Starting Lion Dance Training

[kwaichang kaned]

This Sunday.

All I know for certain is that my Sifu learnt it whilst studying Jow Gar.

Can anybody give me any Hints, tips or a rough idea of what to expect?
thankya

[sean_stonehart]

Practice & listen to your sifu...

[Judge Pen]

Training? Heck, I thought they just throw you in the back and say "Keep up!" :D

[sean_stonehart]

Naw... that was just you... :D

[kwaichang kaned]

Originally posted by Judge Pen
Training? Heck, I thought they just throw you in the back and say "Keep up!" :D

Kinda what i'm worried about.

Anyone who knew me during "Kwai:the clubbing years"can testify that I move around like i'm holding a power cable in my teeth.

Sean: That's a given.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by kwaichang kaned
Anyone who knew me during "Kwai:the clubbing years"can testify that I move around like i'm holding a power cable in my teeth.

I don't even know you and I find that mental image disturbing.

[kwaichang kaned]

:D

[David Jamieson]

work your stances and stepping from stance to stance.
Your feet have to match that drum beat.

Make sure that when you are in the puppet, you don't like like a guy in a puppet (the guy in the back does this more often than not because he stands there...like an idiot :p while the front guy gets the choi chang.

Your stepping should match the front guy and your head shouldn't be a bump on the back of the lion.

always flap the sides of the lion when you are the tail. looks like the lion is breathing that way. moving faster, breath faster(flap more) moving slower, getting sleepy? bigger flaps, slower deeper breaths.

Lion dance can get complicated in the beginning, but once you get the basic idea of it, it is not hard.

It is pretty easy to do bad lion dance though. Especially if your kungfu is weak. :D

[zenile]

Northern or Southern Lion?

[Pork Chop]

Who's your sifu?

Tail's supposed to be a more advanced student than the head, traditionally. :p


For head:

Train lifting, holding up high, and twisting up high with the head for strength and endurance. Train footwork to show the lion steps strong & on time. Turning, looking, and blinking all help to make the lion look alive. Need total body coordination.


For tail:

Bend at the hips more than the knees. Shoulders need to be lower than hips; this is key. Stepping at the EXACT moment the head steps isn't as important as making sure the stepping looks like a live animal: not too little stepping, not too much stepping. Make sure your angle behind the head isn't such that the lion looks "bent", unless you have good reason. You're the bootie and the rear legs: so sometimes you wag playfully and other times you stamp forcefully.


Man I miss liondancing.... :(

[SevenStar]

why did you stop?

[Pork Chop]

No bs answer? hehe

One sihing was telling me to train sanshou and visit different gyms.
Another sihing felt the need to tell sifu what I was doing.
Sifu yelled at me for doing what I thought I was supposed to and told me that his school wasn't a place that produced fighters.

After that little situation, i tried to just "part time" it and just hang out to lion dance; but the dynamics of the situation kinda killed the thing for me and I reluctantly stopped going down there.

Can't say I miss the 1 hour drive to class everyday though. LOL

[SevenStar]

dang, that's pretty messed up. What does his school produce then? are they top notch in lion dancing? On the bright side, your gas bill should be alot less!

[Shaolinlueb]

Originally posted by SevenStar
dang, that's pretty messed up. What does his school produce then? are they top notch in lion dancing? On the bright side, your gas bill should be alot less!

the school produces some of the best jow gar students around and some of the best traditional martial artists around, or so i've been told. and great lion dancers, which i have seen perform twice. and im sure with the skill those students possess I'm sure they could handle themselves

[Pork Chop]

Lueb's right in his assessment of their skills; and I'm sure they'd appreciate such a high compliment coming from him.
I ain't tryin to bag on the skills of the students.
They just didn't want ring-fighters for whatever reason.
Seems like I'm constantly caught in awkward positions. lol
I don't wanna bash on those guys by any means; but I just don't see any reason anymore to be vague about why i left.

But if any of you guys with schools wake up one night to hear the door alarms going off; don't be surprised to find some tubby white guy gettin downright melodious on your drum or lion. lol

[hasayfu]

Originally posted by BMore Banga

Tail's supposed to be a more advanced student than the head, traditionally. :p



Is that what they told you to get the big guy in the back?

Good comments on tail and head. The "bent" thing we call, "Don't be a camel"

To early to tell you what to expect other then a great work out. And depending on the shows, a good way to bond with the si-hing/dai.

Let us know how it goes.

[Pork Chop]

Originally posted by hasayfu
Is that what they told you to get the big guy in the back?


LOL I think it was more to keep us from bucking the tiny little guys off when they were standing on our shoulders. LOL

[Pork Chop]

umm scratch that earlier comment about me leaving LOl...
after a year away, they were gracious enough to take me back...
still not 100% sure i can get sportfighting out of my system; so I'm kinda plannin to do that on the down-low (formally under Khun Kao Charuad and Kru Danny)...

Kinda crazy that my first day back after being gone a year saw me playing head more than I ever had in a single event.

[kwaichang kaned]

Thanks for the replies.

A lot of fun! Hard work but fun.

Im not dire but lets just say that as a dancer i'm a great cymbal player.

[bodhitree]

I've found my lion dancing coach puts us through the ringer conditioning wise more than any of my martial arts teachers ever have. I think i am personally the strongest i've ever been because of it. I absolutely love lion dance training, not to mention performing. I'm the head, so i get to shove the head in kids faces and make them cry;)