The origin of Wing Chun Kung Fu can be found in the turbulent, repressive Ching dynasty of over 350 years ago. It was a time when 95% of the Chinese race, the Hons, were ruled by the 15% minority, the Manchus. The Manchus placed a great amount of unjust law on the Hons. For instance, all the female Hon infants were made to bind their feet so that when they grew up they would be depend upon their family or husband. The work opportunity of the Hons was also limited. They were restricted to hold high  office in Government higher than a certain level. Heavy tax burdens were placed on the Hons so that the Manchus could have economic control of the Hon people. Kung Fu training was also banned for the Hons, however the Manchu Government was adopting the Hon culture. They respected the ShilLim Temple as a Buddhist sanctuary.

 

To develop a new form against old bodhidharma kungfu forms, one which would have shorter training time, five of China’s grandmasters met to discuss the merits of each of the various forms of Kung Fu. By choosing the most efficient techniques from each style, they developed training programs that would develop an efficient martial artist in 3 to 5 years, one third the original time. However before this new form could be put into practice, the Shil Lim Temple was raided and burned by the Manchus.

 

Ng Mui, a nun, was the only survivor of the original five grandmasters. She passed her knowledge onto a young orphan girl whom she named Wing Chun( Beautiful Spring Time)  represented “hope for the future”. In turn Wing Chun passed her knowledge on to her husband. Through the years the style became known as Wing Chun. Its techniques and teachings were passed onto a few, always carefully selected students.

 

Yip Man was born in October 1893 in the town of Fatshan in Namhoi County, Kwangtung Province, in Southern China. He was the son of a wealthy merchant named Yip Oi Doh and his wife, Madame Ng. As is still the custom, businesses and corporations in China were often built around family groupings of fathers, sons, sons-in-law, cousins, uncles, granduncles and grandfathers. The Yip family was no exception. Collectively, they owned a large farm and a merchandise exporting business which played an important role in bringing domestic renown to fabrics made from the Fatshan silkworm.The Yip family lived in some 20 old-style Chinese estates which lined both sides of Happiness and Scholarship Avenue. On one side of the avenue, in the centre of the estates, stood the Yip ancestral temple. Inside the temple, the Yip family permitted Wing Chun master Chan Wah Shun to live and teach a small group of disciples, since Chan’s local reputation as a fighter discouraged thieves and highwaymen from attacking the family business.

 

As a boy Ip Man was tutored in the traditional Chinese classics. He was forced to memorize ancient poems and Confucian philosophy, to learn to paint as well as to write his own poems. But whenever he could escape from the surveillant eyes of his tutors, he would wander over to the ancestral temple and watch Chan Wah Shun drill his disciples in the ways of Wing Chun. Soon the boy’s visits became more regular until, finally, when Ip was about nine years old he approached Chan and asked to be accepted as a student.Chan did not take the boy’s request seriously. “Chan Wah Shun was about 60 years old at the time, explains William Cheung, one of Yip Man’s oldest and most devoted disciples and most of his students were already over 30.” Besides, many wealthy families of the day did not want their sons’ attention drawn away from academic pursuits by the practice of kung fu, especially after the Boxer Rebellion fiasco in 1900. So to spare the boy’s feelings, Chan diplomatically told Yip that he would admit him as a student as soon as he could pay the tuition price of three taels of silver. Chan did not think that a nine year old boy, from a wealthy family or not, could produce that much money anytime in the near future. “But when my master Yip Man returned the next day,” says Cheung, relating the story as told to him by the Grandmaster, “he went up to Chan Wah Shun with 300 pieces of silver. That was a lot of money! You could have bought a good-sized house in those days for 300 pieces of silver

 

“But Chan Wah Shun did not simply accept the money. Instead he thought that this little kid had just pinched 300 pieces of silver to give to him. So he took Yip Man to his parents to try to find out where the silver had come from.” Then they realized that the 300 pieces of silver were his whole life savings. So once they saw that this boy had such a strong desire to learn Wing Chun that he’d given away all his money, his parents agreed to let him study. And Chan Wah Shun accepted him.”Yip Man became the last of Chan’s 16 disciples. He also became the youngest in a direct line of Wing Chun practitioners dating back nearly 200 years to the art’s fabled beginnings at the original Shaolin Temple in Honan Province. At that time in Chinese history, the Shaolin Temple was a hotbed of revolutionary activity.When all weapons were outlawed by the Manchus, the Hons began training a revolutionary army in the secret art of Kung Fu. The ShilLim Temple became the secret sanctuary for preparatory trainings of a classic style which took 15 to 20 years to master. In 1950 Yip Man started to teach Wing Chun in Hong Kong. One of his first students was the new Grandmaster, William Cheung, Head of the World Wing Chun Kung Fu Association.