WING CHUN

A Brief Introduction
On the surface, Wing Chun is one of the simplest looking systems of Chinese Kung Fu. Three empty hand forms cover the complete essence of this art. Wing Chun also uses the long pole and the popular Southern Chinese butterfly knives. Training in this form of martial art consists of the three forms, sticking hands, the wooden dummy, sand bag training and finally free style sparring. However, behind this deceptively simple looking system of Kung Fu is a vast amount of knowledge - Wing Chun is both simple and elegant, but also very effective if used in an all out confrontation.

Economy of motion is at all times implemented through the centerline theory, and this is the key idea in Wing Chun. Wing Chun was designed by a woman, and in so doing one must realize from the outset that brute strength has no part in this style - Correct positioning, feeling, timing, and strategy are relied on instead, you basically use your opponents strength to your own advantage !!.

Wing chun uses punches, palms, pokes, chops, kicks, elbows, shoulder attacks, head butts, knees and hips - Short range non-telegraphed hits provide the arsenal of Wing Chun, it is characterized by short explosive hand attacks, low kicks and simultaneous attack and defense techniques.


GRANDMASTER YIP MAN
Grandmaster Yip Man spent his whole life as champion of the cause of Wing Chun Kung Fu. He was responsible for advancing Wing Chun Kung Fu to it's eminence today. Yip Man was the first Sifu ever to open a Wing Chun school accessible to the general public.
Yip Man began with his training under Chan Wah Soon, the first of three Wing Chun masters to instruct him. He started his training at a very young age. Chan accepted him as both his youngest and his final student. Yip trained under Chan until Chan's death in 1905, thereafter continuing his Wing Chun with Ng Chung So, one of Chan's top disciples. After two more years of study, Yip left Fatshan for Hong Kong and enrolled in St. Stephen's college at Stanley to pursue an academic education.

While enrolled at St. Stephen's, a classmate, hearing of Yip's training in kung fu, dared him to challenge an old kung fu practitioner living on a boat anchored in Hong Kong Bay. Yip accepted the dare and duly sought out and challenged the old man. The old man accepted his challenge and, despite Yip's growing reputation as an unmatched fighter, beat him handily. Only after his defeat did Yip discover that the old man was actually master Leung Bik, a direct descendant of the original Wing Chun lineage reaching back to Wing Chun herself. After the melee, Leung took Yip as his only student in the art and advanced his Wing Chun even further, both expanding his theoretical grounding in the art and his refining his technique.

Yip returned to Fashan at age 24 and found a position as the Captain of the Local Police Patrols of Namhoi. Yip worked as a law enforcement officer for several years to come, teaching Wing Chun in his spare time, but always, in accordance with Wing Chun tradition, restricting his lessons to a just a few carefully selected students.
Yip continued in this manner until China succumbed to the Communist revolution in 1949. Historical accounts seem to concur that Yip felt forced to flee mainland China and return to British-occupied Hong Kong as a consequence of the communist uprising. In any case, Yip at the age of 54 abandoned his family home and fortune to seek sanctuary off shore.
Reaching Hong Kong alone and destitute, facing certain poverty, Yip Man quickly fell back on his martial arts expertise to earn a living. He decided to break with the Wing Chun tradition of limiting instruction to a select few and opened a public Wing Chun school in the union hall building for restaurant workers.

However Yip Man established his teaching practice in Hong Kong, he managed to create with it the seeds of a martial arts revolution that, through the efforts of some of those he taught, would take root in countries spanning the world. Though Yip Man himself never taught outside the Chinese sphere of influence, his disciples carried his Wing Chun around the globe. Bruce Lee was one of them.
Perhaps no other name is spoken in Wing Chun circles with greater reverence than that of Grandmaster Yip Man. A teacher of the art until his death in 1972, Yip Man is often credited with moving Wing Chun from an obscure fighting system known only in China to a world-renowned style of kung fu studied by thousands.


THE ORIGIN OF WING CHUN by Professor Yip Man
The founder of the Wing Chun Kung Fu System, Miss Yim Wing Chun was a native of Canton [Kwangtung Province] in China. She was an intelligent and athletic young girl, upstanding and forthright. Her mother died soon after her betrothal to Leung Bok Chau, a salt merchant of Fukien. Her father, Yim Yee, was wrongfully accused of a crime and, rather than risk jail, they slipped away and finally settled down at the foot of Tai Leung Mountain near the border between Yunnan and Szechuan provinces. There they earned a living by running a shop that sold bean curd.

During the reign of Emperor K'anghsi of the Ching Dynasty (1662-1722) Kung Fu became very strong in the Siu Lam [Shaolin] Monastery of Mt. Sung, in Honan Province. This aroused the fear of the Manchu government (a non-Chinese people from Manchuria in the North who ruled China at that time), which sent troops to attack the Monastery. Although they were unsuccessful, a man named Chan Man Wai, a recently appointed civil servant seeking favor with the government, suggested a plan. He plotted with Siu Lam monk Ma Ning Yee and others who were persuaded to betray their companions by setting fire to the monastery while soldiers attacked it from the outside. Siu Lam was burned down, and the monks and disciples scattered. Buddhist Abbess Ng Mui, Abbot Chi Shin, Abbot Pak Mei, Master Fung To Tak and Master Miu Hin escaped and went their separate ways.

Ng Mui took refuge in the White Crane Temple on Mt. Tai Leung (also known as Mt. Chai Har). It was there she met Yim Yee and his daughter Wing Chun from whom she often bought bean curd on her way home from the market. At fifteen, with her hair bound up in the custom of those days to show she was of an age to marry, Wing Chun's beauty attracted the attention of a local bully. He tried to force Wing Chun to marry him, and his continuous threats became a source of worry to her and her father. Ng Mui learned of this and took pity on Wing Chun. She agreed to teach Wing Chun fighting techniques so she could protect herself. Wing Chun followed Ng Mui into the mountains, and began to learn Kung Fu. She trained night and day, until she had mastered all of the techniques that she had been taught.

Then she challenged the bully to a fight and beat him convincingly.