Founded in Qing Dynasty, during the
reign of the Emperor Kangxi (r.1622-1722), Wing Chun is a southern Chinese gung
fu style. Legend has it, Ng Mui, a
Buddhist nun of the Shaolin Temple designed the system to be one of finesse, unlike
many of the other styles reliant on and/or developing brute force power. Naming the system after her top student, Wing
Chun (“eternal springtime”), it greatly differed from other gung fu styles,
namely in its principles of building bridges with its trapping hands as opposed
to breaking them.
Beginning in the late 1960’s, Mao
Zedong’s Cultural Revolution sought to preserve Chinese communism by eradicating
any remnants of traditional Chinese society.
This included many martial arts (Wing Chun included) deemed a possible
form of rebellion against his government.
Luckily, the most renowned Wing Chun master of the 20th
century relocated to Hong Kong in 1948, and with Hong Kong being official British
territory, Grandmaster Yip Man kept the art alive and introduced it to the
public.
