The Asian Lion Dance Team is a non-profit organization. It was created by Brandon Ho, his brothers and sisters and a few friends over 20 years ago for the purpose of spreading the Chinese Culture, Lion Dancing, and Martial Arts all while having fun to those who want to learn it. Previously the Asian Lion Dance Team is located at the Mililani Town Center, however now practices are run at Webling Elementary School every Saturday from 9 am to 11 am with extra practices at 8 am for students who would like to focus a little more on the Martial Arts. The team is focused on being more like a family rather than a club or even a team as to foster more of a community and a place students can feel comfortable and ask questions and make new friends. The team will often participate in community events such as carnivals and parades and host events for the students like Halloween Parties and Bon Dances to help out the community and give opportunities for each member to get to know each other better.
As an instructor for the team, I volunteer my free time every Saturday in an attempt to work with the other instructors in order to pass down our knowledge of Lion Dancing and Martial Arts to each student. Each instructor comes from different martial arts schools and sometimes even different styles outside of Chinese martial arts. So each of us have different styles to offer the students and different perspectives and teaching methods and because of this diversity we are able to take a “learn what you want” approach to what we teach. And as an instructor I’m able to learn and experiment with how to best teach our students which helps me to learn more about my strengths and weaknesses and forces me to learn how to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses in others and learn as much as I can so I am able to offer students a variety of knowledge not limited to Chinese culture, Martial Arts or Lion Dance. Personally I teach Hung Gar and Choy Lee Fut styles of kung fu from the school Kong’s Siu Lum Pai, however as most of the students are children ranging from grade school to high school I rather prioritize knowledge familiar to most martial arts, and skills pertaining to that knowledge and self defense so if they have to leave our school for another one for whatever reason or want to learn another style of martial arts, they’ll have knowledge and skill to help them ease into it right away. When teaching I will also try to promote good life habits in hopes it’ll affect the students in a positive light to help them grow up in a positive manner so they’ll be ready to adapt to anything that comes their way.