Fran Josph and Jerry Poteet
Revised by Ben Eller

he history of most kung-fu styles is often obscured by many generations of "hand-me-down story telling". In each narration of a tale, some detail is forgotten or conflised and as each subsequent generation becomes more numerous, we find multiple versions of the original tales.

Here, in the West, there are several versions of the origins and subsequent history of Wing Chun. This is somewhat surprising since it is a relatively young art. The transportation of stories from East to West suffers from possible inaccurate lingual translation and also from only partial learning by the first practitioners that visited from or migrated to the West. For whatever reason, the East-West interface has most likely been a compounding influence on the confusion in the history of Wing Chun as taught in the West.

With the arrival of more "directly connected" narrators, namely those with a longer standing in the art, the histories seem to becoming a little clearer. Hopefully, with the advent of the information age, the deterioration of historical accounts will be stemmed.

Introduction

Today, Wing Chun Kung Fu has evolved into one of the most popular martial art styles. Since the late Bruce Lee introduced Wing Chun to the West through his films, the blindingly fast hands of Wing Chun have become highly esteemed throughout the world. Due to the isolation of China from Western ideology, there has been limited information about the mystical origin and development of Wing Chun.

In China, Wing Chun is famous for its use of "three hands" (two hands and one leg) in combat. It is nicknamed "poison scissors since the hands are held in the crossed shape of scissors and are used to attack pressure points, shut off clii channels and to strike many other targets considered illegal in other arts. Because of its deadly efficiency and for many political reasons, Wing Chun was outlawed in China and thus was never intended for public demonstrations. This is one reason it lacks the flowery techniques (and even a salutation) with which to impress and entertain the public, but the recent economical reform in China encouraged many to commercialize Wing Chun similar to the West. The strongest and most popular is the Fung Siu Ching -> Yuen Kay Shan -> Cen Neng branch of Wing Chun. Although today Grandmaster Cen Neng only trains a small number of students to advanced levels due to his strict manner and regulations of Chinese law introduced before the 1980's. However, some of his students have accepted more than 100,000 active followers at Guangzhou City alone.

History

According to many Chinese martial art books and stories written between the 1930's and 1980'S, there was a famous martial artist and Nun in the Sichuan Province named Ng Mui. She lived during the early Ching Dynasty in China at White Crane Cave. She was also a classmate of the famous "White Eyebrow", who was responsible for killing 99% of the Shaolin Masters. Ng Mui wanted to preserve the art and culture of the Ming Dynasty. This was the era before handguns when martial art skills were a matter of life and death. Ng Mui, who was a genius of the martial arts, devoted her life to perfecting her skills. She created many styles of Kung Fu, including the "White Crane." Her style of the White Crane was considered the deadliest skill at that time. It was a favorite style of the Ching Manchu Generals who used it to kill other martial artists. Regretful that her art had fallen into the wrong hands, Ng Mui developed a new concept of combat, one that would be superior to White Crane in speed, power and subtlety of control. Ng Mui was not just a teacher, she is also famous for killing Fong Sei Yuk, an undefeated Shaolin Kickboxer half her age who was said to possess "iron body conditioning."

Ng Mui had a Monk student named Miu Shan. He organized Ng Mui's art more systematically than taught his sworn brother, Yim Yee. Yim then passed all his knowledge to his bright and lovely daughter, Yim Wing Chun. Yim Wing Chun began her studies at age five and easily defeated her husband Leung Bok Lo even though he was an accomplished Shaolin martial artist prior to meeting his wife.

After Yim Wing Chun passed away, her husband wanted her name to live forever, so he named the art she had taught him "Wing Chun", and so, this new fighting concept had a name that has never been lost. Because of political reasons, Leung Bok Lo was forced to go into hiding from the Ching government, therefore he traveled from city to city as a refligee on the "Red Boat" used by stage actors touring China. Leong taught Wing Chun to three of these actors named Ko Lo Cheong, Leong Sam Die and Wong Wah Bo. One of the three, "clown-face" Leong Sam Die, skilled as an acrobat, eventually passed on his skills to one of the most famous Wing Chun experts in China, Fung Siu Ching. Fung became a marshall/military officer during the Ching dynasty, utilizing his martial arts on a dally basis. Fung's version of Wing Chun is combat oriented, and relies on finesse rather than brute force. Fong incorporated much Tai Chi Chin-Na into his Wing Chun as well. Examples include: lap-sau, grappling techniques for subduing without killing, Bow-Gee (Breaking Finger), anti-grappling throws, applying more wrist action, seven wrist attack and (one inch punch). Fung Siu Ching did not begin to teach Wing Chun until his retirement from the government at the age of 7l (article in 8th edition of Kung Fu Magazine by Yuen Kay Shan's Grandson).

One of Fong's best students was a wealthy merchant's son by the name of Yuen Kay San. Yuen's father had already invested thousands of pounds of gold and silver in his Wing Chun training by the famous expert Kok Bo Chuen, so that Yuen already possessed a solid Wing Chun foundation having completed all weapon training and forms before training with Fung. Yet Yuen had to start all over from the basics. Yuen's talent, foundation and hard training allowed him in a relatively short time to improve drastically in sticky hand skills and other Wing Chun abilities.

According to a book published in the 1920's by Ou Sui Gee (103 years-old today) "Yuen Kay Shan skiliflilly defeated Wong Phat Loung with the 6 1/2 point staff" This book also mentioned that Yuen was considered a co-founder of the 6 1/2 point staff with Wong Wah Bo. Ou Sui Gee has only written a few books on Master Yuen Kay Shan's famous public death dual with several famous Masters and Monks from other styles, and Ou Sui Gee intended to write a fascinating book on the life of Yuen. However, Yuen Kay Shan, even though he was a part-time lawyer, wanted to have a low profile public image so he declined to have a biography written about him. Despite all this, according to Ou Sui Gee's book, several branches of Wing Chun evolved including the following: Leung Jan, Fung Siu Ching (incorporated wrist action and grappling, anti-grappling), Lee-Ying who studied Hung Gar Kung Fu before Wing Chun combined both of these skills together and named it "Pao Fa Lin Wing Chun" which contained more than 10 forms. Another famous martial artist named Ou Hon also studied Hung Gar Kung Pu before becoming a practirioner of Wing Chun.

Other styles include: Koo Lo Wing Chun which consisted mainly of Si-Lin-Tao form and loose techniques. Another style of Wing Chun sounded the same as Wing Chun phonetically but was different in Chinese character. This style is also known as Fong's Wing Chun & White Crane Wing Chun, and it developed from the Fujian province of the Wing Chun village. This style is also amazingly similar to other Wing Chun system, but perhaps closer to the Northern style Wing Chun except the Northern style incorporated more high kicking techniques. The techniques of this style are similar to the earlier version of Canton Wing Chun. It is also developed from the White Crane stylist named Fong Chat Leung. Fong's Wing Chun was founded by a Nun named Fong Chat Leung who learned Kung Fu from her father. She later divorced her first husband and became a Nun soon afterwards and then invented the "White Crane" style. Fung Chat Leung taught 28 students (including her second husband) who later became known as the "28 Legends." Her second husband then taught 10 other students who became known as the "10 Tigers." The style was then named after the village Wing Chun. It consists of more than 10 forms and loose techniques which have a similar theory (center-line, sticky-hand drill).

Jeet Kune Do is a system created by Bruce Lee whereby he based his own experiences and understanding of Wing Chun principles and Tao's philosophy of "be like water, soft, it can fit into any form and shape, yet strong enough to penetrate any hard object on Earth." Bruce Lee selected practical skills from all various arts according to this principle and formed his own judgments.

Sifu Tom Wong

Sifu Tom Wong studied Wu style Tai-Chi at age 11 from Master Tam who was also a police chief Master Tam later introduced Sifli Wong to many top Grandmasters of various styles including Wing Chun Grandmaster Cen Neng. Grandmaster Neng hesitated to accept Sifu Wong as a student at first due to his young age of 12. However, Grandmaster Neng later became very impressed by Wong's photographic memory and incredible ability to repeat his demonstrations including:- the sophisticated figure 7 combination attack and the ability to spin his opponent twice his own weight in a blink on eye! Grandmaster Cen Neng himself was famous for being able to defeat multiple attackers. Once Grandmaster Neng was attacked by 12 men (a gang of students during the cultural revolutionary period) with swords, knives, chains and pipes. Grandmaster Neng was able to use Wing Chun to defeat all 12 gangsters. Like Cen Neng, Sifu Tom Wong had many combat experiences including fighting off up to 10 gang members at once who would attack him with various weapons including knives. Sifu Wong and Grandmaster Neng have khife marks on their forearms to this day from such encounters. However, Sifu Wong's expertise in Wing Chun enabled him to be victorious in such attacks. Sifu Wong was also exposed to other impressive Grand Masters throughout China which included:

• Master Lee a Monk jumping from a second storage building and landing unharmed without making a sound
• A Chi-Kung Master using Chi to immobolize several wrestlers at once
• Master Chen kicking and bending a 2 1/2 inch steel rod with his shin
• Master Cheung poking his fingers several inches into a fresh pine tree with his fingers ripping out chunks of wood
• Master Woo being able to smoke and drink while an experienced martial artist has him in a strong choke hold.

Because of these experiences and his excellent training, Sifu Wong developed into a superb martial artist. In China, Hong Kong and U.S., many have praised Sifu Wong's kicking techniques but his one-inch punch which fractured the bones of many of his opponents left him the nickname the "bone-crusher." Other quotes about Sifu Wong include the following:

• "The most powerful lapsau and superb sensitivity since Bruce Lee" (Jerry Poteet, Bruce Lee's origninal student and Jeet Kune Do instructor).
• "Very fast and powerftil" (James De Meil, Jeet Kune Do instructor and Wing Chun Expert/Author).
• "What Tom Wong learned in two weeks would take the average person years to learn" (Tai Chi Master Tam).

After training many years in China, Sifu Wong later came to the U.S. to meet his Grandfather (Wong Wing) who was remembered by many as Long Wing, and was elected as a Chinese community leader in the old Chinatown of Los Angeles and San Francisco in the 1940's and 1950's.