Movements and what they mean

The short version

A southern lion has no legs of its own. Every step it takes is a kung fu stance or step performed by two people trying to look like one animal, and every mood it shows is built from those steps plus the head player's work on the eyes, ears, mouth and beard. Chinese sources from the national heritage register¹ down to a Foshan school's tutorial series² agree on this. They also agree that the horse stance comes first and that each step has a dramatic job in a small story: the lion wakes, leaves its den, finds the green (青, Cant. ceng1, Mand. qīng, the lettuce and red envelope the lion "plucks", which teams spell "cheng" or "chang"), doubts it, tests it, eats it, spits it out as a blessing, cleans itself and goes home.

This chapter is organised around what a coach needs on the floor. It starts with where the steps come from, then lists the stances and steps one by one with how each is done and when the lion uses it. It then covers hand holds and raising the lion, the lion's emotions, a catalogue of actions with their meanings, a note on English team words and the standard terms, the tail player's craft, and lifts and safety. It closes with the traditional arc from den to den, kept short because Chapter 10 covers the blessing itself. Drum patterns are in Chapter 7, and the Heshan and Sar Ping background is in Chapter 5.

Where the steps come from

The Foshan teacher Ye Zhongming (葉仲銘, shown on screen as a seventh-generation inheritor of the Wong Fei Hung lineage) says it in one line: the southern lion uses the stances and footwork of martial arts as the lion's walking steps. He names the four-level horse stance, kneeling step, qilin step, bow stance and hanging horse.² Foshan tutorial, Ep. 4 @ 01:07 His series calls the result "hard bridge, hard horse" (硬橋硬馬, Cant. ngaang6 kiu4 ngaang6 maa5, Mand. yìng qiáo yìng mǎ): firm, powerful footwork that roots into the ground on landing. From that comes his rule that anyone who learns the lion must first learn martial arts.² The national register's entry for Guangdong lion dance describes Foshan shows opening with drummers and dancers performing southern fist horse stances (開樁, Cant. hoi1 zong1, Mand. kāi zhuāng, "opening the stakes") before the lion appears.¹

The base posture is the "three bends" (三彎, Cant. saam1 waan1, Mand. sān wān): bent legs, bent waist, bent arms.² Foshan tutorial, Ep. 4 @ 01:40 A Chinese academic essay describes the same foundation as coordination of waist (腰), legs (馬, literally "horse") and arms (橋, "bridge").³

The southern lion does not try to copy an animal literally. The same teacher says dancers use different horse stances together with head actions to show each shape abstractly, so that compared with the northern lion the southern lion cares more about intent and likeness of spirit (意在神似, Mand. yì zài shén sì) than about imitation.² The northern lion is the contrast. In the national register's Xushui entry it has a furred body, a "big lion" of two dancers and a "small lion" of one, and a lion guide (引獅郎, Mand. yǐn shī láng) leading it with an embroidered ball, with acrobatics on benches and plum-blossom poles.⁴ Its cape is joined so dancers cannot be swapped mid-show, while a southern cape is loose.⁵ Since the 1980s many southern lions have been danced with northern-style acrobatics, a blend called "southern lion, northern dance" (南獅北舞, Cant. naam4 si1 bak1 mou5, Mand. nán shī běi wǔ).⁶

Inside southern lion the two main families move differently. Heshan (Hok San, 鶴山) sources credit the founder Feng Gengchang (馮庚長) with keeping cats in his martial hall and studying them, which produced the "lion-shaped cat step" (獅型貓步, Mand. shī xíng māo bù). Heshan's official media contrast Foshan's "hard bridge, hard horse, imposing" style with Heshan's "nimble, lively, endearing" one.⁷ A Foshan video series states the same contrast in its introduction: the Foshan-style (佛裝) lion, shown in yellow, is vigorous and powerful with attention to technique and frame (功架, Mand. gōng jià, the shape and bearing of a stance); the Heshan-style (鶴裝) lion, shown in red, has light equipment, flexible footwork and exquisite technique.⁸ 18 Moves of Foshan Lion Dance, Ep. 6 @ 00:25 Heshan's footwork system is called "five horses, eighteen steps" (五馬十八步, Mand. wǔ mǎ shíbā bù) and its training formula "four arrivals, five methods, six essentials" (四到五法六要). The four arrivals are eyes, body, waist and steps arriving together. The five methods are focus, listen, claw, dodge and bite (注聽爪躲咬). The six essentials are play, high leap, low crouch, jump, roll and swallow-and-spit (戲耍、高竄、低伏、跳躍、翻滾、吞吐).⁷ The sources read do not say which five stances and which eighteen steps these are.

How the old teachers sequenced it

Ye Zhongming describes the traditional order. A student learned martial arts first. The master taught the four-level horse stance first and opened it with the "three and a half steps" method (三步半開馬), then had the student hold the stance (扎馬, Mand. zhā mǎ) for one, two or three months until it was stable. Only then did the student learn the qilin step, kneeling step, hanging horse, empty step and the rest.⁹ Foshan tutorial, Ep. 6 @ 02:24 For today's children he shortens it. He explains every step first to keep interest, then has them hold the horse stance for one, two, then three minutes. When they can hold three to five minutes, they practise one stance for a week and switch to another.⁹ A Penang documentary gives a similar order: apprentices learn three base stances (parallel horse stance, scissor stance and bow stance), then play the tail, and only after mastering the stances and maturing physically are they allowed to carry the head.¹⁰ Lion Dance in Malaysia (Penang documentary) @ 09:48 A Toronto study of the Hong Luck club records the order kung fu, then lion, then cymbals, then gong, then drum.¹¹

Different heads, different manners

The Foshan tutorial says the traditional hero lions (Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao and Huang Zhong, named after Three Kingdoms generals) differ in head, colour and decoration, in the way they are danced and in what each stands for.¹² The sources keep only fragments of what those manners are. In Songgang, Shenzhen, the yellow lion is Liu Bei, danced with light, soft, slow steps, while black is Zhang Fei, red is Guan Yu and white is Guan Ping.¹³ A Shenzhen writer reads Liu Bei as wisdom, benevolence and courage, Guan Yu as wisdom and courage, and Zhang Fei as courage, the traditional fighting lion.¹⁴ A Hong Kong school nicknames the Zhang Fei lion the "iron-horned braggart" (鐵角牙擦蘇) and says young men like it for showing off.¹⁵ Guangzhou's Shawan style splits its lions into literary, martial and young lions (文獅、武獅、少獅).¹ These are local traditions, and the sources do not say how a modern team should turn them into movement choices.

Stances and steps

Chinese teaching separates the fixed stance (步型, Mand. bù xíng) from moving footwork (步法, Mand. bù fǎ). A Foshan series on "18 moves" says practising both trains the basic lower-limb movement methods of lion dance and also the speed and strength of the legs, and opens its footwork episodes with the couplet "high and low, empty and solid show the lion's might; shifting, leaping and bounding as if riding the wind" (高低虛實顯神威，騰挪縱躍如凌風).¹⁶ The table below combines that series with the tutorial series on "Guangdong xingshi" (廣東醒獅, the Cantonese awakening lion). Where the sources give a reason the lion uses a step, the reason is in the last column. Where they do not, the cell says so.

Stance lists compared

No two sources give the same stance list, and the lists mix stances, steps and rolls. The differences matter mostly for judging: rule books score a minimum number of stances, so the list a judge carries in mind decides what counts.

Holding the head and raising the lion

The head player works the mouth, eyes and ears through the hand grip. Modern heads use strings for the eyelids and ears; one New York teacher says there is "absolutely no metal skeleton inside", only bamboo, rattan and paper, and a Seattle instructor describes a string-and-pulley system for blinking, ear flaps and mouth.²⁹³⁰ A Chinese report on the grips names yin hands, with both palms down (雙陰手, Mand. shuāng yīn shǒu), yang hands, with both palms up (雙陽手), and a mixed yin-yang hand (陰陽手, one up and one down), which are alternated so the player can work mouth, eyes and ears. It adds single and double hook hands (單扣手, 雙扣手), which make it easier to deliver power and spirit.³¹

The Foshan video on grips gives the working versions. The double-yin hand grips the frame from above with the head carried at about shoulder height or below, because old-style lions sat lower. The single-yin hand uses one hand. In the double-yang hand the thumb and fingers clamp the tongue bar of the head so the mouth can be snapped shut; it is used for the high lion and for closing the mouth when the lion eats the green. The single-yang hand uses one hand.¹⁹ Foshan tutorial, Ep. 7 @ 02:19 Two other accounts describe the working hold differently. A Hong Kong school's notes say the right hand grips and the left hand presses the lion's mouth, with a yin-yang hand pressing the mouth during searching.¹⁵ A Shenzhen writer says the left hand supports the bottom of the mouth and the right grips the crossbar inside the head.¹⁴ The sources do not resolve these. They may describe the same hold named differently, or lineage differences.

Raising the lion (起獅)

"Raising the lion" is 起獅 (Cant. hei2 si1, Mand. qǐ shī). The Foshan teacher presents it as a rule-bound sequence, because grabbing the lion in the wrong place carries ancestral taboos. His example: grabbing the eyes, horn or other parts brings bad luck, like pulling a person's ear.¹⁹

1. Lay the lion flat. The head player stands to the right of the head and the tail player beside the tail.¹² Foshan tutorial, Ep. 2 @ 00:52
2. Salute. A martial salute comes first, and each school uses its own. This lineage uses the Hung Kuen opening salute (開拳禮) and the fist-in-palm salute (抱拳禮, Mand. bào quán lǐ).¹⁹
3. Jump over. The head player jumps to the lion.
4. Kneel on one knee. The single-knee kneeling step shows respect. Ep. 7 @ 01:15
5. Reach in and take the frame. The hands go inside and support the frame (框架) of the head. Never lift by the eyes, horn or ears.
6. Open horse stance at once. Hold a set pose while the tail player adjusts position.
7. Lift with the arms only. The body stays still. Raise to the high lion (高獅, Cant. gou1 si1) and stop.

The three bows (三拜禮) follow before the routine begins. The Foshan teacher's order is first toward the dancers' right, which is the building's left and its senior position (大位, Mand. dà wèi), then toward the dancers' left, the building's secondary position (輔位), then the centre.¹² Foshan tutorial, Ep. 2 @ 01:34

The lion's emotions

Southern lion teaching names the lion's moods as a fixed set of eight, but which eight depends on the lineage. Guangdong and Foshan teaching, China's national register and Hong Kong's heritage inventory use the "eight states" (八態, Cant. baat3 taai3, Mand. bā tài): 喜怒哀樂動靜驚疑, meaning joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, movement, stillness, alarm and doubt.¹²³³ The Heshan lineage, credited to Feng Gengchang, uses the "eight emotions" (八情, Cant. baat3 cing4, Mand. bā qíng): 喜怒驚樂疑醉睡醒, meaning joy, anger, alarm, happiness, doubt, drunk, sleep and waking.⁷ The national register adds that the lion's actions include opening the eyes, washing the whiskers, licking the body and shaking the fur, along with leaping, shifting, dodging, pouncing, circling and flying leaps.¹

The table covers the eleven words that appear across the two lists. The columns give what the Chinese sources say each state is for, and other signs of it that appear in the sources.

How rule books score the vocabulary

Rule books turn this vocabulary into points. The reposted 2008 international optional-routine text gives 3 of 10 points to form and spirit, which needs at least ten expressions, and 1 point to stances and footwork, which needs at least ten stances or steps, with 0.3 and 0.1 deducted for each one missing.²² The US traditional rules score ten criteria at 0.5 to 1.0 each. They include stance (with Ma Bu, Gong Bu, Xu Bu, Qilin Bu, Ban Ma Bu, Ding Bu and Du Li Bu as examples), shape, and spirit, defined as varied expressions and a true-to-life demonstration of lion spirit and nature. One skill point is awarded for five completed difficulty movements.²⁶ Chapter 14 covers the rule books in full.

How a mood is actually shown

A mood is carried by four things at once: the head's eyes, ears, mouth and beard; the body and stance; the feet; and the drum. A New York United dancer says the head carries the lion's expression, through the strings and "the way you tilt or the way you blink".⁴³ Young Lions documentary @ 05:11 The drum names the mood back to the lion. The Foshan drumming video gives separate patterns for the raised lion, the lion happily looking left and right for food, the lion going out or in through a door, the lion roaming and playing, the frightened or suspicious lion, and the happy lion walking and jumping to both sides. It adds that the drummer must learn when the lion will turn and change, so the drum follows the lion, and that even a professional needs a dozen or more runs with a team to mesh.³⁴ Foshan tutorial, Ep. 3 @ 02:13 Singapore's Hok San teaching goes further and gives each of its eight expressions its own rhythm.³⁹

Heshan also taught the lion a set of reflexes, which work as a lookup table for what the lion does when it meets something. The list below is attributed to Feng Gengchang. One account credits him with writing a text called 獅性篇, "Lion Nature".⁴⁴

The rule list comes from Heshan's official media and a practitioner blog.⁷³⁵ The last column links each rule to descriptions found elsewhere in this chapter. The sources do not tabulate the actions themselves.

What the lion does and what it means

Most named lion actions are small pieces of cat-like behaviour that make the animal believable, and a few are story beats that carry meaning for the audience. The catalogue below lists each action with its Chinese terms, what the sources say it looks like, and what it means or does. Items the sources do not describe say so.

The Big-Head Buddha and the lion's moves

Many lion actions are staged against a partner. The Big-Head Buddha (大頭佛, Cant. daai6 tau4 fat6, Mand. dà tóu fó) is a masked performer with a fan who leads, teases and cues the lion. In the Suixi entry of the national register, two dancers are in the lion and a third plays the Big-Head Buddha, who leads it on after the opening southern-fist display.⁶⁰ The Nanhai heritage page lists a routine called "the Buddha leads the lion" (佛引獅), and the older Foshan repertoire has the Buddha teasing the lion (大頭佛戲獅).⁴²⁴⁴ MIT's club describes a "Little Buddha" who provokes the lion, plays with it and feeds it.⁴⁹ US traditional rules allow extra performers as lion-leading characters such as the Happy Buddha or the Monkey King, and bar them from freestyle pole events.²⁶ In Vietnam the Earth God Ông Địa plays the same part and enters first, bowing to the host; the lion troupe enters only if the host invites it.⁵⁰

English team words and the standard terms

English-speaking teams often work in a mixed vocabulary: plain English words, Cantonese practitioner terms spelled in Latin letters, and a few coinages that belong to one team or coach. Practitioner pages show the first two layers side by side. Kenneth Chuen's list of the Sar Ping patterns gives each name in characters with Cantonese readings and an English gloss,⁵⁵ and an English-language instruction video titles its lesson "7 Star and 3 Star Drumming", a hybrid of a digit and the translated Chinese term.²³ The plain English words are less settled. Few are defined in writing, the same word can mean different things on different teams, and no source read standardises them. When a team introduces such a word to students, it helps to pair it with the standard term where one exists and with a plain description of the movement where none does. The table lists standard terms that sources in this chapter support.

The tail player's craft

The two players have different jobs. The head controls the expression and the direction: the strings for the eyes, ears and mouth, and where the lion looks.³⁰ The tail is the main structure of the body. A Seattle instructor describes the tail player as "usually a heftier guy" who holds the bent-over lunged position, and an Indonesian explainer says the head is lighter and nimble while the tail is stronger.³⁰⁶³ KBTC Profiles on Seattle's Mak Fai club @ 04:20 A Chinese practitioner blog wants the head to be flexible and powerful and to express the lion's spirit and habits, and the tail to be tall, strong and flexible. It says the tail supports the head and "controls the amplitude of the whole lion's movement".¹⁷ In the Foshan demonstrations the tail player stays bent over behind the head player with a hold on the head player's belt, and a Shenzhen account has the thumbs hooked into the belt.¹⁸¹⁴

Four rules recur in the sources.

• Same steps when walking. While the lion walks, head and tail do the same step. A snake-eating demonstration says the person at the back must follow the front in stances, steps and movement, so the two look like one animal.¹⁸⁶⁴ Foshan tutorial, Ep. 5 @ 00:39
• Head lifts a foot, tail sits in horse stance. In a set pose the head player lifts a foot and the tail player drops into horse stance to match and support the head. If the head must hold the pose for a long time, the tail presses his own head against the head player's back as a brace, which makes the pose steadier and look steadier.¹⁸ Ep. 5 @ 00:43, Ep. 5 @ 00:52
• The tail works blind. The tail sees only the partner's heels, so it works from memory and trust. A New York United dancer says the tail's job is to be stable and strong and provide the foundation, especially for stunts.⁴³ A Vietnamese explainer adds that if the head jumps left the tail must jump left at once, so the animal looks real.⁶⁵ Kính Lúp TV on the Vietnamese lân @ 13:06
• Learn the tail first. The Penang documentary has apprentices play the tail before they are allowed to carry the head.¹⁰

The cape explains why the brace works today. Old traditional lions had tails three to five metres long. The head could not lean on a tail that long, so he relied on his own balance, while the tail player danced the cape (獅被, Cant. si1 bei6, Mand. shī bèi) through the same moves, kicking it open in a golden-rooster step when the head did one. The Foshan teacher points to the Wong Fei Hung film character Kwai Geuk Chat (鬼腳七), who holds up the cape in a golden-rooster step to match the head.¹⁸ Ep. 5 @ 01:09 Modern lions are shorter, so the tail can serve as a support point. Equipment has also got lighter. A New York teacher says head and tail together weighed 30 to 40 pounds from the 1970s to the 1990s and now weigh 10 to 20.²⁹

Competition rules treat the pair as one animal. In US traditional rules, head and tail may switch roles only if the switch is declared in the storyline, and separating head from tail without that declaration costs 1.0. Standing on the tail's leg "discordantly and unnaturally" costs 0.1.²⁶

Lifts, stacks and safety

Lifts are the high-cheng techniques that put the head player up on the tail player, or onto poles. Chinese Wikipedia names four ways to reach a high cheng: standing on the shoulders (上肩), standing on the thighs (上大腿), clamping the waist with the legs (夾腰) and climbing a pole (上杆).³⁶ Rule books grade them by difficulty, with A, B and C moves worth 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 points in the older international text.²²

Safety

The sources agree that stance comes first. A head coach at an Edmonton club says strong stances are the main connection to martial arts and the thing that makes advanced moves possible.

Without having a strong stance you won't be able to stack the head on top of the tail.

Catherine Wong, head coach, Hung Mon Athletic Club, Edmonton (YEG Chinese Community Events)

Hung Mon Athletic Club interview @ 04:05⁶⁹ The same logic is built into the Foshan pair rule above: the tail sinks into horse stance whenever the head leaves the ground with a foot.¹⁸

Rule books show how competitions manage the risk. The older international rules require sponge mats under poles, bridges and ropes (no mats, no competing), allow two to four spotters who may not touch the athletes, and require athletes to pass a hospital medical check. Falls are graded: both head and tail falling costs 1.0 (a "big fall"), one of them falling costs 0.5, and a slip or loss of balance costs 0.3.²² US traditional rules take the other approach for ground and bench work. High poles are not allowed, climbing props may not exceed 2 metres, spotters ("safeguards") are not allowed (0.5 per occurrence), and a team that cannot finish because of mistakes, falls or injuries is disqualified.²⁶

Injuries are documented. In the preliminaries of the 2023 Genting championship, Kun Seng Keng, the defending champion, fell from the poles and was eliminated. Its tail player was carried off by medics and the head coach said pressure may have caused a missed step that injured the thigh.⁷⁰ A Malaysian team reports a tail player with knee trouble from sustained high-load competition.⁷¹ A Singapore team describes a wrist fracture, a fear that took about a week to overcome, and the line "If there's no trust, there's no us".⁶⁶

The traditional arc, from den to den

The Guangdong sources read here frame a full performance as a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, and the plucking of the green has its own four-part shape: opening, development, turn and close (起承轉合, Mand. qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé).¹²¹ The Guangzhou national inheritor Zhao Weibin lists the full routine as sleeping lion, awakening, leaving the cave (出洞, Cant. ceot1 dung6, Mand. chū dòng), patrolling the mountain, seeking the green, plucking, spitting, licking and washing, and returning to the cave (回歸). He adds that performers choose one stage or all of them depending on time.²¹ A practitioner blog says every lion set, whether breaking or plucking the green, needs a complete routine that tells a complete story.⁵³ The beats below are zoom levels of the same story, not contradictions, so no single list is "the" script. Chapter 10 covers the blessing itself.

The Sar Ping drum curriculum is also a story. Read in order, the 18 patterns trace a journey: bow and raise the head, explore, display at several heights, inspect a cave, toss, climb a mountain, see a reflection in the water, test or play with the water, come down to the plain, then the seven-section and seven-star climax, joined throughout by sparse walking beats and dense transition rolls.⁵⁵⁷³ That narrative reading is an interpretation, since no source states the full storyline. The table gives the Chinese names and the lion action. Chapter 7 has the drum notation.

A school curriculum as a model

One published curriculum shows how a school can order this material for children. A Taiwan primary-school lion club in Chiayi County (academic year 110, which is 2021; designer Cai Rongsong, 蔡榮松) runs 40 periods for grades 3 to 6. Its units run in this order.³⁸

1. Setting up. Hand position for lifting the lion (舉獅手勢), raising the lion (起獅), entering (進場), the salute (敬禮) and the 請金禮 ritual unit, which the sources read do not translate.
2. Basic behaviours. The seven-star step (七星步), biting the foot (咬腳) and the sleeping lion (睡獅).
3. Play. Rolling the lion (翻獅), biting the ear (咬耳朵) and biting fruit (咬水果).
4. Receiving. Biting the red packet (咬紅包), receiving the gift (接禮) and thanking (謝禮).
5. Leaving. Leaving the floor (退場) and withdrawing the lion (退獅).

The order follows the story told above: a respectful entrance, waking and cat-like behaviour, play, taking the offering, leaving. The sources do not say which lion style the curriculum teaches. Its unit names overlap with the Taiwan closed-mouth lion repertoire listed on Chinese Wikipedia (sleeping lion, biting fruit, "lion bites fleas"),³⁶ so treat it as a model of structure for children, not of Cantonese content. The Foshan teacher's method for children (explain all the steps, then short horse-stance holds, then one stance per week) is the sourced companion to it.⁹

A teacher's breakdown of expressions and footwork

Two short videos by Leroy Lee, a Los Angeles-area teacher, deal with the lion's expressions and footwork. This section reports them from his lessons as far as their subtitles could be read. The reader worked from sampled video frames, could only partly make out the burned-in captions, and paraphrased them. So the section uses only lines that could be read reliably, plus lines that another part of this chapter backs up. Everything else is left out.¹²

The "eight states" video is a title, not a lesson

The video 醒獅八態 動靜驚疑醉喜怒樂 @ 0:00 runs 1:33 and has no subtitles. Its only on-screen text is a title banner, shown at the start and again at about 1:24. The rest is footage of a lion team in a plaza. The footage is described here only in general terms (low stances, head shakes and stepping) and do not link any movement to any state. They come from sampled frames, so they cannot say whether anything is said aloud. The eight words are therefore a title, and the video cannot be used to say what each state looks like.¹

Set against the tables in "The lion's emotions", the banner's list is the Foshan eight (喜怒哀樂動靜驚疑) with 醉 (drunk) in place of 哀 (sorrow). It shares six words with the Heshan list (喜怒驚樂疑醉) and has movement and stillness where Heshan has sleep and waking.

What the expressions, movement and footwork lesson says

The lesson 醒獅表情,動作,步法介紹 @ 0:00 runs 2:19 and has captions from start to end, with gaps where there is only footage. Nearly every caption line was only partly legible. The points below are the ones that another part of this chapter supports.²

• Mood shows through head and body. The opening caption says the lion's mood is carried by its head and body, and lists movement, stillness, startle, doubt and drunkenness (0:00). Those are the first five words of the video title above, in the same order. Whether the list goes on to joy, anger and happiness could not be read. It fits "How a mood is actually shown", where the head and body carry the mood together.
• Four named steps. The captions give the basic footwork at 0:10 as half-horse, zi-wu horse, bouncing step and hop step. The zi-wu horse is the 子午馬 in the Foshan list. The US rules list Ban Ma Bu, which reads as "half horse step". The Foshan lists include jump and bounce steps (跳步, 跳動步法). The captions do not say how any of the four is done, so this adds the teacher's names and no technique, and the matches are by name only.
• Stance comes first. Captions at about 0:36 to 0:52 say that the lion's steps and martial-arts steps are the same, and that a dancer who does not practise the stance will fall short in the lion's steps. A caption at 0:25 calls forceful movement and steady steps the basics. This is the point the Foshan teacher makes under "Where the steps come from".
• Mountains and water. Near the end the captions list set movements for climbing mountains (1:49) and crossing water (2:00), but the lists could not be read. Other sources for both are in "What the lion does and what it means".

A list of lion traits near 1:43 and a few lines about the hand form were too uncertain to use.

Sources for this section

1. 醒獅八態 動靜驚疑醉喜怒樂 @ 0:00 - Leroy Lee, Los Angeles area, Chinese, video (1:33) with a title banner only, read from sampled frames
2. 醒獅表情,動作,步法介紹 @ 0:00 - Leroy Lee, Los Angeles area, Chinese, instructional video (2:19), burned-in subtitles read in part and paraphrased

What the sources do not settle

• English team words for steps and actions are rarely defined in writing, and the same word can mean different things on different teams.
• The seven Sar Ping postures are named nowhere in the sources read, and the numbers in Heshan's "five horses, eighteen steps" are not reconciled with them.
• No source explains why the green makes the lion drunk, and none describes shaking off water as a named action.
• The order of the three bows is given three different ways, and the sources cannot confirm that the Foshan and Hong Kong versions are one rule seen from two sides.
• A full set of Chinese rules for meeting another lion is missing; the practitioner blogs give taboos but not a complete procedure.
• Some Sar Ping pattern characters (壓山, 擦洞 versus 察洞, 探水 versus 戲水) differ between lineages and are unverified.