How is lion dancing related to martial arts?

Question

So I know martial arts is connected to lion dancing, but I'm not sure the specific way. If you are a lion dancer, then you should have studied martial arts for a while.

How--specifically--are they related?

Answer 1

The lion dance originated in China close to a thousand years ago. The lion is traditionally regarded as a guardian creature. It is featured in Buddhist lore, being the mount of Manjusri.

Chinese lion dances can be broadly categorised into two styles, Northern and Southern. Northern dance was used as entertainment for the imperial court. The northern lion is usually red, orange, and yellow (sometimes with green fur for the female lion), shaggy in appearance, with a golden head. The northern dance is acrobatic and is mainly performed as entertainment.

Southern dance is more symbolic. It is usually performed as a ceremony to exorcise evil spirits and to summon luck and fortune. The southern lion exhibits a wide variety of colour and has a distinctive head with large eyes, a mirror on the forehead, and a single horn at center of the head.lion dance also sybolises the myth of the chinese new year

During the Chinese New Year, lion dancers from martial art school will visit the store front of businesses to "choy chang" picking the greens. The business would tie a red envelope filled with money to a head of lettuce and hang it high above the front door. The lion will approach the lettuce like a curious cat, consume the lettuce and spit out the leaves but not the money. The lion dance is supposed to bring good luck and fortune to the business and the dancers receive the money as reward. The tradition becomes a mutual transaction.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Lion dance is a tradition passed down through kung fu.  Without the foundation of king fu, it is difficult to lion dance because the footwork and movements are similar in many ways.  I suppose you can lion dance without kung fu training if you have the strength, coordiniation, and balance, but even then, without the proper kung fu stances, it won't look as beautiful, at least to anyone who knows anything about lion dancing.

Answer 3

Tempest steel has the definitive answer. I would only add that it is good to have some training as the rival schools would sometimes try to mess up the lion dancers. As a side note the local schools would often protect the merchants from........losses during the course of the year.

Answer 4

Kung fu schools in China would often have Lion dance teams, on festivals they would perform their school's lion dance and earn a bit of extra money for the school. Yes the Lion dancers tended to be kung fu practitioners who also lion danced.

Answer 5

It's not derived from martial arts if that's what you mean.