Taking everything into account, the stories of Wing Chun Kuen really begin somewhere around the time when the ruling Ming Dynasty was overpowered by the Manchurians and the Qing Dynasty was established in 1644 A.D. In the course of securing their grip on the power over the people of China, they cleared out all the rebel strongholds during which also the Northern Shaolin Temple with its warrior monks was a prime target. A military expedition was dispatched to eliminate the possible threat from the Shaolin monks. The Qing soldiers laid Shaolin under siege and eventually burned it to the ground. Most of the monks were killed or burned to death. It is said there were only few survivors who managed to escape from the calamity. Among them most notably was the Master Abbot Gee Shin and the Buddhist Mistress Ng Mui.
The Manchu, excellent warriors in their own right, kept the Ming dissidents under control, imposing on all the badge of subservience, the "queue" which symbolized for them a horse's tail. Animosity and discontentment towards the Manchurians became more and more evident. Many boxers joined various secret societies hoping to return the Ming to power. Formation of underground movements were the precursory events that brought Wing Chun Kuen and many other Chinese martial art styles into existence. Thousands from the north retreated southward to both southern China and Taiwan. Although unsuccessful in their aims, the boxers seeking a return of the Ming did achieve one result. They spread the Shaolin boxing doctrines to all corners of China. Many of the surviving monks who escaped the fire at the Northern Shaolin Temple eventually sought refuge in the Southern Shaolin Temple which was not known for martial arts at that time. The Temple was most likely situated in the province Fujian, near the town of Guanzhou as recent excavations seem to indicate. The refugees soon organized themselves with the objective of overthrowing the Qing Dynasty.
The Manchurians became concerned about the Southern Shaolin Temple's rebellious activities as well as their advanced fighting abilities and continued development of their martial arts system. Under the decision to eliminate the threat of these rebels and their rebel leaders, the Manchurians sought to exterminate the Shaolin monks to prevent them from spreading their martial arts skills and rebellious activities. Eventually the Southern Shaolin Temple was burned and destroyed as well.
That's where we enter the realm of the stories about the origins of the particular martial art style of Wing Chun Kuen.
tells us that Ng Mui already started to work on a new martial art system before the destruction of the Temple. The need to create a new system sprang forth from the fact that whenever she compared martial skills with other Shaolin monks, she would eventually have to admit defeat because being a woman she could not compete with the equally well-trained and skillful monks on a pure physical level. Then one day she witnessed a fight between a fox and a crane. The fox tried to attack by running around the crane in circles looking for an opening while the crane simply turned and faced its adversary. Whenever the fox tried to strike the crane with its paw, the crane would deflect the strike with its wings and counter-attack with its peak. In some stories about this incident there is a snake instead of a fox and Ng Mui is said to have been inspired by the coiling power and the lightning fast and dart-like attacks of the snake. Whichever animal it was that she observed in the fight, the point is that her observations gave her ideas for her new system. Another reason for wanting to create a new style was the need for a high level martial art which would allow her and her Kung Fu brothers to overcome the treacherous defectors from Shaolin who turned to the Qing Government. The fact that some of these Shaolin defectors had acquired a high degree of martial skill and knowledge of techniques and theories clearly worried Ng Mui and her fellow priests who escaped the destruction of the Shaolin Temple. This was incentive enough for her to come up with a superior martial tool which would enable her and the other survivors to overcome the existing Shaolin martial techniques in a confrontation with Shaolin traitors themselves or the highly trained Qing soldiers.
After escaping the fire at the Shaolin Temple, Ng Mui sought refuge at the White Crane Temple on the slopes of Tai Leung Mountain at the border of the Szechuan and Yunnan provinces. There she kept a low profile by deducating herself to Buddhism as well as her newly created martial art system. She used to go to the local village to do some shopping for her daily necessities. This way she got acquainted with the owner of a bean-curd stall by the name of Yim Yee. Then one day she made her stop at this food stall when she noticed at once that there was something strange on the looks of Yim Yee and his young daughter Yim Wing Chun. Upon inquiring, they told Ng Mui their story:
Yim Yee was living in Guangdong province where he got involved in a court case in which he was wrongly accused. Seeing no other option than to leave the town in order to escape serious repercussions, he left together with his daughter and finally settled down at the foot of Tai Leung Mountain. As time went on, Yim Wing Chun grew into a quick-witted and pretty young lady. There was a local bully by the surname of Wong who was notorious for his bad behaviour. However, due to the fact that he was skilled in martial arts and that the power of the law was too weak at this remote frontier area, the locals could do nothing about him. Being attracted by Yim Wing Chun's beauty, he sent a go-between to Yim Yee to ask for Yim Wing Chun's hand in marriage, with a threat that if she refused, he would force her to marry him on a fixed date. Yim Wing Chun's father was now old and she herself weak. So they were much troubled what to do about this situation. When listening to their story, Ng Mui's deep imbedded sense for justice made her want to help them. So she decided to help Yim Wing Chun, not by beating the local bully herself for the simple reason that she did not want to disclose her identity and put her security into jeopardy nor the people granting her refuge. Instead she thought of a way to solve the girl's predicament by bringing Yim Wing Chun to her own convent and to teach her the new system's martial techniques. The art of Kung Fu was not a strange thing to Yim Wing Chun since her father was a pugilist himself. Under the personal guidance of this highly skillful mistress and her personal determination and hard work she put into the practice, she gained proficiency in Ng Mui's Kung Fu system within three years. One day, Ng Mui told Yim Wing Chun that she had reached a high enough level of skill in her Kung Fu system so as to be able to defeat the local bully. As soon as Yim Wing Chun returned back to the village, the local bully started to bother her again about the marriage issue. This time Yim Wing Chun challenged him to a fight instead of running away. The bully, though surprised, welcomed this challenge which resulted in a short but sweet encounter in which the bully was soundly defeated.
Soon thereafter, Ng Mui decided to travel about the country; but before setting out on her journey, she reminded Yim Wing Chun to keep the commandments of the Shaolin system and to be careful in finding a suitable successor to avoid passing the art to unworthy persons.
Yim Wing Chun eventually married Leung Bok Chau who was already her fiancé from the time when they were still living in Guangdong province. Leung Bok Chau was a pugilist himself and liked to practice martial arts in his leisure time. After they got married, Yim Wing Chun talked much about the theories and principles of the new system she had learned from Ng Mui. At the beginning her husband paid little attention to what Yim Wing Chun told him, thinking that he himself knew Kung Fu and that Yim Wing Chun was to him just a feeble woman. But when Yim Wing Chun suggested to have some martial practice together, she managed to defeat him time after time. It was only then that Leung Bok Chau realised that his wife was not a weak young woman but a skillful mistress of Kung Fu. From then on he admired his wife's techniques and would very often practice the new system's techniques with her. He also started to call his wife's Kung Fu system 'Wing Chun Kuen' in honour of his wife. Later Leung Bok Chau passed the techniques of Wing Chun Kuen to Leung Lan Kwai, a herbal physician of osteology, who never mentioned to anyone of his knowledge of Kung Fu skills. That was why even his relatives were ignorant of his skills in Wing Chun Kuen. This secret was only revealed when once he assisted in driving back a group of fighters who attacked a single unaided pugilist. Anyway, he always refrainded from boasting of his skills, bearing in mind the commandment of 'Not to make public the skills of Wing Chun Kuen'.
It would be necessary to rewrite the history of Wing Chun Kuen if Leung Lan Kwai had never made known his skills to anyone. But by chance he did pass his skills to Wong Wah Bo, an actor of the Red Boat Opera Troupe. Leung Lan Kwai never intended to take a disciple. It was only Wong Wah Bo's upright character and sense of justice that appealed to Leung most deeply and so he was allowed to learn Kung Fu from Leung Lan Kwai.
As we will see, from here on the two major versions of the development of Wing Chun Kuen merge with each other.
tells that prior to the destruction of the Shaolin Temples, a comprehensive and high level martial art system was developed which was formulated through multiple generations of Shaolin knowledge and experience. The ultimate aim was to create a new system which could be used to defeat the classical styles. In pursuit of that goal, the elders shared their most advanced principles and strategies and work began on the new style. This martial art system later became known as Wing Chun Kuen, named after the Wing Chun Tong (Everlasting Spring Hall) in the Shaolin Temple. In order to hide the new revolutionary fighting art's identity and origin, a fictional person named Yim Wing Chun and story were created to cover up the original nature of the art.
After the destruction of the Shaolin Temple and its Wing Chun Tong, the character of ‘Wing’ used for this new art was changed from ‘Wing’ meaning ‘always, perpetual or everlasting’ to ‘Wing’ meaning ‘to recite, sing, praise or chant’. Zen Buddhism is based on oral transmission to pass on its teachings. The character ‘Chun’ meaning ‘spring, a time of new growth’, stayed the same.
The Han nation was seen by many as the spring of Chinese culture. By changing the characters, the Ming loyalists were reminded to pass on the tradition and secrets orally while working to rebuild the Ming Government. The Chinese word ‘Yim’ means to ‘prohibit’ or ‘secret’. By adding Yim to Wing Chun, the meaning was ‘to be discrete, secret, and to pass on the revolutionary art orally’. To ensure that the art was not abused or to fall into the wrong hands, it was never documented. Due to the very nature of secrecy the story of Yim Wing Chun came to be accepted by many as truth in regards to the creation of Wing Chun Kuen.
One survivor of the Southern Shaolin Temple was a monk by the name of Cheung Ng. He was a disciple of the 22nd Shaolin Grandmaster and inherited the art of Wing Chun Kuen in its entirety. In order to keep his identity and Shaolin background from the Manchurian Government, Cheung Ng fled to the town of Futshan in the Guangdong province of Southern China and founded the Red Boat Opera Troupe in Futshan. Known for its discipline and rules of conduct, the Red Boat Opera Troupe was an organization of talented stage performers who traveled up and down the rivers of Southern China in red boats. During his travels with the Red Boat Opera Troupe, Cheung Ng soon became known as ‘Taan Sao Ng’ from the Opera Troupe because of his skillful usage of the dispersing hand technique while he demonstrated his martial arts mastery to subdue opponents during challenges.
Members of the Red Boat Opera Troupe had the perfect disguise. As opera troupe performers, members were able to travel form place to place unquestioned by the authorities. By day, they would perform operas and by night, they would gather with local underground organizations to coordinate antigovernment activities. These were very dangerous and turbulent times for anyone connected to Shaolin or any underground society. If discovered as a member of any underground movement, the Manchurians would immediately execute that person, so keeping anonymity was very important. Only select members of the Red Boat Opera Troupe were taught by Taan Sao Ng which were the first generation disciples of Wing Chun from the opera. Of these select few students Wong Wah Bo and Leung Yee Tei were significant in the contribution to Wing Chun Kuen by adding the long pole techniques and other additional exercises to improve the Wing Chun pugilist's skills.
It is at this time that the art of Wing Chun continued to evolve, change and adapt for several reasons. First of all, not all the disciples of Cheung Ng were members of the secret society. Due to the length of time spent with Cheung Ng and his need to keep the style hidden, not all his disciples shared the same experiences. Second, the opera was a melting pot of both Northern and Southern Shaolin providing the performers access to a wide range of ideas, techniques and training methods. This led some disciples to change and adapt according to their environment on the Red Boats and the influence of different martial art systems all present during that time.
Eventually the Manchurians suspected the Red Boat Opera Junks for supporting anti-Manchurian activities. They began hunting for anti-Manchurian collaborators. For Taan Sao Ng, it became very clear that it was time to change his identity once more and retreat into the security of the secret society underground.
Wong Wah Bo and Leung Yee Tei continued performing and were openly known for their Wing Chun skills.
From this point on the history of Wing Chun Kuen becomes less and less shrouded in the mist of tales and legends of days long gone by.
At an advanced age Leung Yee Tei passed the art of Wing Chun Kuen to Leung Jan, a famous physician of Futshan. Leung Jan, the owner of a herbal pharmacy there, was brought up in a good family, being well-educated, gentle and polite. Besides taking care of business at his pharmacy he also offered medical services to the residents of Futshan. He was skilled in his profession and was trusted by the local patients. In his spare time he enjoyed literature and surprisingly enough, the art of Kung Fu. When it came to choosing his mentor in martial arts he was very particular since he did not like the ‘long bridges’ and ‘wide stances’ that looked fierce and powerful. Systems that emphasised physical power and brutal strength were not to his liking. Nor were those which consisted of good-looking, graceful but impractical movements. What he wanted to learn was a system that insisted on practical skill and wise application under the cover of its simple appearance.
Eventually he met Leung Yee Tei and learnt from him the Wing Chun system. Soon Leung Jan's skills earned him fame and brought him many challenge fights. Ambitious people forced him to defend his reputation as a highly skilled martial artist, but all were quickly defeated.
Leung Jan did not regard teaching Wing Chun Kung Fu as his profession, but his own interest in martial arts forced him to adopt a few disciples, including his two sons, Leung Tsun and Leung Bik. He taught each of them Wing Chun every day after the close of the pharmacy. Among his disciples there was one by the nickname of ‘Wah the Wooden Man’. He earned this nickname because he had strong arms which were hard and tough as wood and he would often break the thick arms of the wooden dummy during practice. Every evening he used to practice Wing Chun techniques with his co-students under the guidance of their teacher Leung Jan.
Next to the pharmacy of Leung Jan there was a money-changer's stall which was owned by a person called Chan Wah Shun. People used to call him ‘Wah the Money Changer’. He had a yearning to learn Kung Fu and was determined to follow a famous Kung Fu master. As his stall was neighbouring the pharmacy of Leung Jan, whose character and martial skills he had admired for a long time, he was eager to request Leung Jan to adopt him as his disciple. But owing to the fact that Leung Jan was a respected gentleman of a famous family and at the same time a wealthy shop owner, Wah the Money Changer felt not at ease in making such a request. Besides, he did not know whether Leung Jan would accept him or not. Anyway, his determination to learn Kung Fu and his respect for Leung Jan gave him much hope. Every day, when work was finished and the streets were quiet from the day's bustle, Wah the Money Changer used to tiptoe to the door of Leung Jan's pharmacy to peep through the crack of the door to watch Leung Jan teaching Kung Fu and he was deeply impressed by Leung Jan's Wing Chun skills. Through time his eagerness to learn Kung Fu from this master grew stronger and stronger. So one day he spoke to Leung Jan and asked him to be accepted as his student. As he expected, Leung Jan refused his request in a polite manner. It was of course a disappointment, but Wah the Money Changer wasn't one to give up easily, so he thought of another way to fulfill his wish. One day, when Leung Jan was out, Wah the Wooden Man brought a strong man to Leung Jan's pharmacy when only the elder son Leung Tsun of Leung Jan was there. It turned out that the stranger was in fact Wah the Money Changer, who had for a long time been learning Wing Chun by peeping through the crack of the door. Since Leung Tsun felt confident in his martial skills, he suggested to Wah the Money Changer to have a practice session to compare each other's skills and test how much Wah the Money Changer had learnt through his illicit lessons.
Leung Tsun had never worked as hard as his co-student Wah the Wooden Man. At the first contact of their hands, Wah the Money Changer at once felt that his opponent was not as powerful and skillful as he had expected. Wah the Money Changer launched a palmstrike at Leung Tsun so heavily that Leung Tsun fell helplessly on the much valued armchair of his father Leung Jan, and broke one of its legs. This surprised all of them in the first place, and then worried them in case they should be punished by Leung Jan for breaking his valuable armchair. So they quickly attempted to conceal the damage to the chair.
That night, when Leung Jan returned to his pharmacy, he as usual tried to rest himself on his beloved armchair after dinner. To his surprise the armchair collapsed to one side and he nearly fell to the ground. On inquiring into the matter Leung Jan was informed by his elder son of the full details of the visit of the stranger. Leung Jan, on hearing this report, summoned his disciple Wah the Wooden Man and made further inquiries, particularly about how his friend the Money Changer had acquired Kung Fu skills. He was informed that his disciple Wah the Wooden Man had from time to time been teaching Kung Fu to his friend Wah the Money Changer and that Wah the Money Changer had surreptitiously been peeping through the crack of the door to watch Leung Jan teach Wing Chun. Leung Jan then immediately asked Wah the Wooden Man to send for his friend. It was then that Wah the Wooden Man remembered that it was wrong according to Kung Fu protocol to teach others without the permission of one's instructor.
Thinking that his master Leung Jan might punish him for this, Wah the Wooden Man told his friend to run away to his native town, instead of asking him to come and see Leung Jan. When Wah the Wooden Man did not return with his friend, Leung Jan asked for the reason. On hearing it, he realised that his disciple had misunderstood him. He then told his disciple that he wanted to see how much knowledge his friend had acquired in Wing Chun and how talented he was. Wah the Wooden Man, overjoyed on hearing this, rushed to his friend and brought him back at once. After watching this young man, Leung Jan immediately accepted him as his disciple.
Though Wah the Money Changer was not educated, he made rapid progress in learning Wing Chun from his master Leung Jan simply by his perseverence and determination. He was a man of the market and thus was in close contact with people of the lower class, who were fond of fighting. This gave him more opportunities to improve his Kung Fu skills. Before long his fame spread and reached the ears of the officials of the Manchu Government.
It was the time when the Manchus had been ruling the Chinese for over two hundred years and were being gradually assimilated into the Chinese culture. The barrier between the Manchu race and the Han race was breaking down, as shown in diminishing national feeling against the Manchus and more and more people of the Han race were taking up official positions in the Qing Government. On the other hand, the Qing Government of the Manchu race, after ruling the Chinese for over two centuries and having enjoyed much of the Chinese way of life, was becoming corrupt. As a result, invasion from foreign countries increased year after year. Concessions of land, war indemnities in silver to foreign countries, control of industries and commerce by foreign powers, all led to the weakening of the country. One way to restore the strength of the country was to re-inforce its military. That was to strengthen the ‘Soldiers of the Eight Banners’ as the Manchu forces were called. It was for this reason that Wah the Money Changer was invited to take up the post of Chief Instructor to the Soldiers of the Eight Banners, a post much admired and respected.
However, Wah the Money Changer, being the successor of Leung Jan, did not regard it as an honour to be the Chief Instructor of the Manchu soldiers. He, like his master, regarded teaching Kung Fu as a pastime, not as his profession and therefore declined the offer.
Wah the Money Changer did not have a fixed site for his training hall. He rented one for this purpose. During his many years of teaching Kung Fu, he had accepted only a small number of disciples. Among the students of Wah the Money Changer, the most remarkable was Ng Chung So, his eldest disciple who had learnt from him all his skills and who later became his helpful assistant until his death.
In his later years, when he was over seventy years old, Wah rented the ancestral temple of the Yip clansmen as a site for teaching Wing Chun Kung Fu. It was there that he adopted his last disciple, who was at that time only eleven years of age and whose name was Yip Man.
After the death of Wah the Money Changer, there came a period of decline of the development of Wing Chun Kuen due to the upheavels in China at that time. None of Wah's students, who were to busy minding their own affairs, had the least intention of promoting the Wing Chun system or of passing it to the next generation.
It was with Wah's acceptance of young Yip Man, his 16th and last student, that the story of Wing Chun Kuen enters a new stage and era.
