Some Lion Dancing

Have been busy lately..as we get closer to Chinese New Year.......it's time to lion dance!!  Often my students wonder why does a wushu sifu do lion dancing....after all that's something only tradtional wushu schools perform.  Well before I became a contemporary wushu practioner...I was a traditional wushu student........my uncle is a master of Tibetan White Crane which I studied first, then later I was a student at San Francisco Jing Wu Academy under Grandmaster Jack Man Wong.........by the way,  the one who according to urban legend fought Bruce Lee......most of the stories are not true....well that's for another time.........in tradtional wushu, lion dancing is an important part of advance martial arts training.  To complete your training each school has it's own style of lion dancing........the foot movements are from your particular style.......drumming of each school is also distinct.  You cannot be considered a sifu if you do not lion dance. Since I know both northern and southern styles........my lion dancing combines aspects of both.........nowadays everyone does something like this........though at the time I began  doing this ,it was considered innovative.  Any way,  our first gig was for the Waterbar and Epic Roasthouse Resturants down in the Embarcadero in San Francisco.  I went out with my student's group, Kei Lun.......Corey is their leader.......it proved to be one of the crazier events we have done.  There were over 1000 people in attendance.......people were packed in two floors of  the resturant itself then there were two additional tents outside and long lines of people waiting to get in.  Originally, we were planning to have some of the younger kids dance their lion......but there were so many people we were afraid they would get trampled.  The audience however proved to be very gracious....giving the kids lots of room as they help play the cymbals for the lion dance.  That was on sunday............today, Corey came with our San Francisco Wushu Team and help perform at the Gladstone Institute........Ryan and Greg performed the lion.  It was a small stage but packed with people.  They were celebrating Chinese New Year but also opening a new research center with the help of China.......the Institute did a great job of publicity and even provided the Team with dinner....that's always a bonus!  Well there are many more performances to do yet as the new year has not begun yet.  When I was younger, during the New Year we often performed 4 times a day for two weeks straight all over the Bay Area......it was a great way to get in shape!  Nowadays though there are many more lion teams in the Bay Area and getting gigs is much more difficult.  One advantage I have though is that much of my group is older so they have jobs but are not in school...so we can go out when many Lion dance teams can't because they use teenagers.  So there are some advantages to being an old lion dancer!!  Well that's it for now from the old Lion, cya!!