Wing Chun
General Information
Over 350 years ago, the roots of the Wing Chun style were created in the legendary South Shaolin Monastery of China. But today, it doesn’t exist anymore after being completely destroyed, and the exact location of its leftovers is a mystery. The initial Wing Chun style, that the monks used to practice there, is of the highest secret level and was completely hidden away for outsiders.
The Wing Chun legend
The Abbess Ng Mui is known – according legend – as the founder of Wing Chun. Her story and the fate of the South Shaolin Monastery of China are very popular among Wing Chun practitioners. It is believed that she was among the monks (including Shaolin Abbot Chi Sim) and nuns that escaped and went into hiding, following the invasion on the monastery that would eventually result in its destruction. The attackers tried to find and catch her, so in order to protect herself from the young and trained Shaolin Kung Fu hunters, she developed a superior style from the knowledge she gained through the training with the monks at their monastery. Ng Mui focused her martial arts techniques to be highly practical for real world combat, leaving out any unnecessary movements that might look good, but useless in a life and death scenario. With this new martial arts system, she successfully defended herself against all opponents.
At some point during her travels, and her efforts to stay hidden, she met the young woman Yim Wing Chun. Ng Mui found out Yim is constantly being bullied by a bad guy of her village, which made her feel sympathetic. To end the oppression of the local bully, Ng Mui secretly started teaching Yim her combat techniques. Finally, Yim beat the annoying guy with her newly obtained martial art skills and even became a famous warrior that stayed undefeated.
Later on, Yim was training with her husband, and he decided to name the style after her, Wing Chun.
Contrary to false mainstream belief, the name “Wing Chun” translates to “hymn to spring”. Due to similarities of the Chinese signs for “Wing” and “Weng”, wrong translations like “beautiful spring” and “eternal spring” are being used by many Wing Chun teachers, who have little knowledge of the Chinese language.
After generations of secretly passing on the style of Wing Chun from one person to the next, it found its way to Leung Jan. He was a famous Chinese doctor, but also known as the king of Kung Fu for being undefeated. His successors Chan Wah Shun and son Leung Bik were the teachers of Grandmaster Ip Man, who then began to accept many students and started to spread the martial arts publicly. One of Ip Mans most popular student was Bruce Lee.
Before he passed away, Ip Man also passed down the system to his son, Grandmaster Ip Chun. From him, Grandmaster Abbot Venerable Chi Sim has learned Wing Chun and merged it again with the Shaolin Chan lineage under the name Tao Chan Wing Chun.
Tao Chan Wing Chun is a highly effective self-defense system, supporting the physical and mental health of practitioners. The muscle strength requirements are extremely little, which means that even smaller and less muscular people can overcome stronger and bigger persons easily. While training the precision of Wing Chun techniques and utilizing the anatomy of the human body in the most effective way, the own health is being improved significantly.
Therefore, it is also very suitable for women and smaller persons, and not having big muscles or acrobatic skills is not a disadvantage.
Wing Chun consists of 6 Forms, of which the last and highest 2 are Weapon Forms.
- 1st Form: Siu Nim Tao, only arm and hand movements
- 2nd Form: Cham Kiu, adds kicks and turns
- 3rd Form: Biu Tze, adds elbow and finger strikes
- Wooden Dummy Form, 116 various movements on the traditional Chinese Wooden Dummy
- Long Pole Form, originated from the Shaolin Kung Fu
- Baat Cham Dao form, with two Wing Chun knives
Moreover, Tao Chan Wing Chun includes, other than every known Wing Chun style today, the old Shaolin Chan energies as well as the traditional Tao Chan Wing Chun ground fighting in the master levels. Also, it is the only Wing Chun lineage that uses the traditional sharp and heavy double knives of South Shaolin and introduces their old wrist protector, rarely seen elsewhere than within the Hung Gar Kung Fu.
