IIMA-Wing Chun

WING CHUN

Wing Chun, meaning "Eternal Spring", is a Chinese martial art that specializes in close-range combat. It is a southern style of Chinese kung-fu, the most influential Chinese martial art in modern times. Wing chun emphasizes self-defense reduced to its most rudimentary level, which includes simultaneous attack and defense with multiple straight-line strikes at extremely close range.

Wing Chun aims to deflect rather than to meet force in combat. It uses a "centerline" theory that is based around attacking vital targets along a central line of the body. Two weapons are taught, the dragon pole and butterfly knives. Every punch, strike, and kick in the system is designed to serve as a defense. Every block, deflection, and evasion is also designed to double as an attack. Rapid hand techniques combined with low kicks fit aggressive and constant forward pressure. Partner exercises called Chi Sao allow two partners to practice various arm exercises together for better reflexes and response to attacks. Students are also taught to control, or "trapping," an opponent's limbs whenever possible.

Wing Chun was developed when several grandmasters of the Shaolin temple systemized specific parts of the Chinese martial arts. Their effort was intended to form a martial art that was practical and faster to learn than the other styles in order to defend themselves from the professional soldiers of the Manchu Dynasty who were highly skilled in martial arts and the fighting tactics of the Shaolin Temple. Whenever they were sent into an area of Shaolin activity to enforce the Manchu will, they quickly put a halt to the rebellious monks.

The Shaolin monks realized that they could not rapidly train a young rebel to match the fighting skills of the Manchu soldiers. The temple elders met and developed a martial art which required a much shorter period of time to learn. They renamed the martial arts hall where they trained as Wing Chun Hall, or Forever Springtime Hall, which expressed their hopes for a renaissance in Shaolin martial arts instruction as well as for a more effective weapon in their struggle against the Manchus.

However, before the new fighting art could be completely developed, a Shaolin traitor tipped off the government. Manchu soldiers destroyed the temple and most of the residents. The few survivors fled throughout China including a nun named Ng Mui who had been one of the temple elders. She hid herself at a nunnery and spent her time there finalizing the movements of the new fighting art. She decided to call the art "wing chun" after the training hall in which she and the other elders had convened and trained.

Ng Mui taught the new art to a young girl nearby. Shortly before Ng Mui's death, she named her student Yim Wing Chun since the girl had been entrusted with the art's future. For the next 200 years, wing chun remained a private kung-fu system, taught only to family and friends, until 1952 in Hong Kong when grandmaster Yip Man first offered commercial instruction.

90% of the Wing Chun schools in the world today can be traced to the teachings of Yip Man and his students.