HONG YING LION DANCE

An Important Tradition

The full spectrum of Chinese Martial Arts is very wide and ,of course, a complete school should try to offer students all aspects of training. One of the most important traditions in Chinese culture is the Lion and Dragon dances which are almost always performed by Kung Fu schools. Of course, not every student will take part in Lion Dancing but the opportunity is certainly given to those who wish to learn and practise this.

The Lion wakes up

Choy Li Fut Kung Fu comes from Guang Dong province in China, and in our school we are lucky to have a beautiful, black and red Guang Dong Lion.

The training can actually be very hard for the dancing part as this requires many hours of stance and jumping practise so that participants need to be very strong in the back and legs. Also of course the person in front must carry the heavy Lion head , whilst the other must stay bent double the whole time !

The Lion is awake

Types of Lion Dance
There are 2 different sorts of dance widely seen, in broad terms they are Modern and Traditional. The Modern style is much more focused nowadays on acrobatic moves & jumps up on the high poles and the Traditional style holds more with the old Cultural habits of the normal Lion dance in the street.

At our school we practise the Traditional Southern Chinese style Lion. He is a colourful and exuberant Lion and following tradition he should display the characteristics of Aggression; Hunger; Fear ; Drunkenness ; Sleepiness ; Curiosity ; Excitement ; and Prudence during the dance. The drum music will often lead him, but sometimes he too will lead the dance, a good Lion dance group must work very well as a team. The whole dance is kind of theater piece with traditional rules !

Usually, if the Lion visits, for example a Restaurant, he will, like most animals, first look for food. Usually there will be something left just for him (usually lettuce), which he will sometimes have to be very daring to reach - but, in the end he will reach it and eat his fill, then share the rest with the people around by throwing lettuce in all directions. Then he must sweep away the bad spirits from the door before he can enter the restaurant to visit the family there ! A great festival time for all.

The Lion dances

The other part of the Lion Dance is the music which is played traditionally on a huge Bass drum and then accompanied by Gong and Cymbals. The music is a very precise thing and there are distinct differences in ,for example,Traditional dance and Modern-style. The musicians must also practise long and hard in order to perfect the sound and given the Lion dancers an excellent background.

Click here to listen to an example of Lion Dance music.
The example is about 40 seconds long, in MP3 format, 478 KB.

Lion Music Ensemble

When coupled together the elements of the Lion and the Music create a very special atmosphere which is really uplifting for the people who are watching and the performers themselves !