Playing styles

How to read this chapter

Chapter 4 sorts the southern lion by how it looks. This chapter sorts it by how it moves and sounds, which is how many players recognise a team: one Hawaii informant told a researcher that groups can be identified by listening to their music.¹ Each entry covers origin, movement, drum, cymbals and gong, routine and where to see the style, and says so when the sources are silent. Four terms recur. The green (採青 / 采青, Cant. coi2 ceng1, Mand. cǎiqīng) is the lettuce and red envelope the lion takes, and a set-up built around it is a cheng (Chapter 10). A star beat is a drum pattern counted in strokes, as in three-, five- and seven-star (Chapter 7). The walking beat is the steady pattern played while the lion travels. A rim click is a stick strike on the drum's edge.

Hok San and the Sar Ping drum lineage

• Origin and lineage. Hok San (鶴山 / 鹤山, Cant. hok6 saan1, Mand. Hèshān, "Crane Mountain") is the Heshan lion. Heshan sources credit Feng Gengchang (馮庚長 / 冯庚长, Cant. fung4 gang1 coeng4, Mand. Féng Gēngcháng) with a cat step, eight emotions and a seven-star drum method.² Heshan migrants took it to Singapore, where the Hok San Association kept it, and the Sar Ping lineage (沙坪, Cant. saa1 ping4, Mand. Shāpíng, Heshan's county seat) grew from that teaching.³ Chapter 5 tells the story.
• How the lion moves. Light, quick and playful: "lion form, cat step" (獅形貓步 / 狮形猫步, Cant. si1 jing4 maau1 bou6, Mand. shī xíng māo bù). The lion has eight emotions (八情, Cant. baat3 cing4, Mand. bā qíng): joy, anger, alarm, pleasure, doubt, drunkenness, sleep and waking.² Singapore teachers describe fluid, cat-like movement with the lion standing on its hind legs from a horse-stance base.⁴ Master Siow Ho Phiew's "Three Triangle", the head looking around inside a triangular frame, is called the basic movement of Hok San Sar Ping.⁵ One Hok San bow jumps out into a cat stance, lowers the head, then pops up.⁶ Signature actions include playing the seven stars, three times out and three times in, and turning the lion's quilt.²
• Drum system. The Heshan hallmark is the seven-star drum (七星鼓, Cant. cat1 sing1 gu2, Mand. qīxīnggǔ). Sar Ping teaches eighteen fixed patterns named for lion actions: thunder drum (雷鼓, Cant. leoi4 gu2, Mand. léi gǔ) for the bows, exploring step, five display patterns (middle, half, low, straight and high), rubbing the cave, jump step, climbing the mountain, reflection in the water, down to the plain, seven-section and seven-star. Two link beats join them: dense point (密點 / 密点, Cant. mat6 dim2, Mand. mìdiǎn) and sparse point (疏點 / 疏点, Cant. so1 dim2, Mand. shūdiǎn).⁷ Players also describe a double "dong dong" beat that stands for a heartbeat.⁸ Madison teachers say the beats are prescribed because each carries a meaning and a lion movement.⁹ One UK team teaches the walking beat as fairly quiet, about sixty beats a minute, speeding up only when the lion gets excited. Stop playing the drum like a savage @ 00:48¹⁰
• Cymbals and gong. Sar Ping teaching includes cymbal and gong parts for every pattern.¹¹ In the UK team's three-bow pattern (three rim clicks, three single beats, three rolls) the cymbals and gong stay silent through the clicks, play the three single beats and stop on the rolls.¹² The gong is taught by counting, because it plays against the cymbals.¹³
• Typical routine. The eighteen patterns read as a journey from the bows through caves, mountains and water to the plain, ending on seven-star; the order is this guide's reading (Chapter 7).
• Where you see it. Singapore and Malaysia first. In the United States, Sar Ping teams include Madison, Denver, Phoenix, Hawaii and Houston, which hosted a federation seminar in 2023.^1111415 Hok San heads also sit on Fut San footwork: Boston's Gund Kwok calls its blend Fat Hok.¹⁶

Fut San as taught in Foshan today

• Origin and lineage. Fut San (佛山, Cant. fat6 saan1, Mand. Fóshān, "Buddha Mountain") is the Foshan and Nanhai lion, tied to kung fu halls and Wong Fei-hung lion associations (Chapter 6). This entry uses what Foshan teachers publish now: a seven-part course from a Huang Feihong lion association and the twenty-episode "18 Moves of Foshan Lion Dance".¹⁷¹⁸
• How the lion moves. The keyword is "hard bridge, hard horse" (硬橋硬馬 / 硬桥硬马, Cant. ngaang6 kiu4 ngaang6 maa5, Mand. yìng qiáo yìng mǎ): strong arms over a low, strong stance. The four-level horse (四平馬 / 四平马, Cant. sei3 ping4 maa5, Mand. sì píng mǎ) is home base, and the lion returns to it after each transition.¹⁷ A performance opens with a Southern boxing set (開樁 / 开桩, Cant. hoi1 zong1, Mand. kāizhuāng), then head actions such as opening the eyes, washing the whiskers, licking the body and shaking the fur, with the green as the high point.¹⁹ A 2024 study calls Foshan movement fast, fierce, rigid and abrupt.²⁰
• Drum system. This guide found no single "Fut San system". Hong Kong and Guangdong teaching share a five-stage set: roll (擂鼓, Cant. leoi4 gu2, Mand. léigǔ), raise the lion (起獅鼓 / 起狮鼓, hei2 si1 gu2, qǐshīgǔ), walking or three-star, probing (拋獅鼓 / 抛狮鼓, paau1 si1 gu2, pāoshīgǔ) and seven-star.²¹ The Foshan course teaches six unnamed drum calls tied to lion actions, such as searching left and right for food, the one-lion routine and fear or doubt.²² The 18 Moves series pairs moods with drum feel: cheerful for a happy lion, light for a drunk one, quickening for anger, and a freeze on the drum's ring for a still lion.¹⁸
• Cymbals and gong. The Foshan course says copper cymbals raise the excitement. Lion with drum, gong and cymbal @ 00:42 A Guangzhou Daily feature adds that gong and cymbals do not move until the drum has struck.²³ No gong pattern was found.
• Typical routine. The traditional Guangdong arc is sleeping lion, awakening, leaving the cave, patrolling the mountain, seeking the green, plucking, spitting, licking and washing, and returning; a team may play one stage or all.²³
• Where you see it. Foshan and Nanhai, Hong Kong kung fu schools and American Fut San schools: a Houston school markets its lion as "Traditional Futsan (Foshan)", and Gund Kwok calls its own style mostly Fat San.²⁴¹⁶ See Chapter 13.

Traditional Fut San and the old Chinatown sound

Many North American Chinatown teams once played a Fut San or Hong Kong-pattern drum set, and the seven-star is the beat American sources single out. The best written account of how such a club sounds comes from the Hong Luck Kung Fu Club in Toronto, a Choy Li Fut club of the Hung Sing line (it also teaches Do Pi), founded in 1961, that treats its Fut San drumming as a tradition to conserve.²⁵ Toronto is not American, so this entry adds evidence from David Lei in San Francisco and Rachel Watford's US interviews.

• Who played it. Kung fu schools and associations. Lei calls Fut San the more traditional lion of San Francisco, in two bodies: an older long-tailed lion for ceremonies and a newer short-bodied one with a southern head and northern-style body.²⁶ Chapter 13 lists the schools that carried it.
• How the lion moves. Low, strong stances. Hong Luck's twenty-minute teaching routine has no jumps, acrobatics or apparatus, and its founder stressed detail, ritual propriety, matching action to rhythm and showing emotion through head work. The old tail ran about three metres.²⁵ Watford's informants called Fat San the style of power, with strong strikes and "rooting", a held pause that shows restraint.¹
• Drum system. The club's basic visit is a short chain of calls. The walking beat (行路鼓, Cant. haang4 lou6 gu2, Mand. xínglùgǔ) is moderate and heartbeat-like; senior drummers vary it freely, slowing it to save energy and playing louder and faster for performances. Each visit opens and closes with three bows (拜獅 / 拜狮, baai3 si1, bàishī), each a one-to-two second burst of rolls after a pause or rim click. The head-up beat (起獅 / 起狮, hei2 si1, qǐshī) is a stream of fast, even notes with grace-note rolls, in double time against the walking beat. Then a "saam sing" motif plays three times as the dancers rise three times; the club glosses it "three rises" (三升, saam1 sing1, sānshēng), the same sound as three-star. Plucking the green gets unmetered rolls for eating, a repeated motif for swallowing and a closing cadence.²⁵
• Cymbals and gong. Novices start on cymbals, which play steady quarter notes for walking and a quarter then two eighths for the head-up beat. The gong doubles them except in the walking beat, where it interlocks with the drum. Cymbals ring until the band pauses, then are pressed to the chest; the gong is half-muted by the left hand and fully muted for rests. Elders let the sound ring, while younger players mute more for a punchier, staccato texture.²⁵
• Typical routine. The instruments stay outside while the lion goes in, and hand signals tell the drummer when to start. The basic visit takes about a minute: three bows, head-up shake, three lifts, plucking, three bows, then back to the walking beat.²⁵
• Seven-star in American sources. A cheng demonstration at the Beyond the Pride exhibition says every approach to a cheng ends with a seven-star and a pause.²⁷ Boston's Ken Morin says the lion dances a livelier, louder seven-star while firecrackers go off, then bows and moves on.²⁸ Lei reads the beat as a call to the Jade Emperor in the Big Dipper, a folk reading no drumming source supports.²⁹ In 2020 the national federation planned a Fut San seminar by Grandmaster Lee Kam Wing on "Seven Star Beat and Drum Flowering techniques"; COVID cancelled it.³⁰
• Why the sound faded. Three pressures show in the sources. Sport: Lei calls Hok San the style now used for competition, and a Hawaii informant said groups founded after 2005 tend to play Hok San while older groups play Fat San.²⁶¹ Teaching: a Phoenix team moved from Futsan to Sar Ping with a Wisconsin shifu's guidance.¹⁴ Gigs: a Hong Kong master told McGuire he would struggle to get work with only traditional Fut San, so he hybridised.²⁵ Lei adds that many schools now think louder is better.²⁶ Some clubs hold out: when a visitor played Hoksan walking beats at Hong Luck, one elder put down his cymbals and turned away.²⁵

Hong Kong style

• Origin and lineage. Hong Kong style (港式, Cant. gong2 sik1, Mand. Gǎngshì) has no agreed definition: Chapter 4 finds three meanings, a Fut San-leaning way of dancing, a head from a Hong Kong workshop, or a drum set. A Hong Kong association credits Singapore and Malaysia with the 1980s fusion of southern lion and northern moves (南獅北舞 / 南狮北舞, Cant. naam4 si1 bak1 mou5, Mand. nánshī běiwǔ).³²
• How the lion moves. A member of an Austin team that uses the label describes traditional movement and head design plus modern stunts.³³ Traditional Hong Kong contests differ: ground cheng with a set division (snake, crab, basin, drunken greens) and an own-apparatus division where each team builds a named array.³⁴ Contest routines are stories, such as the Peach Garden Oath for three lions or a rescue of a lion cub (Chapter 10).
• Drum system. Hong Kong school notes give the five-stage set in oral syllables, of which only 得 (a rim hit) is defined, with an etiquette rule: seven-star at the door to test the doorframe, then only three-star and rolls with kneeling bows inside.²¹ They also mention flower drumming (花鼓, faa1 gu2, huāgǔ), full of flourishes. The Austin member calls the drumming very fast with complex combinations.³³
• Cymbals and gong. The same description has very fast, very loud cymbals.³³ McGuire saw a Hong Kong group playing syncopation in unison on gongs and cymbals, which he found uncommon in traditional Fut San.²⁵
• Where you see it. Hong Kong, and US teams using the label, such as Heavenly Dragon in Austin and On Ngai, plus Hong Kong-lineage schools such as Yau Kung Moon in San Francisco.³³³⁵³⁶

Lo Leung

• Origin and lineage. Lo Leung (羅梁 / 罗梁, Cant. lo4 loeng4, Mand. Luó Liáng) joins the surnames of two sworn brothers who opened martial halls in Guangdong in the 1930s and moved to Macau. Their troupe dates from 1938, became the Lo Leung Athletic Association in 1948, and taught Choy Li Fut and southern lion.³⁷³⁸ A Macau master says television contests of 1984 to 1987 demanded more danger each year and cut a thirty-minute display to five minutes, so the lion and drum became fast; that is one man's account (Chapter 12).³⁷
• How the lion moves. Fast and daring. The same master names a "two men carry water" formation that won a contest and a "leap over the dragon gate" jump of about three metres to a chair back.³⁷³⁵
• Drum system. Lo Leung drum (羅梁鼓 / 罗梁鼓, lo4 loeng4 gu2, Luó Liáng gǔ) is described by practitioners as slightly faster and denser than Foshan drumming, heavy on rim work and full of variations; this is known only from search-result summaries. A US team names its hallmark "money all over the ground" (遍地金錢 / 遍地金钱, Cant. pin3 dei6 gam1 cin2, Mand. biàndì jīnqián) and says it sounds like coins scattering; whether that is the same drum is unverified.³⁵ Video titles call Lo Leung drumming a Hong Kong and Macau specialty.³⁹
• Cymbals and gong. The US team's version is said to have constant cymbal clashes and clicks.³⁵ Nothing more is documented.
• Where you see it. Macau and Hong Kong. In the United States, On Ngai calls itself the first Lo Leung team in the country and traces its method to a sifu its head coach met in 2016; no independent record of that sifu was found.³⁵

Vietnamese playing, and the Vietnamese seven-star

• Origin and lineage. The Vietnamese lion (lân, from the qilin, 麒麟, Cant. kei4 leon4, Mand. qílín) belongs to the ethnic Chinese (Hoa) community of Saigon and Chợ Lớn. It arrived with martial arts masters, and troupes are halls (đường) backed by guilds.⁴⁰ The Hoa art entered Vietnam's national heritage list in 2025 (Chapter 12).⁴¹
• How the lion moves. A Hanoi television documentary calls Phật Sơn (Fut San) "tiger-leopard", strong on the ground, and Hạc Sơn (Hok San) cat-like and light, suited to height; it names footwork, stances plus travelling steps, as the source of power.⁴⁰ Popular explainers call the lion stylised and cute and plum-blossom poles the hardest skill.⁴² Ông Địa, a pot-bellied earth god with a fan, leads it.⁴³
• Drum system. The drum (trống) leads. Vietnamese press says it signals speed changes and greets other troupes, because the front dancer sees little.⁴⁴ A memoir of 1950s Saigon says that when equal-rank lions met they bowed to each other, then the leaders signalled three rounds of drumming, slow to fast and loud to soft.⁴⁵ No Vietnamese pattern names were found. Vietnamese Wikipedia names the Heshan beat thất tinh cổ (七星鼓) and says Fut San, Hok San, Fut Hok and Chow Gar teams all play different beats.⁴⁶ English Wikipedia's Jow Ga page says Jow Ga drumming became the traditional drumming of many Vietnamese groups and is wrongly called trống Phật Sơn; that is a single unconfirmed claim.⁴⁷
• Cymbals and gong. The cymbals are chũm chọe; the small gong, thanh la, is 15 to 25 cm across with a ringing and a damped sound.⁴⁸ No playing technique was found.
• Typical routine. Formations are named by lion count: one, two (song hỷ), three (tam tinh, for the gods of fortune, rank and long life, or tam anh, for Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei) and four (tứ quý hưng long). At the green the lion climbs for cabbage with money tied in red cloth, while Ông Địa, who does not climb, dances alongside.⁴³
• Where you see it. Chợ Lớn and Vietnamese-American teams: Houston's GDPT Linh Son won the 2025 Phoenix traditional division with 9.02.⁴⁹ See Chapter 13.

Jow Ga, also spelled Chow Gar

Two different arts share the surname Zhou (周, Cant. zau1, Mand. Zhōu). Jow Ga (周家拳, Cant. zau1 gaa1 kyun4, Mand. Zhōujiāquán) was founded by Jow Lung (周龍 / 周龙, Cant. zau1 lung4, Mand. Zhōu Lóng, 1891 to 1919), born at Sa Fu village in Xinhui. It was first nicknamed "Hung's head, Choy's tail" (洪頭蔡尾 / 洪头蔡尾, Cant. hung4 tau4 coi3 mei5, Mand. Hóng tóu Cài wěi) for its mix of Hung Gar and Choy Gar, and English Wikipedia calls it famous for lion dance.⁴⁷ Chow Gar Southern Praying Mantis (東江周家螳螂 / 东江周家螳螂, Cant. dung1 gong1 zau1 gaa1 tong4 long4, Mand. Dōngjiāng Zhōujiā tángláng) is a Hakka art of the Dong River area. Its Wikipedia page says it is unrelated to Jow Ga and does not mention lion dance.⁵⁰ On the sources read, the lion tradition belongs to Jow Ga. English Wikipedia's lion page lists a Jow Ga lion, and Vietnamese Wikipedia lists "Chow Gar" beside Fut San and Hok San; they most likely name the same lion, though neither says so.⁵¹⁴⁶

• Origin and lineage. A Zhou-family lion from Sa Fu village (沙富村, Cant. saa1 fu3 cyun1, Mand. Shāfù cūn) is described as yellow with a white beard, duck-bill mouth and rounded horn, and Singapore's Chinese Cultural Centre describes a Jow Ga hybrid with a Foshan-like forehead and Heshan-like mouth. The village matches Jow Lung's birthplace, but no source says the lions are the same.⁵²⁵³ Liu Jun Lin (刘俊霖/劉俊霖), general secretary of the Chow Gar Fist Federation of Penang (this chapter spells it Jow Ga), says in the LongShi Stories podcast that the Chow Gar lion is a way of dancing, not a head: a team may dance it on a Foshan head or on a crane (Hok San) head, which the captions call "crane attire", and Singapore later began using the crane head for it. LongShi Stories EP.5, Liu Jun Lin @ 18:15.⁵⁴ He says his team traced the lion's origin to Jiangmen, near Heshan, and that the lineage's ancestor learned Heshan lion dance, which is why the crane head is called the representative one, though there is no fixed rule.⁵⁴
• How the lion moves. The best public source is a Jow Ga Kung Fu NYC lesson series credited to a Chai Wan, Hong Kong, sifu of about the 1970s. It teaches unicorn (qilin) steps; a half-hanging stance, front foot on its toes with weight on the back leg; short quick steps that show the lion looking around; a "wave" of floating and sinking; "biting the seven stars", a drop into a low back stance with a stamp and a bite over the front leg; snap kicks to about jaw height; and beard brushing. The head dancer calls a cue to the tail dancer before the wave.⁵⁵ Jow Ga lesson 1, biting the seven stars @ 1:45
• Drum system. The set teaches three-, five- and seven-star beats with a ring grip on the stick; seven-star is a three-star beat linked to a five-star beat with the rim beat left out. Raising the head after the wave tells the drummer to change to seven-star. Thunder drum plays as the lion charges to swallow the greens, passing drum accompanies relaxed moves such as changing dancers, and great drum, also called great seven stars, opens each section.⁵⁶
• Cymbals and gong. A band has at least one drummer, two cymbal players and one gong player, all following the drummer's variations, and the gong is louder than the cymbals, so its player matters more.⁵⁶
• Typical routine. Three lessons cover routine sets but have no captions, so none is described.
• Where you see it. Jow Ga schools in New York and Washington, DC (Chapter 13) and, through Hoa halls, Vietnam: a lesson description says Jow Ga is known there as Nhon Nghia Duong.⁵⁵ In Paris, Lion Dance Franco-Asiatique's master teaches "chow-gar" kung fu while the team dances a Fut San head; the inventory does not say which art that is.⁵⁷ In Malaysia, Liu says Jow Ga boxing first took root in Penang through a master the captions call Li Kun, and that the Penang federation has 31 subordinate groups; the podcast's hosts say groups existed in Kuala Lumpur from the 1960s to the 1980s but are rare there now, and that Hong Guan is among the teams still playing the lion well. LongShi Stories EP.5 @ 04:40.⁵⁴⁵⁸ Liu says the old lion's many ups and downs, fast steps and high-low drumming do not suit modern contests, whose judges look at the lion's form, and that his team's lion scored very low around 2010 and was changed. LongShi Stories EP.5 @ 19:49.⁵⁴ One of the hosts says some modern Foshan and Heshan routines now carry modified Jow Ga elements, linking this to competition scoring. LongShi Stories EP.0 @ 25:04.⁵⁸

Xuan Long

Xuan Long (玄龍 / 玄龙, Mand. Xuánlóng, Cant. jyun4 lung4) is a network of troupes inside a larger family. Its founder, Andrew Yap (葉德順 / 叶德顺, Cant. jip6 dak1 seon6, Mand. Yè Déshùn), set up the Malaysia Xuan Long Sports Association in 2012 and calls the head maker Lim Meng Kok, "Lo Fo Chi", his teacher (恩師).⁵⁹⁶⁰ Lim founded the Wai Mou school (威武五家), and early Xuan Long video titles carry its name in brackets. Chapter 17 covers that family and its heads.⁶¹ So when US dancers say "Xuan Long style", they are pointing at the Wai Mou way of playing a Lofochi-style head, as taught through Andrew Yap's network.

In a 2026 interview he says he began at 14 and has about 30 years' experience. He founded Xuan Long in 2012 so that students would have a healthy activity and a platform, because many good athletes had none. He dates Wai Mou's founding to 2006, when Lim took on a first generation of disciples that included him. He says his troupe won the traditional title on its first trip to Hong Kong, in 2018. His highest aim is that people who know nothing of lion dance can understand what the lion is doing.⁶²

• Malaysia. The association marked its 11th anniversary in April 2023, and a 2022 Sin Chew report puts its founding about ten years earlier. Sin Chew also says it has close to forty titles and teaches students from many countries.⁶³⁶⁰ Titles from about 2014 call it the 馬來西亞玄龍（威武五家）體育會, the Xuan Long (Wai Mou) Sports Association.⁶¹ Branches the founder listed in 2023 were Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, Rawang, Malacca, Subang and France. Troupes in Sabah and Brunei also compete under the name.⁵⁹⁶⁴ Its Rawang troupe, a Genting documentary says, was founded in 2016, moved to high pole in 2022 and won the 2024 national title. JIWA SINGA, Rawang Xuan Long @ 15:50⁶⁵ In 2025 it won the traditional division and placed second in the acrobatic division at a Malaysian cup.⁶⁶
• The overseas branches. At its 11th-anniversary event in Kuala Lumpur on 16 April 2023, the association held a signing ceremony that founded France Xuan Long, USA Xuan Long and Bình Dương Xuan Long in Vietnam.⁶³ Two days earlier it dotted the eyes of new heads for the Bình Dương troupe and accepted new disciples.⁶⁷ The same event launched the Fellowship Cup (師承杯 / 师承杯, Cant. si1 sing4 bui1, Mand. Shīchéng Bēi, roughly "carrying on from the master"). This is Xuan Long's own international contest, held again in 2024 and as "4.0" in 2026.⁶³⁶⁸
• United States. USA Xuan Long is based in Houston and works out of Soaring Phoenix. A 2023 video calls Soaring Phoenix the "USA Xuan Long Headquarters" and shows Lim dotting the eyes of Hok San-pattern "Lo Fu Chi" heads there.⁶⁹ The house enters contests under both names. "Soaring Phoenix Team Xuan Long" was third in the traditional division at the 2025 Phoenix championships with 8.88.⁴⁹ "Soaring Phoenix - Xuan Long" was second in high pole at the 2026 US national championships in Grand Prairie, Texas, with 8.93.⁷⁰ Soaring Phoenix's founder was inspired by a childhood trip to Malaysia to learn Malaysian-style lion dance.⁷¹
• France. France Xuan Long competes at the Malaysian contests. It scored 8.81 for fourth place at the first Fellowship Cup in 2023, 8.50 at the first Wai Mou Cup in 2025 and 8.73 at the 2026 Wai Mou championship.⁷² Sin Chew says the French are the largest group of foreigners learning lion dance in Malaysia.⁶⁰
• Vietnam and Australia. Vietnamese videos call the Bình Dương branch Huyền Long Việt Nam and label its basic moves "Mengkok" and "Lofochi".⁷³ In 2026 Andrew Yap ran a bootcamp in Sydney for the Australian Yau Kung Mun Association and its Lion Dance Kids program. They described what he taught as the "Lo Fu Chi lion style" (老夫子獅風格).⁷⁴
• Hong Kong. A Hong Kong video title lists the Malaysia Xuan Long Sports Association at the third 雄獅樓盃 (Hung Si Lau Cup) lion king contest on 11 May 2019.⁷⁵ Two other titles show a Hong Kong troupe named 善玄龍獅團 / 善玄龙狮团 (Cant. sin6 jyun4 lung4 si1 tyun4, Mand. Shàn Xuánlóng shī tuán) playing Lo Leung drum art; its link to the Malaysian group is unknown.⁷⁶ Keung's Dragon and Lion Dance Team, a Hong Kong troupe in the same Wai Mou family, thanks "Xuan Long Master Shun" (玄龍順師傅, Andrew Yap) for coaching its 2024 competition season.⁷⁷

Nothing written down describes a Xuan Long drum set or footwork, but the family does have a named bow. Chinese coaches post teaching videos of the "Wai Mou bow" (威武五家拜, Cant. wai1 mou5 ng5 gaa1 baai3, Mand. Wēiwǔ Wǔjiā bài). Under one of them, a viewer's first question was how it differs from the Heshan bow, and the coach replied only that it does.⁷⁸ A San Diego team that visited Andrew Yap and Lim in 2025 described them as specialists in "the Wai Mou style of lion dance".⁷⁹ The Rawang coach stresses year-round training and character before skill. The same film says high pole has separated from culture and now rewards difficulty, speed and spectacle.⁶⁵

Choy Li Fut, Hung Gar and the Malaysian competition style

Choy Li Fut

Choy Li Fut (蔡李佛, Cant. coi3 lei5 fat6, Mand. Cài Lǐ Fó) began in Xinhui, and its Foshan branch became the Hung Sing Kwoon (鴻勝館 / 鸿胜馆, Cant. hung4 sing3 gun2, Mand. Hóngshèng guǎn) in about 1851; dates differ by source.⁸¹ Its lion is a Fut San-pattern lion. A Choy Li Fut federation says musicians follow the lion rather than a fixed score, and a 2011 blog says its beats differ a little from traditional Fut San; no pattern names, cymbal or gong details were found.⁸²⁸ Toronto's Hong Luck belongs to a Hung Sing (雄勝, Mand. Xióngshèng) group.²⁵ In America, Seattle's Mak Fai teaches Hung Sing Choy Lay Fut with lion dance.⁸³

Hung Gar

Hung Gar (洪家, Cant. hung4 gaa1, Mand. Hóngjiā) is the Wong Fei-hung line (Chapter 6). No source read describes how a Hung Gar lion moves. A Hong Kong Hung Gar coach teaches four rhythms by their counts: Two-Five (二五, ji6 ng5) for walking, Four-Six (四六, sei3 luk6) for a happy lion with its head rising, Three Tones (三音, saam1 jam1) as the lion nears the offering, then Seven Tones (七音, cat1 jam1); he argues "star" is the wrong word. Lion Drum and Kung Fu Drum @ 04:56⁸⁴ Cymbal and gong details were not found.

The modern Malaysian competition style

The pole contest grew from a Kuala Lumpur competition in 1983, pole heights were standardised in 1993 and Genting's world championship began in 1994 (Chapter 14).⁸⁵⁶⁵ Competition shaped the lion: a lighter head, a shorter tail so the rear dancer can lift the head dancer, bright colours and fur, and moves borrowed from the northern lion, a blend McGuire's study calls "southern lion, northern dance".²⁵ The lion works high and acrobatically; a typical pole routine sees a valley with a flower, bows three times, jumps up a row of poles for hills, crosses a rope bridge, takes the green and returns, showing fear, anger at the height and joy at the river.⁸⁵ Malaysia's national register lists three-, five- and seven-star rhythms, with the drum as the leader, and Genting scores music pairing together with difficulty and form.⁸⁶⁶⁵ Cymbal and gong technique is not documented separately. You see it in Malaysia, Singapore, Hawaii, Houston and any US team that competes on poles. Jason Tan of Kwong Ngai (光藝龍獅體育會/光艺龙狮体育会) adds detail on the metal and the drum. He says the gong is the most important element of the overall drumming because it follows the rhythm, and in Heshan drumming above all, though its sparse part can be played lightly without being noticed. LongShi Stories EP.2, Jason Tan @ 13:27.⁸⁷ He says he has noticed that teams once had to keep Heshan and Foshan drumming clearly apart in competition and no longer do, and that high-pole contests allow additional instruments while ground-style drumming is limited to a few set ones. LongShi Stories EP.2 @ 16:37, @ 12:40.⁸⁷ Teh Wing Liang (郑永樑/鄭永樑) says students ask whether Foshan and Heshan lion dance differ; there were differences in the past and veterans still say so, but unifying the dance may be unfair to older groups whose material is being dropped. LongShi Stories EP.4, Teh Wing Liang @ 49:46.⁸⁸

The styles side by side

"Not documented" means no source was found, not that nothing exists.

Telling the styles apart by ear

What this chapter could not settle

• Whether "old Chinatown seven-star" is a defined drum set or shorthand for the seven-star beat in a Fut San set.
• What a Vietnamese seven-star pattern is, and whether Vietnamese "Fut San drumming" is Jow Ga drumming.
• A technical description of the Wai Mou bow and of Wai Mou or "Lo Fu Chi" playing: no source sets out the steps or a drum set.
• Whether the Lo Leung drum and the "money all over the ground" drum are one thing.
• A recorded, side-by-side comparison; the listening guide is a set of reported impressions.