Snake style and trick or treating

Yesterday we went trick or treating at the Franklin Park Zoo. It was great. They had all these start up companies giving away free samples of this healthy-ish granola bar or these new type of peanut butter cup. Actually I don't think the kids need more candy than that, but I like the way Halloween has become a several week type of Holiday for them. I mean if you have to buy a costume, you might as well have more fun wearing it multiple times. Plus the little tables of trick or treating was good practice for Thursday.
I explained to Noah that it was similar to lion dance. And then it occurred to me that most kids, would have to have lion dance explained to them, and that it could be called similar to Trick or Treating. Not the other way around. And I have to say I ma proud that we are different in that respect.

One of the many animals we got to look at was a rhinoceros horned snake. It's not the first time we've seen it. But looking at it this time I got to notice it's head movement a little more. It was looking at us and the head was making small movements this way and that. I'm not sure how this particular snake fights or the real reason for it's head movement. But of course, being the Kung Fu Dad, I started thinking about snake movements in Kung Fu. The movement can be taken or learned from an animal without serving the same exact purpose for the human. After all, the snakes "head" in a Kung fu move, is a human hand. The snake hand can strike, block, and also wrap round in some grappling moves. The main thing I saw from the head movement was blocking or passing, or absorbing strikes. Such small little movements would be enough to counter a flurry of fists, and could sneak by and strike at the eyes as well. While I was doing this as part of my practice today, I thought about how little energy was being used, and yet how much was being achieved. In terms of look, these movements look like a crazy or perhaps high person pretending to do Kung Fu. And if the small movements are not done with the power of the whole body behind it, or without knowledge of what one is doing, then the movement are useless and your opponent can just ignore your silly snake and punch you in the face. That's not to say that if you are a master you will never get hit. But if done right with some power, you can block a storm of hits and throw strikes doing a very simple looking move, and it comes from that little head movement of the snake that I saw the Rhino horned snake doing at the Zoo.