Which Lion Head

I'm thinking about which lion head I should bring to the Kung Fu playgroup tomorrow... there is one from China, and a really ugly looking one I made. On the one hand, the real Faht sahn one looks much cooler and attracts a lot of attention and is a lot of fun for the kids to play with. But one of the kids started punching it last time.. and the other kids followed, including my own son. I'm thinking I should give a little lecture..."When you are responsible enough to play with the real lion head, I will bring the real lion head." The lion head wasn't that damaged, I mean it was an old one to begin with.... but still, it's not a punching bag. If you play with it as a lion head, it's pretty difficult to break it as a child. The worst you can do is pull the beard off by stepping on it, or if you roll incorrectly (which they are not even big enough to attempt) you can break the ears on the ground. The way most adults or teenagers break it is by shaking it so hard that the frame collapses. That won't happen if a child is in the head though, or if an adult that thinks about the fact that it is paper mache either. It's mostly teenagers who do that because they need to exert full force on a technique because basically, in their minds, they are still weak and in order to show a strong lion head they give it everything they got. Of course most of the teenagers at Woo Ching White Crane have actually been doing lion dance so long, that in a way, they are actually experienced practitioners if not masters in their own right, and so they won't break the head that way either.
But if you're going to ride a bike into the head or kick it, then yeah, it will break. So that's why I think I'm going to bring the ugly head tomorrow. PLus maybe I can bring some sidewalk chalk and we can all color it in or something. Eventually I'm going to have to throw my head out because it's too ugly to keep. It's more of a prototype really. I have another smaller, also ugly unfinished head that I can put a layer of paper mache on. Maybe I can get the kids to do that too, and if they make their own head, they will probably be less likely to want to punch it. Plus it is smaller and more manageable. I made both of these things in some sort of mad frenzy, and now their like gollums living in our attic. To ugly to put on display. Eventually it would be nice to have a bunch of homemade heads. Obviously not just made by me, but made by the kids themselves..... more on that to come.