The hand gestures for the symbols are rock (fist), paper (hand flat), scissors (index and middle finger straight, others curled in), Spock (all fingers straight, with middle and index grouped together, and little and ring grouped together), and lizard (fingers flat, perpendicular to palm. Thumb comes up to meet them) (thanks to flanagan).
The cycle in this game is isomorphic to the elemental cycle of Taoist Alchemy (see that link for the details of the cycle). A nifty twist is that this provides two ways to win and to lose. One can be destroyed, or give aid to your opponent (losses); or destroy your opponent, or be given aid by them (wins). One could translate this into degrees of victory in a score tally or something...
It shouldn't be too hard to translate the Taoist elements into hand gestures:
- Fire: hand palm up, fingers curled to be vertical
- Earth: same as conventional rock
- Metal: palm sideways. Fingers other than the thumb in the vertical plane perpendicular to your palm (metal in sheets, bent: man-made)
- Water: palm flat down, fingers spread out in the same plane.
- Wood: fingers gathered into as tight a space as possible, around the same line as your arm (emulating a log)
Also, I'm more worried about the "lizard poisons Spock" link than "scissors decapitate lizard". I know, I'm a speciesist bastard. Also, how does one go about disproving a person?