Competition and rule books

Why lion dance has rule books

A blessing performance has no score. A shop owner does not rank the lion that picks his lettuce, and the eye-dotting and etiquette rituals in Chapter 9 have no judges. A contest is a different thing: many teams, one floor, a fixed time, outside judges and a number at the end. That needs a written rule book, and the sources show the first lion contest rules appearing in the 1980s. Guangzhou's workers' lion association is credited with a first competition rule book in 1986,¹ and Malaysia ran its first lion contests in 1983.²³ Since then the rule books have multiplied, and they differ in ways that change what a team trains for.

This chapter covers the competition categories, the history from the first contests to Genting (1994 on), how the major rule books relate, and how they compare on time, team size, poles, scoring weights, deductions and judging panels. It then explains how a result such as 8.17 with a 0.20 deduction is produced and what judges look for. Some rule books were read directly: the US federation's PDFs, a pre-2008 text and the 2011 book of the international federation, Taiwan's 2025 rules and two Hong Kong score sheets. Genting's own rule book and the Malaysian, Singapore and Vietnam rules were not found, and where this chapter describes those it relies on news reports and says so.

The categories

A contest category is defined by two things: where the lion may go, and what the score rewards. The 2011 edition of the international federation's rule book (see below) lists the southern lion events by type: compulsory routine, optional routine, traditional, and skill events, with separate dragon, northern lion and phoenix sections.⁶ The United States federation, and others, add drumming, women's and youth divisions.

For coaches the main divide is traditional against high pole (Chapter 10 explains the cheng itself). The 2011 book describes traditional southern lion as picking the green first, using simple props to stage an abstract scene: a mountain, ridge, cave, bridge, well or pagoda, or an animal such as a snake, crab, centipede or bee. The lion shows behaviours such as rubbing its feet, scratching, washing its face, drinking and stroking its beard.⁶ This is the format closest to ground-based Hong Kong and Fut San-leaning work. High-pole lion is the later invention that came out of Malaysia, covered below and in Chapter 12.

The northern lion contrast is short. The Chinese southern and northern rule texts share the same optional-routine weights (5 technique, 3 artistry, 2 difficulty), but the northern text requires double lions with a closely coordinated lion leader, and its difficulty families are rotations, tumbling and leaping, shaped poses and leader acrobatics. A shaped pose held for under three seconds draws a 0.3 deduction.⁹

From the first contests to Genting

Guangzhou and Malaysia, 1983 to 1986

On the mainland, lion dance recovered after the Cultural Revolution and was redefined from a folk custom into a sport, in the periodisation used by one 2024 paper.⁴ The Guangzhou Workers' Lion Dance Association (廣州工人醒獅協會) was founded on 1 January 1985 and is called China's first lion society. It started a youth team and a women's team, and in 1986 it published a first set of lion competition rules (醒獅競賽規則), which the Guangzhou paper Dayoo calls the first such book in the world.¹ That "world's first" is a claim by the paper and the association, and it could not be checked against other countries.

In Malaysia the Selangor and Kuala Lumpur association is said to have held a Kuala Lumpur lion dance exhibition contest in 1983 that introduced high-pole competition with standard rules.² The academic Tan Sooi Beng gives figures for the national contests: 39 troupes in 1983, 102 in 1984 and 300 in 1986, run by the Malaysian Federation of Chinese Martial Arts Associations.³ Chinese Wikipedia adds that contests grew from fewer than ten a year in the 1970s to over a hundred a year now.² Siow Ho Phiew (Chinese 蕭斐弘, Siow Fei Hong), the Klang-born head maker and chief coach of Kun Seng Keng, is credited in a documentary with the first lion-on-poles competition (1983) and the first plum-blossom (梅花樁, Cant. mui4 faa1 zong1) poles, wooden and 33 inches high; iron poles under 3 m came later.¹⁵ That documentary is read from auto-generated captions and is medium confidence. Participants recall other early contests. Teh Wing Liang (郑永樑/鄭永樑) of Ipoh says in a LongShi Stories podcast interview that a southern lion competition at a Perak independent high school in 1989 ran for six to eight sessions before it was discontinued, and that he danced the lion tail at a Malaysia Airlines Golden Lion Cup in Ipoh, held over three nights at Stadium Indera with more than 30 teams and full stands. LongShi Stories EP.4, Teh Wing Liang @ 47:23, @ 06:50.¹⁶ The description of a Kuantan episode says two veterans of the Yeet Fore Sun lion dance academy (玉佛山醒狮学院/玉佛山醒獅學院) took part in the 1990 Malaysia Airlines Golden Lion Cup, as lion head performer and cymbal player.¹⁷ A clip title from the same channel says the academy's early plum-blossom poles were discarded wooden electricity poles from the roadside, which it bought and converted in the 1980s as the city developed.¹⁸

The 1984 Hilton question

A 1984 Hilton competition in Hong Kong is a possible early landmark. The main source found is a Zhongshan Daily profile of the Lo Leung (羅梁) lion and drum style. It says Lo Leung represented Macau at the 1984 international lion competition held by the Hong Kong broadcaster TVB and the Hilton, and that taking part in TVB's live lion broadcasts from 1984 to 1987 was stressful. The profile adds that Lo Leung won the title with a formation called "two men carry water" (二人擔水, Cant. ji6 jan4 daam1 seoi2, Mand. èr rén dān shuǐ), retained it the next year, and went to Hong Kong a third time in 1986 for a show titled 国际群英大汇演.¹⁹ A 2025 New Express feature gives the same win under the name Hilton Cup (希尔顿杯, Mand. Xī'ěrdùn Bēi) and credits it to new lion gear, footwork and drum music; it names no venue, judges or other entrants.²⁰ Four YouTube clips titled as the 1984 Hilton competition carry a place or team label: Malaysia, Macau, Singapore and Hong Kong team.²¹ That suggests entrants from those four places, but only the titles were read. The Zhongshan Daily profile also credits those broadcasts with shaping the fast Lo Leung style, though it says this happened without anyone intending it.¹⁹

Each year the director wanted more danger.

Zhongshan Daily profile of the Lo Leung style; original 导演每年都要求惊险程度加码

Hong Kong, 1987 to 1995

The Hong Kong association (香港中國國術龍獅總會, HKCMAA) lists a 1987 territory-wide lion demonstration contest, the Urban Council's decision in 1991 to treat lion dance as a sport, a biennial international lion art invitational from 1992, and in 1995 a week-long Hong Kong Lion Festival drawing teams from more than 15 countries. In 1994 it began school lion classes and an inter-school championship with over 20 schools. These are the association's own statements.²² The association also describes the 1980s Singapore and Malaysia habit of shortening the lion body and dancing the southern lion with northern movements as the source of harder cheng and more competitions.²²

Kun Seng Keng, the poles and the 1993 standard

Kun Seng Keng (麻坡關聖宮龍獅團) of Muar, Johor, was founded in 1988. A 2020 profile says the troupe was invited to a competition in Hong Kong in 1992 and brought prototype metal poles that could be taken apart and shipped as cargo. It also says that in 1993 a standard "Asian pole size" put competition poles at no lower than 1 m and no taller than 3 m, a standard the article attributes to the international federation.²⁴ That fits the 3 m maximum in the international rules (below). It is a single-source account of the troupe's own history. The international federation's registration date, 23 January 1995 (see below), is later than that 1993 standard, so either the attribution to the federation is loose or an earlier informal body existed; the sources do not say which.²⁵

Genting, 1994

The Genting World Lion Dance Championship began on 28-29 January 1994 (see the next section). Liang Litang (梁溧棠), chairman of the Selangor and Kuala Lumpur federation and a standing president of the international federation, says in Genting's own film that it all started in 1994.²⁷ Genting mini-documentary @ 00:08 He also says the Genting side wanted a sport that combined culture, and admits that today's high-pole lion dance has separated from culture as a sport.²⁷

China, the international federation and the Olympic hope

The Chinese Dragon and Lion Dance Sports Association (中國龍獅運動協會) sits under the national sports administration and is a member body of the All-China Sports Federation. Baidu Baike, which cites the national register of social organisations for the date, says it was founded in Beijing on 4 July 1995 with Ministry of Civil Affairs approval.²⁸ Chinese Wikipedia's profile of a Hong Kong martial artist shows that it existed by 1996, when he was appointed its vice-chair, and that he became China's representative on the international federation's committee in 2000.²⁹ The international federation's 1995 (Hong Kong) and 1997 (Beijing) dates mark two different events. Baidu Baike says the body, then named the 国际龙狮总会 (Mand. Guójì Lóngshī Zǒnghuì), was registered in Hong Kong on 23 January 1995, and that its executive committee secretariat moved to Beijing in July 1997 after an executive committee and congress meeting in Malaysia.²⁵ The Yangcheng Evening News gives the same order without exact dates: founded in Hong Kong in 1995, moved to Beijing two years later.³⁰ Baidu Baike adds that at a re-election in November 1998 Zhang Faqiang (张发强), then a deputy head of the State General Administration of Sport, became president; it names no earlier president and no founding members, and no other page read does either.²⁵ The Chinese association is a separate body, founded in Beijing about five months after the federation's Hong Kong registration, and its listed duties include organising, coordinating and joining the activities of international dragon and lion bodies under the sports administration's rules and the federation's.²⁸ Chinese Wikipedia says that in 2004 the federation's first vice-president Liang Litang said they were seeking support from 72 countries to put lion dance in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and that the federation president Zhang Faqiang (張發強) was also a vice-chair of the Beijing organising committee. Lion dance was not included.² In 2025 a Genting executive again said he hopes lion dance becomes an Olympic sport, asking why skateboarding can and lion dance cannot.³¹ The 2011 international rule book is covered in the rule-book section below.

Macau, Indonesia, Hawaii and the United States

The Macau Lion King Championship (澳門獅王爭霸賽) has run since 2010 with the backing of the Chinese and international federations, according to Chinese Wikipedia.³² A Madison, Wisconsin team says it placed third in Macau in 2019 and called it the first time a US team reached the top three, a self-reported claim.³³ The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports a First Hawaii World Invitational Lion Kings Competition on 13 October 2002 with six teams, won by Hong Kong's then high-pole champions.³⁴ The United States national federation was founded on advice from the international federation's officers, whom two future board members met at the 2016 Genting championship, and held its first nationals in Quincy, Massachusetts, in May 2018.³⁵¹⁴ Chapter 13 tells the American side in full.

The Genting World Lion Dance Championship

Genting (雲頂世界獅王爭霸賽, Mand. Yúndǐng shìjiè shīwáng zhēngbà sài; Malay Kejohanan Tarian Singa Sedunia Genting) is the world high-pole southern lion championship. It is co-organised by Resorts World Genting and the Selangor and Kuala Lumpur Dragon and Lion Dance Joint Association, was first held in 1994, and is biennial. The 2020 edition (the planned 14th) was postponed by COVID, and the contest resumed in 2023.³⁸ Each team performs a cheng-theme routine on high poles, with named difficulty moves counted aloud in the press ("17 difficult moves"). Scores are given to two decimals out of 10. Prizes include Eastern and Western Lion King titles for the best Asian and best Western-country teams, a judges' Golden Drum Award, and a public-vote Most Popular award.¹¹⁴³

In 2023, 36 teams played two preliminary days (4-5 August) at the Arena of Stars for 11 final places on 6 August. The prizes were US$15,000, 8,000 and 5,000 for the top three and US$1,500 for each of eight consolation places.⁴⁴¹¹⁴³ In 2025 the field was 40 teams from about 15 countries and the pool was a record, with US$18,000 for the champion, 10,000 for second, 6,000 for third, US$1,800 for each of seven merit places, and a new US$2,000 Highest Difficulty Award.³¹

These results come from the Chinese Wikipedia edition table and Sin Chew Daily reports.³⁸¹¹⁴⁵ Three patterns stand out.

• One troupe dominated. Kun Seng Keng won or shared the title in 12 of the 13 editions from 1994 to 2018. Singapore's Yi Wei won the next two. Sin Chew called the 2023 loss the first time Malaysia failed to keep the title.¹¹ The Straits Times describes Yi Wei's win as ending a 13-edition Malaysian run.⁴⁶
• The scale moved. Winning scores sat between 9.23 and 9.35 from 2000 to 2018, then jumped to 9.73 and 9.78. The sources give no reason. A rule revision, a new panel or a change in scoring habit would all be guesses, so this is flagged as unexplained.
• Difficulty does not win by itself. In 2023 Khuan Loke did 23 difficult moves to Yi Wei's 17 and lost by 0.09.¹¹ The 2011 judging guidance tells judges to prioritise execution and not be swayed by difficulty.⁶ At the same time, the difficulty count decides ties: in 2018 Yi Wei A (20 difficulty moves) and Kedah Hong De (13) both scored 9.23, and Hong De fell to fourth under the tie-break rule.⁴⁷ By 2025 difficulty also had its own award, won by Guangxi Teng County, which placed far lower on score (8.20).⁴⁵

Counting by the 2011 text raises a question. That text gives 1.5 points for five difficulty moves and at most 0.5 more for extra moves, at 0.1 each (below). Genting teams reported 13 to 23 moves. If Genting used the 2011 scoring, moves beyond about ten would add nothing to the difficulty component. The sources do not confirm which scoring Genting uses, so this is only a reading of the international text.

American teams have a record here. The Western Lion King title went to Leung's White Crane of San Francisco in 2006 and 2010, to two US teams in 2023 (a Nanhai lion troupe of a US association and a Yau Kung Mun team), and to a Texas team in 2025.³⁸¹¹⁴⁵

The injury toll is real. In 2023 the defending champion Kun Seng Keng fell in the preliminaries and was eliminated, and its tail player was taken away by medics, while Thailand A, Indonesia's national team, a Vietnamese troupe and Medan's Kuan Seng Keng also fell.⁴³ In the 2025 preliminaries, reports name at least five teams that withdrew or stopped mid-routine because of injuries (from the Philippines, the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam), and a Selangor team withdrew injured from the final.⁴⁵ A Sin Chew report quotes the Genting adviser Liang Litang saying high-pole dancers may fall a thousand times in training.³¹

Genting also hosts the Malaysian national championship, branded the Genting Lion King Cup (云顶狮王杯). Its 21st edition ended on 27 September 2026, won by Johor's 沙威文青龍獅團 (Sha Wei Wen Qing), whose coach said they had spent RM80,000 including props after 27 years of trying.⁴⁸ Rule details for that event were not found.

The rule books and how they relate

The rule books are not independent. Most descend from one international text, and the differences between them are mainly in what each country chose to emphasise.

• The international federation text (IDLDF). A full Chinese rule text for high-pole southern lion, titled 高桩舞狮（南狮）竞赛规则, was reposted on a Malaysian forum in January 2008 and marked "for reference only". Its last article gives the right of interpretation to the International Dragon and Lion Dance Federation (国际龙狮总会).⁴⁹ This guide calls it the pre-2008 text; its original year is unknown.
• The 2011 edition. 《国际舞龙南狮北狮竞赛规则、裁判法》 (International Dragon Dance, Southern Lion and Northern Lion Competition Rules and Judging Methods), 2011, interpreted by the 国际龙狮运动联合会. Its parts cover general rules, dragon, southern lion (book pp. 47-83), northern lion, phoenix, judging methods (pp. 131-160) and appendices. It was read from scans hosted by Taiwan's federation, page by page.⁶ This is the current international reference.
• The United States (USDLDF). The traditional and freestyle rule books (2018, 2019, 2023, and the 2026 Phoenix versions) translate or adapt the international lists, with US additions. The Phoenix Wushu Nationals states that it uses USDLDF rules and certified judges.⁷¹⁰⁵⁰
• China. This guide also found a later southern and northern lion rule text posted by a university sports college in June 2023, whose structure matches the 2011 book. They did not locate a separately titled Chinese Dragon and Lion Dance Sports Association rule book.⁹
• Taiwan. Taiwan's 2025 rules keep the international traditional score and deduction tiers and say that unspecified matters follow the 2011 book.⁶
• Indonesia. The FOBI scheme reported in Indonesian sources uses the same 5, 3 and 2 split and the same deduction ladder, and Indonesia is reported to have translated the international rules.¹²⁵¹
• Hong Kong. The Hong Kong association publishes its own score sheets (2016 revision). They share the expression-list idea (eight expressions in Hong Kong, ten in the international text) and 0.1-point difficulty moves with the international text, but use different weights. See the Hong Kong section below.⁸

Four differences between versions matter in practice.

The last row shows that national bodies can change the base text. The 2011 book bars supporting characters in traditional events, the US rules permit them, and Taiwan's 2025 traditional rules include a 0.5 deduction when a supporting performer falls, which implies such performers are allowed.⁶⁷⁶ Check the rule book for the event before building a routine around a Big-Head Buddha.

Comparison tables

The tables below set the rule books side by side. Where a cell says "not stated", this guide did not find that point in the text read; it is not a claim that the rule book is silent. Genting, Malaysia's national rules, Singapore's rules and Vietnam's rule book are not tabled because their texts were not found (see the country notes).

Time, team and venue

Scoring components and weights

Deductions

The four-step deduction ladder is shared by the international text, the US rules, Indonesia and Hong Kong, with different items on each rung.

Two differences are worth noting. The international text and the US rules put a cheng that is dropped but retrieved with skill at 0.3, while the Hong Kong sheet puts a carelessly dropped, retrieved cheng at 0.5. And the Hong Kong sheet omits the list of broken traditional cheng procedures that the international and US rules spell out.⁶⁷⁸ The Hong Kong deduction page came attached to the own-apparatus sheet, so whether the ground-cheng division uses the same page is not stated.

Judges and how the score is calculated

The 2011 book says international contests should use ten scoring judges on a nine-judge system. The sources do not explain how the tenth is used, so that point is open.⁶ The tie-break order in the 2011 book is: more difficulty moves in the optional routine; then the average of the dropped scores that lies closest to the valid average; then the higher dropped average; then the earlier running order.⁶ Coach Han (汉教练/漢教練), head coach of the Yahya Awal dragon troupe in Johor Bahru, who says he serves as a head referee at dragon contests, describes how scores are handled there. The head referee only displays the scores; the referees' sheets are collected and checked first, and scores that are too high or too low are adjusted to hold a 0.3 gap. LongShi Stories EP.3, Coach Han @ 55:43.⁵² He stresses that it is his own view that no gap should be enforced: an adjustment can create a tie and cost the team that earned the higher score, and a referee should answer for the score given.⁵² He adds that four-angle video was already being planned, in the way badminton reviews line calls, and proposes an appeals process with a fee, because one day's scores can erase months of training. LongShi Stories EP.3 @ 58:09.⁵²

Poles and props

Hong Kong traditional cheng contests

The Hong Kong contests documented in the sources are traditional contests, not high-pole ones: the cheng stays low and the props are simple. The Hong Kong video channel that records them lists these regular contests: the Four Seas One Heart series (四海同心: a 2015 cup, a 2016 爵士盃, the Hung Hei-gun memorial cups of 2016 and 2017, and the 2019 香港濟眾堂杯 with set-cheng finals); the Hong Kong Open Dragon and Lion Art Championship (全港公開龍獅藝錦標賽); the Asian Three-Region Lion Invitational (亞洲三地醒獅邀請賽, first held on 10 June 2018, sixth on 25 June 2023); and the Hung Si Lau Cup Lion King contest (雄獅樓盃獅王競賽, Cant. hung4 si1 lau4, literally the Heroic Lion House Cup, named for a lion-head workshop; third edition 11 May 2019).⁵⁴ Entrants named in the video titles include teams from Tainan, Indonesia and the Philippines (2016), Heshan and Nanhai (2017), and Heshan's Sar Ping district, Malaysia, Singapore and Macau (2019 Hung Si Lau Cup).⁵⁴ Since 2009 Hong Kong's representative dragon and lion teams must finish in the top four of a Hong Kong association open championship and be chosen by a committee, and misconduct brings a three-year ban from the association's opens.²²

The 2016 open championship ran two traditional divisions. The set ground-cheng division (地青規定組) assigns a cheng type: snake (蛇青, Cant. se4 cing1), crab (蟹青, Cant. haai5 cing1), plate (盤青) or drunk (醉青). The own-apparatus division (自選器材陣式組) lets each team build its own cheng array and theme, with routine titles such as one about breaking through a cliff cheng, a mountain-range theme, or picking a lingzhi (the "mushroom of immortality") over the ridges. The 2022 championship used traditional own-apparatus and children's own-apparatus divisions.⁵⁴

The 2016 score sheets

Two score sheets from the Hong Kong association, both revised in November 2016, were read as images. They are the most direct source found for how a Hong Kong traditional contest is scored. The original web address of the PDFs was not recorded.⁸

The own-apparatus sheet is a ten-item list of one point each: etiquette (enter, salute the command stand, begin and end the lion's salutes), theme (the cheng theme is clear and the way of picking is reasonable), costume and apparatus, form, spirit (the eight expressions), music, special character, composition, effect, and skill and difficulty. These are the same ten items as the 2011 traditional list in a different order, with the difficulty item made countable: 0.1 per move, no credit for a repeat, at most ten moves. The listed families are climbing up onto the legs, wedging a foot, a pull-out type of head move, body turns, leaps, a clamp at the waist (which includes the drinking move) and sitting on the head, plus others that must be declared; the sheet does not define these terms, and the English glosses here are literal readings of the Chinese. Diagrams of difficulty moves are due seven days before the contest.⁸

The attached deduction summary (扣分摘要) uses the same ladder as the table above. It adds timing rules: timing starts with the drum music and ends when the lion salutes and the athletes take off head and cape and stand with feet together. Dancing or drumming on after that is still timed, and a team going one minute over is disqualified. Separately, a team two minutes over or under the limit is not scored. The sheet says that errors made after the timing ends are still deducted. All deductions come off the actual score.⁸ The sources do not explain how the one-minute and two-minute rules fit together.

How a score like 8.17 with a 0.20 deduction arises

A video of the 2023 Hung Si Lau Cup Lion King contest shows a score sheet for a Guangzhou Tianhe Chebei troupe reading total deduction 0.20 and total score 8.17. That comes from the video's playlist title and description; the video was not watched or transcribed for this guide, and the individual judges' scores are not available.⁵⁵ 2023 Hung Si Lau Cup, Guangzhou Tianhe Chebei The format is that of the international and US rule books: a deserved score from the judges, then deductions by the chief judge. Working back, 8.17 + 0.20 gives a deserved score of 8.37. That is an inference from the arithmetic and the format; whether the contest used the international scoring or Hong Kong's own sheet is not stated.

1. Judges score. Each scoring judge scores the routine privately against the sheet (ten criteria, or 5 + 3 + 2) and shows a number to two decimals.
2. Dropped scores. With 5 judges the highest and lowest are discarded. With 7 or 9 judges, USDLDF and Indonesia drop the two highest and two lowest, so 3 or 5 scores remain (the pre-2008 international text dropped fewer).
3. Spread check. The remaining scores must sit within 0.5 of each other when the average is below 9 (0.3 for 9-9.5, 0.2 above 9.5). If not, the chief judge sets a basic score and averages it with the closest valid scores.
4. Deserved score. The average of the valid scores, cut off, not rounded, at two decimals.
5. Deductions. The chief judge applies card-level errors (1.0, 0.5, 0.3, 0.1) and panel-head deductions (time, boundary, team numbers, props, prompting).
6. Final score. Deserved score minus deductions.

Truncation matters at the margin. If the valid scores averaged 8.3667, the deserved score would be 8.36, not 8.37, because the international text cuts the third decimal off without rounding, and Phoenix 2026 says the same.⁶⁵⁰ With rankings decided by 0.01, as in the 2019 US nationals, that rule can change a placing.

The US results show the same format and a spread of deduction sizes. These are taken from the federation's posted results.¹⁴⁵⁶

Three readings come out of the table. First, the traditional field is tight: in 2019 the top three finished within 0.01. Second, one small deduction can reorder a podium: in 2019 Far East Dragon's deserved score of 9.12 was higher than the winner's 9.03, but a 0.1 deduction left it level with second place and behind the winner. Third, large deductions are the mark of falls. The sources give no breakdown for the 1.4 deduction; as an illustration only, 1.4 could be one grave error (1.0), one minor error (0.3) and one "other" error (0.1). Freestyle scores run lower: the winners on record scored 8.41 (2019) and 8.03 (2025), the latter with 1.0 in deductions. The sources do not say why, and more falls on poles is a guess.¹⁴⁵⁶

What judges look for

The 2011 judging methods include a conduct table for judges, which doubles as a list of what a team is up against. Judges are to put execution quality ahead of difficulty, use the full 0-10 range, score the first team accurately so it is not penalised for going first, avoid reputation scoring and hometown scoring, and ignore crowd pressure.⁶ Malaysian competitors describe how this plays out. Liu Jun Lin (刘俊霖/劉俊霖) of Penang's Hong Guan says that, as he tells it, a judge justified a 9.1 by noting that the team had never received 9.2 in a traditional contest, so its marks can only climb in steps of 0.05; he puts champion teams at 9.2 or 9.25 and his own at 9.05 to 9.15, and says a close contest was lost "because of who taught the team". LongShi Stories EP.5, Liu Jun Lin @ 1:05:31, @ 58:30.⁵⁷ Teh Wing Liang says some teams skip public contests in Ipoh, perhaps because they doubt the judging is standard, and look at who the judges are, and that he now declines judging work; Jason Loh of Penang's Mei Hu says some referees lack pole experience and some do not know which deduction card to use. LongShi Stories EP.4 @ 57:02, EP.6 @ 31:04.¹⁶⁵⁸ The USDLDF has judges confer after the first performance to calibrate.⁷ Malaysian coaches describe how judges are trained. Coach Han says a judge candidate must first qualify as a coach by showing he can dance and drum, needs no competition record, and sits an exam marked to dragon or lion standards, so that a lion dancer who enters as a dragon candidate and does badly on the dragon test fails. LongShi Stories EP.3, Coach Han @ 59:23.⁵² The hosts of the LongShi Stories podcast, Yu Heng (于恒/于恆) and Ivan, say one of them was certified by the Malaysian National Lion and Dragon Dance Federation on a course held for the first time at a Langkawi hotel, and that the Ministry of Education requires a teaching licence before it recognises lion dance teachers, though they are unsure how the two link. LongShi Stories EP.0 @ 38:42.⁵⁹ Beyond that, the sheets point to six things.

• A complete, logical cheng. Under USDLDF rules the lion's goal must be a cheng pick, a lingzhi pick or a wine pick, and a complete pick of a cheng or lingzhi must show taking, eating and spitting. Wine must show taking and drinking. A pick that is not clearly shown is incomplete, and failing to complete it is a grave error.⁷ The rule books also spell out the logic of each scene: a cave lion needs a cave; a cliff cheng is not approached from above; a bridge cheng is not picked from underneath; snake, crab and centipede cheng are not picked from the front.⁶ Liu Jun Lin of Penang's Hong Guan says breaches of this kind, such as a direct confrontation with the snake or exceeding the time limit, often go unpenalised at Malaysian contests. LongShi Stories EP.5, Liu Jun Lin @ 32:59.⁵⁷ He also says a referee objected that the lion facing mannequins in his team's war-themed routine "Auspicious Start" (the captions render the title several ways), devised during the COVID movement control order with benches, weapons and later mannequins, was a direct confrontation, and that critics called it violent. LongShi Stories EP.5 @ 27:58.⁵⁷
• Reasonable picking. Picking under the neck, or reaching more than a palm out of the lion's mouth, is an unreasonable pick (0.3 internationally). Taiwan adds that the tail collecting the cheng with the palm visibly exposed counts as well.⁶⁶
• Spirit and expressions. The international text lists ten: happy, angry, drunk, awake, moving, still, startled, doubtful, searching and hoping (喜怒醉醒動靜驚疑尋盼). The USDLDF freestyle rules give the same ten in English (happiness, anger, drunkenness, sobriety, activeness, quietness, surprise, suspicion, searching, yearning), and Hong Kong uses eight (喜怒哀樂動靜驚疑).⁶¹⁰⁸ The Hong Kong sheet gives the head-tail match and expression the same weight as music (3.0 each).
• Stances and footwork. The international optional routine wants at least ten stance and footwork types, and its examples include the horse stance, bow stance, empty stance, qilin step, kneeling stance and one-leg stance.⁴⁹⁷
• Music with the lion. USDLDF Traditional has two music criteria: music coordination between drum, gong and cymbals (0.05 off for any error or out-of-beat music) and music and lion (setting off the atmosphere of the southern lion). Its judge course taught how to judge and score the drummers, cymbals and gong.⁷⁶⁰ The Hong Kong sheet gives lion and music 3.0, the same as expression.⁸ In the international text, a dropped drumstick or gong mallet costs 0.1.
• Etiquette. Teams salute the judges and audience in and out of the ring. The USDLDF deducts 1.0 for coaching during the performance, including coaching the salute, and 0.5 for rudeness or unsportsmanlike conduct.⁷ Taiwan's drumming rules require the traditional three-bow drum pattern (三拜敬禮) of any school at least once, with 1 point off if it is missing.⁶

Country notes

• China. The 15th National Games (Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau, November 2025) held lion dance's first National Games competition, in Foshan. Guangdong won the southern obstacle and traditional events, a joint Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau team won the southern optional routine, and Sichuan won the northern optional routine.⁴⁰ In the 2023 university rule posting, speed and obstacle southern lion add 5 seconds per error, and omitting the three-bow lion salute is one of the listed errors in both events.⁹
• Taiwan. The Chinese Taipei federation publishes 2025 rules for traditional dragon-phoenix-lion, traditional Taiwan lion, traditional Hakka lion and dragon-lion drumming, plus a 2015 "meeting lions" routine (會獅規定套路) for two, four or eight lions in a head-to-head arena, whose set sequence opens with a crossing entry and three bows.⁶ It also runs judge courses.⁶
• Malaysia. Malaysian competition is the origin of the high-pole format. Its national rules were not found, and the sources do not name the rule book used at the national championship. Participants describe a patchwork of governing bodies. Liu Jun Lin says each Malaysian association has its own bylaws, so a team entering five competitions in a year can meet five different standards and be penalised under one association for what another allows; with "four or five associations", he says, a team must "choose sides", because they do not all recognise one another. LongShi Stories EP.5, Liu Jun Lin @ 59:01, @ 1:15:56.⁵⁷ Jason Loh says Malaysia has too many associations, with inconsistent rules, difficulty levels and scoring, that unified rules would be needed to approach the Olympics, and that in his seniors' time each state had its own association, with council members from several factions. LongShi Stories EP.6, Jason Loh @ 27:46, @ 44:23.⁵⁸ Hery Lim of Indonesia's FOBI says, by contrast, that the government would recognise only one association, so Indonesia's merged into one.⁶¹ The Straits Times video describing Yi Wei's routine mentions landing plates of about 30 cm and poles up to about 2.5 m.⁴⁶ The Malaysian government listed high-pole lion dance as a national heritage in July 2007.²
• Singapore. The Singapore Wushu Dragon and Lion Dance Federation is the umbrella body for most troupes. The heritage inventory says Chin Woo cut its routines to about 7 minutes and notes that troupes now include Indian and Malay members.⁶² Singapore's own rule book was not found. Singapore's international lion dance competition held its tenth edition in January 2017 with 14 troupes from nine countries.¹³
• Vietnam. No Vietnamese rule book was found. Vietnam's local competition is built on plum-blossom poles (mai hoa thung), platform jumping (nhảy bục), floor events and pole climbing. The 10th national championship (22-29 April 2024) had over 200 athletes from eight provinces.⁴¹ Lion-dragon was an exhibition event at the 9th National Sports Games (2022) and is expected to be a full event at the 10th (2026) in one set of sources, while another says it was first included in 2022.⁴¹ The 2026 Cho Lon HTV Cup used video review and electronic scoreboards, a first in lion competition by the claim of the Ho Chi Minh City federation.⁴¹ Vietnamese troupes won the high-pole and speed lion golds at the 7th Asian Lion and Dragon Dance Championship (Indonesia, 2025).¹³ No Vietnamese Genting title was found.
• Indonesia. FOBI is the sports federation recognised by the national sports committee KONI, so competitors are called athletes (atlet barongsai). Barongsai was an exhibition sport at the 2016 PON in West Java with 712 athletes and nine events.¹² FOBI held a national judges' seminar for 38 nationally certified judges on 12 July 2025 to align interpretation of extra rules, and in September 2026 six of its judges passed an international judge course in Shanghai.⁴² Hery Lim (Heryanto Salim), FOBI's deputy secretary-general, says he took the International Dragon and Lion Dance Federation's coach, referee and judge course in Malaysia in June 2014, a month after winning the traditional category at an international championship in Jakarta, with the then-chairman's permission as the champion, and passed; he went on to train teams in Tangerang and Semarang that won championships, then many provincial teams. LongShi Stories EP.1, Hery Lim @ 09:52.⁶¹ The Indonesian competition rules described here come from Indonesian Wikipedia and an academic paper, not from FOBI's own rule book.¹²³⁶
• United States. The USDLDF (founded 2017) is the national body whose rule books are online. Its 2023 nationals capped Traditional at 18 teams and Youth and Female at 8 each, with entry fees of $200-350 per team and teams from eight states.³⁹ At the first nationals (Quincy High School, 26-27 May 2018) the Freestyle (Jongs) event was cancelled because the poles could not be made stable: one pole was not regulation size, and the floor and weather did not allow a safe set-up.¹⁴ The highest-ranking USDLDF member team at a qualifier gets first refusal on international invitations, including Genting.⁶³ No nationals was held in 2025, and teams were pointed to the Phoenix championships.¹⁴

For children's classes learning Sar Ping drumming

What the sources do not settle

• The 1984 Hilton and TVB competition: its dates, venue, rules, judges, full field and results beyond Lo Leung's reported win.
• Genting's own rule book, its panel size and scoring weights, and why winning scores rose from about 9.3 to about 9.7 between 2018 and 2023.
• The rule books for Malaysia's national championship, Singapore, Vietnam and the Chinese Dragon and Lion Dance Sports Association; Hong Kong's panel size; how the 2011 book's ten-judge, nine-judge system works.
• The first president and founding members of the international federation, when its Chinese name changed, and registry records for the 1995 dates of the federation and the Chinese association (the exact days rest on Baidu Baike).
• Who ran the 1983 Kuala Lumpur contest, whether Kun Seng Keng won in Hong Kong in 1990 or 1992, and whether Indonesia's first national championship was in 2000 or 2007.
• The web address of the 2016 Hong Kong score sheets, and whether the deduction page applies to the ground-cheng division.