Gung Xi Fa Chai

Hope everyone had a great start to the Year of the Snake.  Snake however is a sneaky year can have ups and downs and can change its ways quickly....so you have to be prepared for anything!

Having said that this year has been a good year for Lion dancing and performances....we had a packed February thru the beginning of March.  We were out at all the San Francisco Schools, Teance in Berkeley, Bloomingdales in the Westfield Mall, Ox Bow Market in Napa, Family Bridges Senior Centers......

One of our favorite schools to perform at is in San Francisco Chinatown, the Chinese Education

Center,  It is a school for newly arrived immigrant children.  This year there were many students from China and Latin America.  Quite neat to meet a Chinese Kid who speaks perfect Spanish!

Mars performing the International Compulsory Tai Chi Sword.

Rhonda did the Hun Yuan Bagua Tai Chi Fan.  This is a form I choreographed to combine the Hun Yuan Tai Chi of Grandmaster Feng Zhi Qiang with the Bagua of Master Zhao Da Yan.

It has the flavor of Chen Tai Chi and the techniques of Bagua's Kun Lun Fan.

Mike performed the Choi Lai Fut Double and Single ended Staff.  this is one of Choi Lai Fut's famous forms it was originally adapted from a Shaolin Form.  It utilizes both ends of the staff, but also can transform to a very long weapon and takes on characteristics of the spear.

The kids were expecting Martial Arts and Lion Dancing, but the got a real surprise when Cory brought a Dragon Team he had been teaching at the San Francisco Chinatown Historical Society.

This is a ten person dragon that emphasizes the motions of the dragon and does lots of twisting, turning and leaping.

Dragon chases after the pearl.

Everyone had a great time afterwords, every class got a chance to take there pictures with the dragon and lion...something they are not likely to forget!!