Hi all,

Chris, thanks for taking the time to create a list, your efforts are much appreciated.

My name is Rob Teng, I live in Holland, which is NOT a province of Germany!! :-) I've been practising Liondancing for about 8 years. I study Wing Chun Kung Fu, and my sifu also teaches Sil Lum and T'ai-chi. The first time I had to do the liondance, was when I was 16 I think, and I had only seen a liondance once, a couple of days earlyer. My sifu needed someone badly, so he asked me. All I got for instruction, was: you in the back, bend forward, don't pull the cloth too much, and follow where I go,.....Cute,... so there I was, on stage. Spotlights, three more lions, etc.

Things have changed a bit, I know a bit more about what I'm doing, and how to do them. Our teacher usually has to put in all the available time to train the moves, so many aspects of the meaning of the whole ceremony are not so clear to me. I hope to learn a lot from all you on this list when it comes to that!

Yesterday, there was a liondance contest, in Liege, Belgium. I didn't know about it 'till 1.00 pm. I dropped by at my teacher's class, and he asked me if I wanted to go. He wasn't sure if he would go, but when I said yes, he decided to make it a day,.. It was a three hours drive, but well worth it. Participating teams: Belgium and China. Teams from France, Portugal, Spain and Malaysia were initially invited, but couldn't make it. I thought handing out the World-champion and European-champion-prizes was a bit exagerated (sp?), but it was great. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to see the Belgians in action, but I saw them last year. The Chinese team did great, they were from Shanghai and one other place of which I can't remember the name,... I think my photo's will be ready in about twenty minutes, so I better hurry with this e-mail!! BTW: the chinese also brought a dragon. I don't know much about dragons, and I had only seen the dragon-dance once or twice, .. at quite a low level compared to this team!!! My teacher, who is from Hong Kong, said even he had never seen such a great dragondance- performance!! All in all, yesterday was really a great day!

Would you appreciate it if I put up photo's on the net? I'm sort of out of diskspace, but I can probably throw out some other stuff (not of liondancing, of cource :-)

Question: do the following term sound familiar:
high drum
seven star (short and long)

It might be good to make a list with some terminology, so we all know what we're talking about. May something like a FAQ for liondancers??

Take care, happy dancing!!
Greets,
Rob Teng
http://www.et.tudelft.nl/~wingchun/Welcome.html

PS, don't forget to sign the liondancers guestbook at my liondance page!

Hi all!

Just my additions to the 2 previous posts - first off the Lion Dance book is an excellent resource! 8.5" x 11" size over 400 pages of great reference material covering many aspects of Lion Dancing. At first I thought the US$60 price was a little much, but then I thought, "Hey, no more expensive than a text book at the university & I'll probably enjoy this one a lot better!" I've had no regrets about getting it.

Also about Lion Dance homepages - if anyone is interested in making a new page, or getting a new site to house more images, try www.oocities.org who is giving away 2 free megs of space for personal pages.

For now, any messages you send for the list will probably get sent back to you when I redirect it to the rest of the list. I'm looking into ways of eliminating this, but for now please bear with it.

All for now,
Chris

Okay, since nobody else seems to want ot touch this, I'll give it a shot - some of you others who have more experience with this can add to it & correct me.

Rob Teng wrote:
>Question: do the following term sound familiar:
>high drum
>seven star (short and long)

Sorry, haven't heard of "high drum" Where did you come across this term?
"Seven Star" seems to me to refer to a specific performance called "Seven Stars and the Moon" where 7 oranges are placed around a bowl containing the lettuce & red envelope. The oranges are the "stars" and the bowl is the "moon." Performed correctly each "star" should be approached in a different manner before being eaten. I'm pretty sure the book by Dr. Hu has an explaination of this - when I get some more time, I'll look it up for you. I don't know about the designations of short/long as it seems that the performance would only be long.

>It might be good to make a list with some terminology, so we all know what we're
>talking about. May something like a FAQ for liondancers??

I agree! Anyone have any ideas on what can be included? If anyone has time to create one, I'm sure we all would have something to contribute. How about we all send in submissions and pick someone to be in charge of collecting and organizing them - any volunteers?

All:

Seven Stars and the Moon is indeed the name of a performance; however, I believe that there are styles/patterns of drumming called 3-star, 5-star, and 7-star drumming. 3-star drumming is a basic walk beat, 5-star drumming adds a few more beats to the 3-star beat, and 7-star drumming is supposed to be a combination of 3-star and 5-star drumming. I'm not exactly sure about this, but that's my impression of these terms.

Maybe someone else can correct me on this?

Greg

The two martial arts groups I practice with are Kei Lun Martial Arts (Oakland, CA USA-Sifu Wilson Ng) and The San Francisco Wushu & Lion Dance Team (San Francisco, CA USA-Sifu Bryant Fong, Sifu Anthony Chan). My name's Corey Chan. I've been practicing gung fu and wushu since 1978 and 1984, respectively, and I'm just beginning to discover how lame I really am. There's so much to lion dancing and martial arts to learn, but so little time/opportunity. I hope to learn a lot more through this group.

I've been lucky to get the chance to perform lion dancing since about 1980Šand because of the high concentration of the Chinese population around the San Francisco Bay Area, the groups I belong to have good opportunities to perform throughout the year. Besides Kei Lun Martial Arts and The San Francisco Wushu & Lion Dance Team, I'm also a member of The Golden Shadows Performing Arts Troupe and the Chinese Performing Artists of San Jose.

Like most of us, I'm most familiar and comfortable with performing and practicing the southern lion dance. In addition, I was taught a northern lion dance routine by Sifu Yao Yong of the Chinese Performing Artists of San Jose. He's not a martial artist, but he's definitely one of the best when it comes to Chinese dance. He has put in the hard work and has churned out excellent dance programs and students. Guess that makes him a sifu. Wish I could do half of the things he can! Learning the northern lion didn't come cheap. I didn't pay money to learn, but I agreed to learn and perform a couple of other traditional Chinese folk dances with Sifu Yao. Let's just say it's not the most natural thing for a martial artist to try to learn Chinese folk dance. It felt VERY embarassing and humbling, but that was the price to pay. It was a difficult challenge, but I decided to see it through-no matter what the cost to my personal pride! What I got out of the experience was a feeling of accomplishment that I hadn't felt before. What an unexpected surprise! Besides that, I did learn the northern lion dance and the part of the teaser (guy with the ball). The dance moves, well, I've added some of those to the buddha routine I perform. Will I ever do traditional Chinese folk dance again? Probably not. But nevertheless, the exposure to the northern lion, Yao's choreography, and the nice people of the CPASJ was an invaluable experience for me. I encourage you all to at least check out some other types of Chinese folk danceŠ (so I can laugh at some other suckers!)

In response to one of the questions I saw about training videos and books. I haven't seen one that really gives us what we need. Of course, there are reference materials that deal with the origins, history and symbolism of lion dancing, but precious little detailing puzzle-solving methods and partner techniques. Practically nothing showing people how to move. You know, the "little tricks" that only experience can teach. Maybe that's just it. Sure wish there was something available though.

Now I've got a question. Anyone ever heard of the Golden Lock Puzzle? What kind of business puts it out? What props are used to set it up? How's the puzzle solved? What's the symbolism or story behind it?

Thanks folks. Have fun. Corey

> Maybe someone else can correct me on this?
> Greg

That's what I meant: the different drumming rythms. 7-star is the rythm where the lion looks left-right-left (combined with a jump or so) then moves forward + side to side, and finally jumps backward. 'High drum' is the long rythm that's usually initiated right after greeting or a 7-star; the lion will be quite upright and walk (more) quickly.

I'll try to make the rythms clear with this notation:
o == center of drum
' == edge (high sound)
0 == center of drum with dampening (hand/fingers used to make a lower sound)
8 == center of drum with one stick, the other on top of the first ==> low +high sound together

 Basic rythm (3-star?):
       0 ' o0 ' (repeated over and over)
       Variations (inserted every once in a while):
       0 ' o0 ' o o ooo o o '
       and:
       0 ' o0 ' o oo o 0 '
       Other variations are made with just leaving hits out (' and o 0) or putting
       more in.

 7-star:
       o ooo o 0 o ooo o 0 o ooo o 0 oo'ooo'ooo' o ooo o o o o o 8
       left mb right,mb left, mb head forward+side to side, jump back
       (mb=mabo, looking forward)
       Variation on first part:
       o ooo o 0 ' o ooo o 0 ' o ooo o 0 '
       And on the second part:
       oo ooo ooo o ooo o o o o o 8

  High drum:
 ' ''' o  o  o  o o o o o o o o o ooo o o ooo o o ooo o o  o  o ooo o o oo0
                ^       ^       ^       ^       ^             ^
 Hits that are relatively stressed are marked with ^.
  1) does this make sense (the notation)
 2) is there a familiar ring to it???

 o ooooo 0 0 00880888 o oooooo 0 0 00880888 o oooooo 0 0 00880888
       (greeting drum ;-)
       Rob Teng
       teng@ljouwert.et.tudelft.nl
       http://www.et.tudelft.nl/~wingchun/Welcome.html

Folks,

In regards to Corey's email, I have never heard of the Golden Lock Puzzle. Is this the name/title of a performance? How does a business put it out? And I'm not sure about puzzle-solving methods, either. I have never heard of these terms associated with lion dancing.

Rob did a good job with the drum beats. Yes, most of them "sound" familiar (as far as I can tell from reading the beats. I had problems deciphering the high drum). These beats are fairly common among most lion dance groups. Our team calls the beats by different names, though. I think most teams have their own terminology/conventions for the beats and movements in the lion dance. It mainly depends on who's doing the teaching and the style being taught. I think if you ask 10 different lion dance instructors on what is the proper way to do things (like head movement and music), you'd get 10 different answers.

As far as fund-raising for Dr. Hue, how much does it cost to fund the publication of a book?

Greg

Greg wrote:
>In regards to Corey's email, I have never heard of the Golden Lock Puzzle.
> Is this the name/title of a performance? How does a business put it out?
> And I'm not sure about puzzle-solving methods, either. I have never heard
>of these terms associated with lion dancing.

I'm not sure about the set up for specific puzzles i.e. the Golden Lock Puzzle - hopefully Dr. Hu's next book will shed some light on this. I'm sure you know what a puzzle is though, maybe you just have a different name for it. It's when there are a series of obstacles or tests that a lion must pass while performing the "search for the greens." Each part must be performed in a certain sequence and each part has a certain significance to the movements. I haven't seen any performances like this recently, but it is a very old tradition in lion dancing. To test the skills of the troupe, business would set up these obstacle courses around the greens so that the lion dancers would need to figure out how to get the prize. It insured a good performance for the business by keeping unexperienced lion dancers away. Learning all the different puzzles took a lot of time that most people now don't want to spend, so I guess that's why it isn't as common in modern times.

Does anyone know of any puzzles that are still being performed? I'd love to learn a few!

Chris

Leon Z. Lee
E-mail (Work): lee@arlut.utexas.edu
E-mail (Personal): usagi@onramp.net
Web (Personal): http://rampages.onramp.net/~usagi
Austin, Texas USA

Beginning Lion Dance enthusiast, done martial arts performances since
teen (Shao-Lin & Jing-Wu Wushu). Interested in learning and exchanging
info on southern style - lion dance patterns.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Leon Z. Lee lee@arlut.utexas.edu
Applied Research Laboratories
University of Texas at Austin

Dear Atay
Looking for shoes for your lion dance team? What color is/are your lion(s)? Do you have matching lion pants, or does your group just wear black pants? Want claw feet or just plain shoes? The claw feet will probably run you at least $40 a pair. They all come from overseas, so it takes months to get an order.

In the catalog for "Asian World of Martial Arts (AWMA)", they listed 2 Lion Dance videos by Master Tat Mau Wong with the titles:

Beginning Lion Dance $39.95 50 minutes
Advanced Lion Dance $39.95 53 minutes

Have anyone seen these videos and its performance quality ?

In addition, can anyone recommend a Chinese martial art mail order store in which one can order short-sleeve or no-sleeve martial art uniforms ? Thanks for any info passed my way.

Okay, it's been a week now and I'd like to stop handling the mail for this list manually - starting this week, please send all mail for the list to: liondance@mail.sdsu.edu Consequently, it's no longer necessary to include "LDL" as part of the subject line.

There are some who have told me they are still interested in the mail list although they haven't subscribed to it yet, so I will continue to forward list mail to the ones who haven't subscribed yet.

Also - I've been having password problems that I'm working out with the system administrator, so those of you who received a message saying that you needed approval to be added - hold tight for a little while and I'll subscribe you as soon as I can. You'll still get the list mail forwarded from me though, so don't worry about missing anything.

Here's a msg I received from Steven Chew who is looking for places to get equipment - can anyone help out? He's also from the San Francisco Bay Area.

>On a different note, where does your group get new equipment? we
>are looking at getting some more heads and tails. We found a place
>that sells the head and tail for $450 but they don't have matching
>tails (it's the rainbow variety) and the heads are a little small.
>The quality is good though. The heads are nicely decorated and very
>solid. They are from Fatsan which is famous in china for heads.
>Also, they sell a good sized drum for $150 which is an incredible
>price to us. What are your experiences?

Corey,

What do your claw shoes look like? Are they shiny silver or gold? Or are they more of a felt-type material? I've been trying to get the shiny silver/gold ones, but they seem to come from a certain supplier whom I have not been able to locate.

Greg

Leon wrote:
>Have anyone seen these videos and its performance quality ?

While I have the greatest respect for Sifu Wong, considering all he's done to promote lion dancing in the US, and for his lion dance teams who put on noteworthy performances, I cannot recommend these videos to lion dancers who are looking to learn techniques. I own the advanced techniques video and didn't find them to be very advanced at all. It covers a few performances such as Lion and the Buddah, Lion comes out of the cave, Eating a snake, how to jump up onto the tail's legs, how to do a side roll, etc. To me this was interesting to watch, but didn't really learn anything new. He does talk a little about the history, but not very much. Also the techniques do not seem to be very smooth.

Having never seen the beginning techniques video, I can't say for sure, but if the other video is any indication, I'd say the money is better spent elsewhere. He does cover music on the first tape, and that might be interesting.

In defense of the videos though, they seem to have been made a while ago and maybe an updated version is coming out soon. Does anyone know?

Hi Everyone,

This is my intro and some comments.

My name is Stephen Chew and I am new (less than 1 yr) to Lion Dance. I've studied Hung Gar Kung Fu and Southern Lion Dance at Wing Lam Kung Fu in Sunnyvale. We have been doing many performances but we are very limited in our technique. We are in the process of rebuilding the team. I want to also thank Chris for putting all this together. It's really great.

Rob Teng wrote:
> That's what I meant: the different drumming rythms.
> 7-star is the rythm where the lion looks left-right-left (combined with a jump
> or so) then moves forward + side to side, and finally jumps backward.
> 'High drum' is the long rythm that's usually initiated right after greeting or
> a 7-star; the lion will be quite upright and walk (more) quickly.

This is basically what we call 7 star too. I've noticed that most people do a variation to the Choy Li Fut lion dance and what we do is Hung Gar so it's a little different. The concepts are the same though.

> I'll try to make the rythms clear with this notation:
> o == center of drum
> ' == edge (high sound)
Is this the outside edge of the drum? Ie a wood to wood sound?

> 0 == center of drum with dampening (hand/fingers used to make a lower sound)
Is this an actual strike with the stick while a hand is holding the drum or is this hitting the drum with your hand/finger to accent a pause? We do both.

> 8 == center of drum with one stick, the other on top of the first ==> low +
> high sound together.
Do this mean having a stick sitting on the drum and then hitting the stick?

I hope you don't mind all the questions, I am really trying to learn more beats and I couldn't decipher William Hu's book. As long as I understand the notations, I likethis system.

> Basic rythm (3-star?):
> 0 ' o0 ' (repeated over and over)

Our basic rythm (we call Low Dance ) is:

  'oo 'oo 'oooooo 'oo 'oo 'ooooooo 'o* (repeat)
 (* is a pause)
 We vary the number of ' and o and also the spacing(?).
 By spacing it's like chick-bum-bum chick-bum-bum chick-bum-bum-da-da-da-bum-bum.
 (hard to explain.  Wish I had a musical background)

> 7-star:
> o ooo o 0 o ooo o 0 o ooo o 0 oo'ooo'ooo' o ooo o o o o o 8
> left mb right,mb left, mb head forward+side to side, jump back
> (mb=mabo, looking forward)
> Variation on first part:
> o ooo o 0 ' o ooo o 0 ' o ooo o 0 '
> And on the second part:
> oo ooo ooo o ooo o o o o o 8

I'm sorry but I could not relate this to something I know (beat-wise) The moves is what we call 3-star(maybe), 7-star.

3-star is lion head turn left, arm's straight overhead, in a twist stance. (right leg behind left leg, left foot pointing tothe left) the Beat is the same as your variation: o ooo o 0 ' Same thing to the right, then to the center. (hence the 3-stars)

7-star starts with the backward movements.

 oo* oo* oo-ooo* ooo* o-ooo-o-oo o-ooo-o-o-oo-o**
       lt- rt- lt- rt- lt- forward bow Jump back and
       stance with freeze in crane or low
       head shakes back stance on last beat.

 > High drum:
       > ' ''' o o o o o o o o o o o o ooo o o ooo o o ooo o o o o ooo o o oo0
       > ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
       > Hits that are relatively stressed are marked with ^.
       we call this high dance and it is similar.

Wow this got really long and probably didn't make sense but I hope it carries on this discussion. If it does, I'd like to go into our more special beats. (1-4-7, testing, hooked legs, shaking hands, variations to low dance, etc)

Stephen Chew

Greg,

Claw feet come in a couple of different varieties. The shiny silver or gold claw feet you're interested in look like they were originally from northern lion costumes. These have been very popular with teams doing the southern/northern lion dances in the San Francisco area. I don't know of a source for these shoes, but if you know someone from Yau Gung Moon or Bok Hok they may be able to put you in touch. We have the feet that look like they have three big toes with a piece of material that resembles a claw. These are made with "stuffed animal" fur and rabbit or goat fur. Sometimes they'll use satin like material instead of the stuffed animal furŠI've found these easier to keep clean. We get ours through a place in Hong Kong.

Leon,

The videos by Master Wong are OK. They are certainly not the best show that Master Wong is capable of, but they are pretty good for groups that are just beginning. The beginning video goes through a lot of the basic movements and basic instrument beats/rhythms. The advanced video shows several performance routines like 7 Stars and the Moon.

If your group is well established and is just looking for different ideas on performances, then I would recommend only the advanced video. However, if you and your group just started lion dancing, then the beginning video might also be helpful.

Greg

Chris Just dis-recommended the Tat-Mau vidoes and I have to agree with his statements.

I have just seen a very bad copy of a Lion Dance video from Taiwan. It has the making of a head, basic footwork, drum beats (really wierd/cool ones) and then routines for 1-8 lions. It's in Manderin and English (alternating)

If anyone knows where to get an original of this, I'm interested. Any other videos out there? I saw a clip of a very old competition in SF with Yau Kung Moon and Tat Mau Wong. Very impressive stuff.

Stephen Chew