Cherng Loong Lion Dance Troupe Blog

NASA AMES Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:45:00 +0000

Looks like we're due for an update. We've had a very quiet summer with few practices and even fewer performances. Things are looking to pick up in the next two months with weddings. Cherng Loong did have a very cool show at the NASA AMES base in Mountain View. I believe it was for a picnic. Two of Cherng Loong's instructors came out of retirement to perform, one of them being me. It was definitely difficult to perform on the benches after three years of no practice on them. The show was a lot of fun and we're thankful that NASA gave us an opportunity to perform for them.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Cherng Loong blog post without some pictures!

Warming up with some music!

This is a great shot of the silver lion.

Original Team A back in action!

Looking strong so far...

Lion going down for the cheng.

Finishing up on the benches. Here comes the the other lions!

Another great shot.

Scrolls come down.

A nice action shot!

Our friend Andrew who works for NASA and was helping us take pictures. Thanks for the support!

Hopefully, this won't be the last time we perform here. Everyone we worked with was really nice to us. Again, thanks for having us and a special thanks goes to Ikai Lan for taking these great photos of us performing.

Chinese New Year Weekend - Sterling, Irving and all else that ends in "ing"

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:34:00 +0000

There are SOOOO many pictures from this Chinese New Year. For just the first weekend, I was able to select 75 pictures from Jason's collection of what seemed like thousands. I will try not to post them all on the blog but I'll make them available to view in a picture gallery. Let's get started!

On Feb. 9th, the first Saturday after Chinese New Year, we were invited by Sterling Bank and Trust to perform at four of their bank locations. Sterling has always been a great supporter of Cherng Loong since 2005 and we've helped open up and perform at numerous locations. In between those performance, we were also invited to perform at Designer, the hair salon that a few of the guys including myself go to, Johnny's Burgers, and Lam Hoa Thuan Restaurant, just to name a few. It was quite a busy day and it was great to see everyone come back to help out.

We started the day performing at the Irving St. Sterling location at around 10:30AM.

It's not that early but a lot of us like to sleep in. Just check out how tired we look.

We awakened three new lions that day. My dad came out and helped us out with the eye dotting ceremony and three Sterling employees had the honor of performing the dotting.

If we weren't awake, this long strip of firecrackers were sure to help us.

The lions have been dotted and are awakening. The new lions were really excited and a performance ensued.

We then headed down a few blocks to Designer. They always make it interesting for us with lettuce being hung throughout the place, oranges and extra red envelopes!

Even Paul came back to help us out on the drum.

We're either discussing a gameplan here or just need a quick kiss.

Lettuce and Lai Xi!

Working on the oranges...

... to wish good luck.

I recently got a haircut and they told me the performance was great.

After Designer, we headed over to the Taraval Street Sterling and it looks like Bradford's awake now.

After Taraval, it was about 1:00PM so we headed back to Irving St. to eat at Johnny's Burgers. Yes, Russell, you get to eat a burger too. You can let go of Kenneth now.

Not sure what's going on here.

Most of us ordered regular burgers. Maybe some bacon or mushrooms on some of them. But Bradford, Lerng and Michael saw something else that sparked their interest. When they got their food, we all couldn't help but notice it and looked over.

They ordered the monster 3 patty burgers. You might want to keep scrolling down if you don't want to witness the carnage that is the Johnny's Monster Burger.

Then Douglas "Shredder" Jue decided to show up. He must have smelled the food from his house or something.

He helped us on our way to the next Sterling Bank on Mission Street, where we performed again. This time, with full bellies, some flags and extra drummers.

Even Justin and Elliot joined in on the fun. Elliot decided to show us exactly how long those pants really are.

The last of the Sterling banks was on San Bruno Ave. Jonathan and Bradford found some time to goof off while we played music and threw firecrackers.

After we finished off the last Sterling Bank, we again went back to Irving Street, where we performed for our lunch spot, Johnny's. Kenneth and Jason suited up for the first time since they were still known as the 2/3 of the Stooges.

Warren showed up after work and missed our lunch so of course he gets to have a burger as well while we performed.

Then we performed for a couple more times to end the day.

We got some fried chicken as a gift!

And Russell loved it!

After a long day, some of us winded down by playing Street Fighter.

We ate dinner at Lam Hoa Thuan and this has got to be enough pictures for now. Say goodbye, Kenneth and Fai!

Woodside Priory School Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:44:00 +0000

Woodside Priory School invited us to perform for their Lunar New Year celebration a couple weeks back. And Jason took a whole lotta pictures. I chose to only post some of them and that's already 20 pictures! I picked up some donuts for the guys before we left for the show.

The school is pretty cool and we got to perform outdoors. We started out by playing some music to get the crowd together. Ming was our main drummer but it was a great opportunity for our less experienced drummers get a chance.

It was a pretty good performance. Russell and Berman was in the red fur lion and Doug and Bradford was in the purple lion.

After we got back from the performance, we had some practice for Russell and Berman to prepare for our upcoming bench performances. Jason just kept the camera going.

Not sure Melany and Pandora were doing here.

Ming and Berman feeling the music. Ming should keep his eyes open or he might hit Berman's head.

Too late... here's Berman returning the favor.

Here's Cherng Loong's future. Brandon, Michael and Lerng training hard.

After all the fooling around, we actually got some work done.

Berman worked really hard on his donkey kick.

Then we finished practice... with family pictures?

I got another post coming soon. This is just the start for the new year!

Cherng Loong Performs at Golden State Warriors Game

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:16:00 +0000

Well, Chinese New Year 2008 is coming up and I figured that everyone should know what we've been up to lately. December brought one of our biggest performances ever. Our beloved local NBA Basketball team, the Golden State Warriors, invited us to perform for the opening show for their game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Dec. 5, 2007. The occasion was the Asian Heritage Night at Oracle Arena and also marked the first time that new Chinese rookie Yi Jianlian came to Oakland to play.

It was a fun time for all of us and we actually got to stick around after the performance to watch the Warriors rock the Bucks 120-90. Here are some pictures:

It was our first chance to use our new lions. Russell and Berman got onto the benches with our new Gold lion with Red fur and Black underbody. The lion's look is stunning. Here are a few more of the same lion.

There were four other lions on the court. The Purple Batik lion is still one our favorites. We also brought Red, Blue/Silver and a new Gold lion.

Then we also gotta have a picture of our music players.

And to finish it off, a picture of Ming.

What can I say? Ming just loves the camera. The new years is going to be busy. It's probably the busiest we've been since two years ago. I believe we still got some available times on the weekend of Feb. 22-24 for those of you who are looking for some New Year lion dancing.

Look out for some more posts when the new years comes closer. We'll be hard at work so we should be getting lots of good Cherng Loong news and pictures.

Performance for Wedding at Zen Peninsula Restaurant

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:22:00 +0000

Wow, it's been such a long time since I last posted on this. It's been about 20 minutes. If you are one of loyal readers that checks everyday, make sure not to miss my earlier post about the Excelsior Festival!

Cherng Loong performed at a wedding at the Zen Peninsula Restaurant this past Saturday. It was actually a referral from a previous client. Thanks Benson Chiu, if you are actually reading this. We arrived early as usual. We had some time to pass so...

Warren waved around the gong stick.

Russell and Berman are mentally preparing themselves for their performance on stacked benches.

Looks like Russell is ready. I don't think Russell liked this picture of him. Oh well.

After that, we waited...

and waited...

and waited!

When we got in, three lions went straight for the head table.

It's been a little while since we've done three or more lions. It looks nice.

Then Russell and Berman stuck around to perform on their benches:

Double leg stack on benches.

Swingy swing.

Donkey!

Dipping low for the Cheng.

Good job guys!

After Russell and Berman finished, the other two lions came back in to finish the performance. They unfurled two good luck scrolls.

Yes, that gold lion was on the floor. That floor being the 6'4" Jonathan Li who power lifted Doug onto his head. It's like they were on benches or something!

We finished the performance with some pictures. It was a nice and long show. The audience was great and was cheering most of the time. We just hope that it was as exciting and fun to watch as it was for us to perform.

Dinner that night: Sushi Zen

Excelsior Festival 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:01:00 +0000

This post is actually about a week late. It's going to be followed by a second post about this past weekend's wedding performance. Anyway, we performed for the Excelsior Festival on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007. It was a two lion performance for the children's stage. For those of you who don't know where the Excelsior is, it's around the Outer Mission, off of Alemany. It was a basic performance. We mixed it up a bit by pairing up Bradford with Khiem. Somehow, Doug has gained lots of muscle mass and weights more than Khiem. That is why we figured to give Bradford a little rest.

Before the actual show, we decided to try to draw a crowd by playing some music.

Fai, does it feel good to get back on that drum? You know it does...

I thought this next picture was cool because it looks like Khiem is going up to fetch something from the top of that tent-like structure. Unfortunately, he wasn't and that object was just in the way of the picture.

Looks cool anyway.

Fast forward to about the middle of the performance and the two lions are on double leg stacks right before picking up the scrolls. I can see myself on the left!

Here is Fai, preparing to shoot off a Confetti cannon. CAREFUL! Don't shoot it too early!

Scrolls come down!

Russell and Berman decide to pose in front of the drum to end the performance. Good job guys. It was very easy and quick. There were some definite music hiccups though. We'll be working on those in the next few weeks.

Hmmm, if it works, I might just post up some music, that way we can track some of our progress.

Breakfast that Day: Bashful Bull
Lunch that Day: I don't know. I had to leave right after the performance!

Another update coming in the next hour!

Two Weddings

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:35:00 +0000

Cherng Loong had a double Wedding night this past weekend. Good thing the timing worked out so that we could perform at both without splitting up the team. One was in Hillsborough while the other was back in the city at Gold Mountain in Chinatown. They were both solid performances and we got good feedback from the audience. We did two lions for both shows. Russell and Berman had one and Doug and Bradford took the other. Let's move on to pictures:

In our waiting room, the guys were given this bathroom to use. It was so nice that they felt that we needed a picture of it.

Doug and Russell. They are the two lion head dancers and require a big hug from each other before performances.

Kenneth (guy in the middle) is one of our older members. The two tail players that night (Berman on the left and Bradford on the far right), supposedly gain power from him instead of hugging one another.

We have converted my cousin Lerng! This has really become the family "business". He video taped the two performances but there were some parts where he was distracted so it didn't come out as good as we hoped. I'll see if I want to post it up.

We escorted the Bride and Groom to their seats. The room we actually performed in was beautiful. It was very bright and the sun light shining in was great. Cameras were flashing everywhere.

We always need a picture of the band! Ming was the drummer. I'm thinking we need a guest blogger on here. Maybe the drummer one day and then a lion head dancer the next. Yes... that's a good idea.

Red and Gold are usually the choices for weddings. The two lions look great examining each other in this picture.

Here is a picture from another angle at the same performance. The Bride and Groom were able to get a front row seat to the show.

Here is a picture from our second show. The lighting was a lot more dim here but there was plenty of room for us. We used the same lions and the performance was actually a surprise gift from the best man. Very cool gift.

I just like this picture because of how casual Elliot looks after dropping off the scrolls for the lions. He looks like he's just walking away humming to himself.

One last picture of the lions facing each other. They are preparing to snatch the scrolls and wish the Bride and Groom good luck.

Again, the two performances seemed to be a hit at the weddings. Maybe if I have time, I'll throw up some videos as well.

Congratulations to the happy couples!

Dinner that Night: Lam Hoa Thuan (Chinese/Vietnamese)

Performance for Principal of Yick Wo Elementary

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 06:17:00 +0000

It's been a while... but we performed a few weeks ago for Yick Wo Elementary. It was for the principal who was leaving the school.

We had a pretty solid plan going into it. We were going to have our new big-boy team, Doug/Bradford, perform for the first time along with the dependable duo of Khiem/Paul. Paul mentioned to me that it was the day of his graduation but then he reassured me that it probably wouldn't be a problem.

Well... Thursday night rolled around and I get a voicemail from Paul saying that he wouldn't be able to make it the next day for the performance. I was aPAUL'ed! ... wow, that was a bad joke

I started to think, "Ah crap, who can I stick in now...". My initial plan was to give Russell/Berman a break from being the go-to team every time. I know they wouldn't care either way but I figured it woulda been nice to just change it up. The decision I eventually made was...

WHY NOT MING?!?!

The last time he ever performed inside of a lion for an actual routine as a tail was quite a few years back. But I had a quick meeting with the other guys, mainly to tell them that we were gonna have Ming do it no matter what he says.

Ming definitely wasn't amused by the news. We quickly put him to the test... and through some initial troubles, he started to come around:

Since I'm done explaining everything, here's some cool pictures of the performance:

or er... a picture of Bradford trying to climb a tree.

"GET DOWN! DO THAT AFTER THE PERFORMANCE! THEN YOU CAN HURT YOURSELF!"

Cherng Loong cymbals, baby!

Lions getting ready to go in!

music peoples. Hey, it's Fai! Pretty solid music.

The two lions are actually on "double leg stacks" but it got cut off. I should fire the camera guy (just joking, Eric, you did fine).

We NEVER take group pictures! This was at practice.

I know me and Ming had some joke for this picture and how I was going to put it on the blog but I can't remember it now... someone care to remind me?

Good and fun performance though.

Dinner that day: Thai food

*EDIT 8/23/07* - The school name is actually Yick Wo, not Yik Wo. It has been changed throughout this post.

Practice 5/26/07

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 29 May 2007 22:26:00 +0000

Back to practice after a one week break. I got a new P&S camera now so this blog will begin to fill up with a bunch of pictures. I got it on Friday night so these pictures are from Saturday's practice. To start out... we all got in to a horse stance at the beginning. For some odd reason, Ming thought he was special and didn't have to sit in a horse like the rest of us. Result? Ming sitting in a horse by himself:

yeah, you better be ashamed...

We mainly worked on Doug and Bradford that day. They are preparing for performances in June/July so we can have another option besides having Russell/Berman and Khiem/Paul perform every time. They know the whole routine and have performed with other partners but they are still trying to stay consistent practicing with each other. Here are a few snaps of them practicing:

Looks like Ming wants to sit in a horse again...

Pandora and Melany are also progressing but I didn't take any worthwhile pictures... sorry. So here's a picture of beginners plus Michelle (Michael)

Then I was testing my camera by trying to catch the guys practicing jumps and getting a picture of them at the peak of the jump:

Doug/Bradford

Russell/Berman

Doug/Berman

Russell/Bradford

Russell/Doug

Now that I've exhausted pretty much all of those combinations... I will stop now and will post again next week.

Berman Drumming Late 2006 - Early 2007?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 17 May 2007 04:44:00 +0000

Here's a short video of Berman drumming a simple Hok San beat with Andrew and Sindy playing cymbals and Paul on the gong. They have come a long way since then. This was quite a while back but I just found it in my photobucket. Anyway, enjoy...

Practice 5/11/07

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 15 May 2007 04:16:00 +0000

Looks like the practice schedule has been a little irregular lately. We got a weird gift from fai...

There are about 700-800 bottles of water there. Our practice area is also going through some remodeling:

Looks like we won't be getting any full-on practices for a little while. That's okay though. We still have the cramped-up garage. I'm currently working on a video to put up of that. But for now, you can just stare at bottles of water and... wood.

UPDATE (5/15/07): As promised, here's a video from practice. I'm working on more.

Here, Berman is showing an example of an expression movement where the lion approaches an object from the right and then the left. Chelsea follows with the same move after watching Berman so that she can work on some flaws.

... people need to realize that the camcorder is going and stop talking. Oh well, that's exclusive raw footage for you!

"CYC what?", asks Ming.

Practice 4/28/07

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:57:00 +0000

So now we're working on completing the bench routine for Russell/Berman by adding the ground portion. They've been working pretty hard and are now beginning to learn the sidewards roll. Here's a video of their efforts:

It still needs some work...

Pandora/Melany is our new girl team and they are learning fast! We'll be able to get them out at a performance inside the lion in no time. I will edit this post with a video soon. Or I will just add another post.

We've just been shifting around with everyone else. Music is pretty strong and it can only get better. Bradford has been our utility man, and can do pretty much anything. Now that he can pair up with Doug, who knows what will come out of it. Michael has finally found a partner in Max. Paul and Khiem is starting on benches so that's pretty exciting. We also have a few new people so we should be able to use this down time to our advantage.

I need to start taking pictures...

15th Annual BSA Performance 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:54:00 +0000

Cherng Loong performed for the Brotherhood Sisterhood Assembly at Abraham Lincoln High School on Wednesday, March 28 and Thursday, March 29 and had a total of five shows! This is the third time Cherng Loong has been invited to perform for the BSA event and it's always a great time. Check out this video of the last show we did.

Russell and Berman were in the lion this year. Paul drummed his first performances while Melany(sp?), Pandora, Steven, Lynn(again... sp?), and Doug shared the cymbals. Bradford and Jonathan handled the gong.

Practices have been pretty mellow. We have a good amount of new people so hopefully, I can document their progress through this blog with some pictures and video.

Cherng Loong Blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:29:00 +0000

Want to know what Cherng Loong's been up to lately? We'll be updating this blog with what we've been up to at practices, performances and maybe even other times we may have spent together. Be sure to keep coming back to see what's new!