History of Wing Chun

History of Wing Chun is taken from the RMIT Kung Fu Club homepage.

During the reign of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) gung fu was practiced in the Siu Lum (Shao Lin) monastery in southern China primarily as a form of physical exercise. With the usurpation by the Manchurians and the establishment of the Ching Dynasty, however, many Ming patriots sought protection in the temple where their lives were not endangered and where some of the people were sympathetic to their cause. Meanwhile, they readied themselves for the day when they would attempt to overthrow the ruling government. It was during this period of time that gung fu reached its peak in China. Quite ironically, when almost everything was prepared for them to launch their strike, the Mings were betrayed by an insider. Consequently, soldiers attacked and burned the monastery. Only a handful of people escaped, and one was a Siu Lum nun named Ng Mui, who took refuge in the White Crane temple on Mt. Tai Leung.

Like the few surviving practitioners of the various styles of martial arts in the temple who had fled to different parts of China, Ng Mui, began to teach the arts to laymen. These disciples were obliged to conceal their activities because the Ching government had dispatched numerous martial arts experts to exterminate them. Ng Mui realized that she would have to save the Siu Lum fighting arts from the emperor's efforts to erase all traces of their existence. Thus, she devised a new, modified system of fighting based on her knowledge of what she had mastered in the temple. In essence, the style utilized techniques of efficiency of motion and direct line attacks and could be perfected in a short period of time.

It was during this time that she came to know Mr.Yim Yee who owned a store where Ng Mui bought bean curds, he had been wrongfully accused of a crime and nearly went to jail, so the family moved far away from their native Canton and finally settled at the foot of the Tai Leung Mountain at the Yunnan-Szechuan border. Mr. Yim Yee had a beautiful young daughter, Yim Wing Chun who was betrothed to Leung Bok Chau, a salt merchant of Fukien, however Yim Wing Chun's beauty had attracted the unwanted attention of a local warlord who made known his intentions to marry her forcibly if necessary. Ng Mui learnt of the situation and took pity on Yim Wing Chun and agreed to teach her this newly developed fighting system so that she could protect herself. Yim Wing Chun went to the mountains with Ng Mui and trained night and day to master the techniques and then she returned to her village and challenged the warlord to open hand combat, which she won, and was then free to marry her intended husband. Ng Mui then left to travel the country, but before she left she told Yim Wing Chun to honour the Kung Fu traditions and develop her Kung Fu after her marriage. Once married Wing Chun taught her Kung Fu skills to her husband, Leung Bok Chau, who named the system " Wing Chun " in reverence to his wife.

Leung Bok Chau taught Wing Chun to Leung Lan Kwai, a herbalist who took a student Wong Wah Bo. He was a member of an opera troupe on board a junk, known to the Chinese as the 'red junk'. Also on board was Leung Yee Tei who had been taught the six-and-a-half point long pole techniques by Abbot Chi Shin. Wong Wah Bo and Leung Yee Tei became close friends and they shared their knowledge of the martial arts, together they correlated and refined their techniques and so the six-and-a-half long pole techniques became incorporated in Wing Chun. Leung Yee Tei passed his martial art skills on to Leung Jan, a well-known herbal doctor in Fat Shan in the Kwangtung province.

Leung Jan grasped the innermost secrets of Wing Chun and attained the highest level of proficiency and skill. Many Kung Fu masters came to challenge him, but all were defeated and soon Leung Jan became very famous. Leung Jan had two sons, Leung Bik and Leung Cheun, both of whom were taught Wing Chun daily, he also took one other student Chan Wah Shan.

Chan Wah Shan taught only sixteen disciples over thirty six years, including Ng Siu Lo, Ng Chung So, Chan Yu Min and Lui Yu Jai. The last of Chan Wah Shan's students was Yip Man, who began training Wing Chun in 1901 at the age of seven. Before Chan Wah Shan died he asked his senior student Ng Chung So to continue teaching the young Yip Man.

Yip Man continued his training until he was fifteen when he went to Hong Kong to pursue his academic studies at the St.Stephen's College. It was whilst he was there that he met and subsequently began training with Leung Bik, the eldest son of Grandmaster Leung Jan. During the war Yip Man served in the army and afterwards returned to China to take up the post of "Captain of Local Police Patrols of Namhoi", however in 1949 when mainland China fell into the hands of the communists Yip Man fled his home to settle in Hong Kong. In May 1950 Yip Man began teaching Wing Chun full time at the Restaurant Workers Union Hall, and from that small initial class Grandmaster Yip Man is reputed to have taught many thousands of students over twenty three years of teaching, many of those students including his own two sons are now teaching and spreading Wing Chun all over the world.

Grandmaster Yip passed away on 2nd December 1972 aged 79. Before he died he made an eight millimetre film of himself performing the forms and the Wooden Dummy techniques to preserve Wing Chun in it's purest form which he left in trust to his two sons Ip Chun and Ip Ching. Following his death Wing Chun continued to be taught in Hong Kong and later outside Hong Kong by the Grandmaster's students including Leung Sheung, Lok Yiu, Tsui Sheung Tin, Wong Shun Leung,Cheung Cheuk Hing, Kan Wah Chit, Hawkins Cheung, Koo Sang, Siu Yuk Men etc... and of course, his sons Ip Chun and Yip Ching.