siow came in with a dark blue hok san head and made the approach. I was really relieved, and backed off to watch. Sifu Patrick Lee from Los Angeles started to play my drum, but Master Siow waived him off and indicated that he only wanted clapping. So everybody started clapping in unison a really simplified 5-star beat. Then people started playing some odd instruments, like a capoiera berimbau, a bongo drum, and Jarrett Chin from San Francisco even started to play a full western drum set. Master Siouw said he enjoyed the new innovations and kept dancing.

To solve the puzzle he fisrst cracked all the eggs into the center bowl with one hand. He then split the duck into 3 equal portions and put one in each bowl. We saw that the inside was stuffed with raw beef marinated in oyster sauce.

He used one of my drumsticks to scramble the eggs in the bowl and stirred in the beef. This kind of made me upset, but when it's Master Siow what can you do?

My mom said, "Doc Fai Wong always has fatty foods at his tournaments." I said, "He's an herbalist and nutritionalist, he should know better." My mom said, "Yeah, your great grandmother, Lily Loh (who is not my great grandmother in real life) was a good nutritionalist." I said, "Wasn't she a famous taichi expert?" She said, "Yes, you know how she started don't you? One day the nerves in her arm just went dead so she was looking for a way to restore them."

Then I went back to watching Master Siow. He had just put three sticks of incense into each bowl and was lighting them with a cigarette lighter held in the mouth of the lion. I thought, "Isn't the lion supposed to be afraid of fire?"

After lighting the last set of incense he dropped the lighter and jumped onto the legs of his tail player who turned around and walked over to the pole. The lion turned light green as Master Siow got the cabbage and finished the puzzle.

I thought, "I'd never have been able to do that, but shouldn't he have bowed three times after lighting the incense?" I wasn't attacking his technique, I was just curious.

My Gung-gung showed up and told me, "The man who solved the puzzle, I think he's a little better than you." I said, "Yes, he trains more."

Everyone was applauding and Sifu Doc Fai Wong said, "Thank you for coming. If you enjoyed this show we have four more this year." I don't remember what the first two were for--some associations that don't have anything to do with martial arts or lion dancing, the third was for the annual "Tiger-Crane Fist Association" meeting, and thr forth was for Greenpeace. I thought, "What a weird group of events to have liondancing at. Then I woke up.

So what does it mean? I think it means I had too much to eat for the Thanksgiving holiday...

Hope you enjoyed it,

Chris

Hey Bro,

I think you've inhaled too much firecracker fumes over the years...heh, heh...hope you and all the rest of you Yanks had a great Thanksgiving!

All the Best!

'Kam'-Wes Cameron

Hey - your right you don't need glasses! - The reason I say Southern Chinese martial arts is due to the fact that today southern Chinese martial arts and southern sil-lum or Shaolin are used interchangeably each meaning the other....those involved in Chinese martial art automatically know this.

'Kam'-Wes Cameron

Hi Demetrio & guys,

Firstly I am not an 'lion dance expert' and am still learning! I agree with what the list is saying..committment & hard work is the key to lion dancing! How did Kun Seng Keng (many world champs)get to be so good? They train at least 3 days in a week, and teach others the other 3 days in a week. They practice everyday 2 mths prior to a competition. And they all have day jobs to cope with. Although they do have Master Siow as their coach but he lives 3 hrs from them, so most of the time they train on their own. From my personal experience, I had a lion duo that went from very basic lion dancing to pole style competition is just 2 yrs. What I saw was a bit of talent but tonnes on committment. So, Linda, don't be discourage!

As for masters/coaches (BTW how do you define a master?), they are important but not vital. What is vital is the attitude or spirit of the team/group and the members. Without the right attitude it will not matter if they have the best masters in the world they still not succeed, as they will not heed the instruction of the masters. I have seen many groups like that and they never reach their full potential. Also the attitude of the organisers/supporters of the group must have the right attitude too. To me , a team should be judge by its attitude.

As for martial art, I may be bias as I nor my groups practce them, I think they do tend to have better stances and strength. However I think that their lion dance training time may be compromised too. What I like to say is that there is no 'better' way but only only 'different' way.

Arnold, sorry for the late info, but the Chinese team won the Sansui competition in China. KSK team C only got second. They lost to the same team in China too during its Oct 1st competition. End of an era....?

Chris, enjoy your dream!:), man, are you mad about LD! The only weird dream I had was when I was sleeping in Master Siow's shop and dreamt of live lions(African ones) roaming around on the shop floor and I was stuck upstairs!:)

That's all from me guys!

George

HI DAVID IT IS DANIEL AND I WOULD LIKE TO ORDER A COPY OF THE 1998 AND 2000 CHAMPIONSHIPS

DANIEL

Thanks George for the info about the competition in Sanshui.I think KSK team is going have a stiff competition from the chinese team especially now that the International Dragon and Lion Dance association headquarter is based in Beijing,and I heard they are planning to make it into a international sports like wushu and entered it as an event in the Olympic someday.Our federation is one of the founding member of that organization.We were asked to start a national lion dance organization to be our country's sole representative.

Hi guys,

I wanted to wait for more info before sharing this, and I guess now is the time. I heard some very interesting things about what happened in China. Some of the judges deliberately gave KSK lower-than-normal marks and that gave the Chinese team the edge. Master Siow knows too well what kind of politics can be involved in lion dancing and he told the organizers that if the compettions in China continue to be fixed and unfair like this then people from overseas will not participate anymore.

I also heard that an investigation is under way into this matter because corruption doesn't reflect too highly on the Chinese organizers. What all this stems from is China's hard belief that the Chinese version of everything (lion dance, kung fu, wushu) is the best and they want everyone else to conform to this belief. Now we all know that just becuase something originates in China it does not mean the best practitioners are also from China. Lion dancing is probably the best example I can think of. Thus, I see many inherent dangers in having the IDLDA moving its headquarters to Beijing because this will give further power to the Chinese influence.

It was the IDLDA's goal from the very beginning to try and make lion dance an Olympic event. But I am just afraid that internal political disagreements will make it more and more difficult to do that. I am very disappointed that China feels it alone must shape the lion dance into something it sees as 'appropriate' rather than cooperating with other countries and federations in advancing what we already have.

Us westerners can help by forming officially sanctioned national bodies. That way, we can have a say in IDLDA decisions and maybe prevent what happened in China from ever happening again. It will take a lot of work and I don't even know where to start, but I am wondering how many of you in the US would like to start this thing sometime in the future?

Best,
Willy

Hi Willy,

I think you have made some very good and valid points and your idea of officially sanctioned national bodies is a great idea. Perhaps David Lei would have some ideas on how to go about this.

'Kam' -Wes Cameron, Si-Fu

i know wut im sayin...told u aint say anythin bout southern shaolin and the end of dis discussion

Hey, pkjaijai

Is there a problem in using proper English????????? You downgrade the intellect of the readers of this list.

Ernie

I was guessing the same thing, I mean Kun Seng Keng getting lower marks than a chinese team in the same competition in consective years? I mean KSK team C has been winning over and over in all kinds of competition, but it seems only in this competition they get second place? I have a question. How did the IDLDA got moved to Beijing? Hong Kong was pretty alright for it. Why did it move? How long is it going to be staying in Beijing? I think the IDLDA should implement a CHecks and Balance system like they have in the US Government. But I doubt the CHinese Body would be receptive of democracy ideals.

Albert

Chris,

This person I find to be extremely immature and rarely if ever contributes anything positive to the list. His previous posts have either been rude, insulting or racist. His intellectual maturity is wanting - in fact I have 8 year olds in my class that demonstrate far more intellectual maturity than he does in his posts. I am requesting that he be sanctioned from this list.

Regards

Wes Cameron, Si-Fu

> Jarrett Chin from San Francisco even started to play a full western drum set. Master
> Siouw said he enjoyed the new innovations and kept dancing.

LOL...

What a coincidence. A friend of mine who is a professional drummer offered me drumming lessons a week ago, and I'm taking him up on his offer! Outside of that, wishing all a happy and restful holidays worldwide and I do emphasize restful as Chinese New Years is early next year!

-Jarrett

wut if the problem is no one ever taught me correct english u wanna teach me??

Hi guys-

I am sorry that this posting can't be about lion dancing. I believe that if the problem is that you aren't being taught correct English then maybe you should spend less time doing Lion Dancing and more time studying because after all Liondancing is a hobby and passion that we love, whereas correct English is a real life survival skill. I don't believe we have to ban him from this list but i personally will filter out any email from individuals email that i personally don't want to read. if any of you need help with this feature feel free to email me and ask how to do so.

keith

Whoa there, gentlemen. I think we have a bit of a misunderstanding here that needs to be resolved.

As I understand it, pkjaijai is a young teenager and not as old as many of us on this list. So he has never been in many situations where he had to follow certain rules, etiquette, etc. As for him never learning correct English, he might be telling the truth - maybe he's a recent immigrant who is still learning and adjusting. Who knows?

Whatever the case, I believe that we just have to be patient and understanding of someone his age. I know pk has often misconstrued a lot of statements, but that's not because he has bad intentions (I hope). Let's give him another chance and some time to get used to our way of communicating.

And to pk, all we ask is that you try to write your emails so that they are easier to read and understand. That means spell things correctly and take the time to think about what you want to say. Remember, you are writing emails to adults of all ages and to people all around the world. Sometimes we don't understand what you mean, either, and that's why we have a lot of misunderstanding. So let's work this out, ok?

Willy