Theme of the Week: Lion Dance

The year of the snake stars on February 10th, 2013.  Time to start getting ready.

How do we get ready?  We practice lion dance all week long.  Why do we do lion dance?  Because it’s a traditional way to ring in the new year.  What’s it got to do with fighting?

The short answer is not much.  The long answer is that it’s a traditional part of Kung Fu training.  The idea is that by doing Lion Dance, we – as a school – are “putting ourselves out there”.  We get to show what we do.  We get to do it in a very stylized fashion – through forms and dance.  So again, any relation Lion Dance has to fighting is a pretty oblique one.  Is it worth spending time on something that is so far removed from practical application?

I think so.  I think that performance should be part of martial arts.  Performance is scary stuff.  It takes courage to show what you do to the public.  Lion dance is how we do it.  Let’s do it right.