Yim Wing Chun

[sageb1]

The history of Wing Chun starts with the burning of the Shaolin Temple that becomes immortalized in Hollywood through the Kung Fu series starring David Carradine. Bruce Lee was passed over for this role. His style, Jeet Kun Do, was created because of deficiencies in the Wing Chun taught to students. However, that's a story in itself, according to http://www.whoosh.org/issue22/plunket1.html#wing

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http://www.wingchunkuen.com/who/foun...mwingchun.html
Yim Wing-Chun (Yan Yongchun), also known as Yim Saam-Leung (Yim Sanniang or Third Daughter of Yim), the wife of Leung Bok-Cho, is the principle figure in many legends of Wing Chun.

In some accounts, Yim Wing-Chun was taught the art that would become known as Wing Chun Kuen by her father, Yim Yee.



Other accounts give her more credit, suggesting that from a young age, Yim Wing-Chun learned the Fujian martial arts, including Sae Ying Kuen (Snake Shape Boxing) and Bak Hok Kuen (White Crane Boxing) from her father, a former Siu Lam disciple and revolutionary named Yim Sei. One day, while she was washing clothes by the river, Wing Chun saw a snake and crane fighting. Gaining inspiration from the two animals, she used her new found insight to refine her martial knowlede to better suit herself.

One of the most famous stories about Yim Wing-Chun, found in the Yip Man system, holds that the nun, Ng Mui would, on occasion, travel from her refuge in the White Crane Temple in order to get provisions from a nearby Yunnan village. During these visits, she made the acquaintance of a local tofu vender named Yim Yee and his daughter, a young girl named Yim Wing-Chun. One day, while visiting, Ng Mui found the young girl in tears. She soon discovered that a brutal local gangster had come to town and taken a liking to Yim Wing-Chun. He had sworn to return a short time later to claim her as his wife. Ng Mui at first thought to fight the gangster and drive him away, but she realized that to do so would give away her location to the Qing troops who still hunted her. Instead, she decided to take Yim Wing-Chun with her back to the temple and teach her the martial arts so that she would be able to fight for herself. With only a short time until the gangsters return, Ng Mui could not teach Yim Wing-Chun in the usual manner (which some have said took more then a dozen years). So, Ng Mui was forced to teach Yim Wing-Chun only the most simple, direct, and effective of combat skills which she would be able to use in order to defeat the larger, stronger, and more experienced gangster. Yim Wing-Chun practiced very hard and when the gangster returned, she was ready. The gangster was last seen dragging his battered body out of town, never to return.

In most stories, in the mid-1810s, she married a man named Leung Bok-Cho. In some accounts, he learned alongside her under Yim Yee until the old man passed away, at which point he continued learning from his wife (following an encounter where she quite easily proved her fighting skills greatly surpassed those of her husband). In others, Yim Wing-Chun alone taught him her remarkable fighting skills. From the many accounts it is clear that Yim Wing-Chun, whether a real person or an alias used as a cover, is credited in the Wing Chun Kuen creation myths as the principle founder, or one of the principle founders, of the art.


Links:
http://www.wingchun.com/history.html

[krome]

Sorry, but those legendary foundations have now been historically debunked as fake cover stories used by Ming-loyalist secret societies to conceal their training for rebellion against Manchurian rule and other foreigners later on.

The Secret History of Wing Chun: The Truth Revealed

Put simply, the harsh truth is this: the myth of the Buddhist nun, Ng Mui and her disciple Yim Wing Chun, the supposed founders of the Wing Chun system, is just that - a myth. As the internet has brought information more readily to us, it has come to light that the story of Ng Mui and Yim Wing Chun was merely a way to conceal the truth about the system's origins and the identities of the political rebels who truly developed it.

It was at the fourth generation that history and truth parted ways and the myth of Wing Chun's origins was created.

The Myth of Ng Mui and The Truth About Yim Wing Chun To protect the identities of the creators and the perpetuators of the Wing Chun system, a smokescreen was thrown up in the form of a story - the story of Ng Mui and Yim Wing Chun.

During that time it was strictly forbidden to teach or reveal the art to anyone that didn't belong to the secret societies or were non-Han. Because of this reason, Wing Chun took on a mysterious persona. Many years later, a famous novel writer wrote a martial art fiction titled 10,000 Year Ching. In the novel, it talks about Ng Mui, Chee Sim, Hung Hei Goon, and Fung Sai Yuk. Many fairy tales and stories about Hung Kuen and Wing Chun were based on this novel.

WING CHUN HISTORY - an alternative viewpoint