The San Francisco Bay Area, with its large and growing Chinese community, is home to many lion dance groups. When I had my studio in San Pablo, Bruce Lee was teaching in Oakland, and we used to get together for tea in the afternoons, after we finished. Master Yee also explains that in China, they only teach lion dance to people who are learning kung-fu, but in the U.S., there are some places which will teach it to anyone. It takes about a year to learn it. Yee s Martial Arts has lion dance classes for its kung-fu students only.
Lion dances bring good luck and add a note of festivities to the occasion.
Some people confuse the lion dances with dragon dances. It s easy to tell them apart, however. The lion dance costume holds only two people one in the head, and one at the tail end but dragon costumes hold from 10 up to 100 or people since the dragon has a long, snake-like body. To watch on the web, you need to have Real Video Player 8 installed on your computer. Click here to get a free download from Real Networks.