Wing Tsun

  1. History
  2. Principles
  3. Grading System

Wing Tsun (詠春) is a form of Kung Fu (功夫), a term that has come to represent many Chinese Martial Arts. The original meaning of kung fu is quite different, and is hard to translate as there is no English equivalent. In short, 功夫 means "achievement through great effort", "skill", or simply – "hard work".

Wing Tsun focuses on a simple set of fighting and force principles that are followed at all times. In a fight it is impossible to visually recognize the precise direction and speed of an attack, process it, and select an effective counter, all within the very brief amount of time you have before your opponent's attack lands. Instead a student must develop, through training, reflexes to determine how to react to an attack based on touch, which the human brain processes much faster than visual information.

The main objective of Wing Tsun is to be a realistic system of self-defense.

History

Sometime between the 14th and 15th centuries a shaolin nun and abbess Ng Mui fled the destruction of the Shoulin Temple. On her journey Ng Mui took refuge in the White Crane Temple and here she befriended Yim Wing-Tsun, the daughter of a local merchant, whom a local warlord was trying to force into marriage. She agreed to teach Wing Tsun fighting techniques so that she could protect herself. Then she would be able to fight the bully and marry Leung Bok-Chau, her betrothed husband. Yim challenged the warlord to a fight, and won.

Ng Mui set off to travel around the country, but before she left, she told Wing Tsun to strictly honor the kung fu traditions, to develop her kung fu and, after her marriage, to help the people working to overthrow the Manchu government and restore the Ming Dynasty. This is how Wing Tsun kung fu was handed down by Abbess Ng Mui.

Yim later passed the skill to her husband, Leung Bok Chau, who named the style after her.

Leung Bok Chau passed his kung fu techniques on to Leung Lan Kwai, who passed it on to Wong Wah Bo a member of the Red Junk Opera Company. Wong worked on the Red Junk with Leung Yee Tei, together they were the lead performers in the troupe. Leung knew the Six-and-a-Half Point Long Pole kung fu techniques, having been taught by the legendary Shoulin Abbot Jee Shim. Being friends Wong and Leung shared what they knew about kung fu. Together they correlated and improved their techinques - and thus the Six-and-a-Half Point Long Pole Techniques were incorporated into WIng Tsun kung fu.

Leung passed the kung fu on to Leung Jan, a well known herbal doctor in the city of Foshan in the 19th century, Leung Jan grasped the inner-most secrets of Wing Tsun, and attained the highest level of proficiency. While many challenged him, he was never defeated.

Later Leung passed his kung fu on to Chan Wah-Shun, who taught the legendary teacher Yip Man, who was responsible for the spread of Wing Tsun throughout the world. Yip Man taught many people, including briefly Bruce Lee, but his last "closed door" student was Leung Ting.

Leung Ting is the founder, and permanent president, of the International Wing Tsun Association. Leung devoted himself to promoting and teaching Wing Tsun in order to improve the image of martial arts. He was the first instructor to introduce any style of kung fu in an academic institution, the Baptist College in Hong Kong.

Principles

Wing Tsun has eight principles, divided into four Fighting Principles and four Force Principles. There are many ways to express the principles, since they are essentially very simple, but it can take many years of training to perform them reflexively.

Fighting Principles

  1. Go Forward
    Always move towards the opponent, both with your movement and strikes.

  2. Stick
    Stick to the opponent, maintaining constant contact. This will both limit the attacker, and mean they cannot attack without your knowledge.

  3. Yield
    Yield to the greater force, the attacker finds no resistance - like hitting air.

  4. Follow Through


    5. A companion to the first principle. Attacks should flow towards the opponant into the gaps in his defence, not stopping, merely changing.

Force Principles

  1. Release yourself of your own force.
    Tension will only slow down your reactions, as you will have to fight yourself too. You need to be relaxed in order to move and react dynamically to your opponent.

  2. Release yourself of your attackers force.
    Nullify your opponents attack by either moving the force away from you or to move yourself away from it.

  3. Recycle your attacker's force.
    Use the force they give you to power your own attack. Act as a compressed spring.

  4. Add your own.
    In addition to recycling, add your own force into the attack.

Grading System

Wing Tsun has 12 student grades, and 12 instructor grades. We concider the 9th grade to be the equivilent to a "black belt", but Wing Tsun does not use the belt system to measure students progress.

Student Grades Instructor Grades
Technician Practitioner Philosopher
123456789101112 123456789101112

Unlike the traditional master/apprentice model of teaching this structured approach ensures all students receive a complete Wing Tsun education at each grade level.

This means that someone who can only train twice a week will not miss out on important concepts or ideas that another classmate, seemingly always training, an unfair advantage. (Though there would be an advantage in technical skill from his classmates extra hours of training!)