So in this post I am going to answer the question: Was Wing Chun invented by a woman? According to oral history, Wing Chun was created by a woman named Ng Mui, a nun who escaped the destruction of the Fujian Shaolin Temple. After relocating in the Daliang Mountains, Ng Mui taught her kung-fu style to a woman she met named Yim Wing Chun, to help her defend herself from a local warlord.
However, there are several oral histories revolving around Wing Chun, most of which are disputed by modern scholars. In the rest of the post, I will talk about the probability of the story above being real, as well as the more accepted theories on the origin of Wing Chun. One day the temple was burned down, with only five people managing to escape, later becoming known as the Five Elders.
Among those five people was Ng Mui, who is said to have taken refuge in the White Crane Temple located in the Daliang mountains. After living here for a while she met a man from a local town, who owned a store that she frequented. Around this time, Yim Wing Chun had become of age to marry, which attracted attention from local men. One of these men was a warlord, who tried forcing her to marry him by making continuous threats. Yim Wing Chun then challenged the man who was trying to force her into marriage and beat him.
The survivors of the monastery fire fled to all parts of the country and hid to avoid government persecution. In some versions of the legend other individual pupils are named, who likewise had left the monastery.
Some of these masters, and also the nun Ng Mui , had begun to develop new forms and techniques of fighting in the monastery. They had feared for some time that there were traitors among them. The new combat techniques were designed to defeat these potential attackers.
During this time Ng Mui thought about how she could develop a new combat system that would be superior to the old, better-known systems. The philosophy behind her new system resulted from her observation of a fight between a crane and a snake other versions report a fight between a crane and a fox during meditation.
The behaviour of the crane, which always faced its opponent while defending the body with its wings and countering with its bill at the same time, gave Ng Mui the inspiration for her new system. She is said to have travelled to the Guangxi province to train with the monk Miu Sun. The new system developed from the combination of their two combat styles. Miu Sun later taught this new system to Yim Lee. Other completely different versions report that Ng Mui came from a Taoist temple in the Wudang Mountains of Hubei to the Shaolin monastery and that she brought the knowledge of the new system from there.
Yim Wing Chun. To escape possible arrest, Yim Lee fled with his daughter to the Tai Lung Mountain and settled there. Yim Lee worked in the tofu commerce in this area. At the age of fifteen Yim Wing Chun was considered ready for marriage according to the customs of the time. The beauty of Yim Wing Chun attracted the attention of all the young men around. A boastful and arrogant young man who was particularly interested in Yim Wing Chun tried to force her to marry him.
Her unwanted admirer did not let a day pass without letting Yim Wing Chun know that he intended to marry her, whether she was willing or not. From that day on, Yim Wing Chun trained with her teacher Ng Mui every day to learn the art of fighting. Yim Wing Chun was a good student and practised all the techniques Ng Mui showed her with enthusiasm. The next time her suitor attempted to threaten her, she challenged him to a fight. He scornfully accepted her challenge, as he was sure he would win against such a weak woman and believed that his goal of marrying Yim Wing Chun was finally within his grasp.
On the day of the fight, however, reality did not live up to his expectations. After a short fight Yim Wing Chun triumphantly defeated her opponent. Shame and humiliation forced him to give up his campaign to make Yim Wing Chun his wife, as he realised that he could not enforce his will upon such a competent fighter. Ng Mui heard about the fight and realised that her young student had perfected her art and could put it to good use.
However, before Ng Mui left she made Yim Wing Chun promise to maintain their fighting style and teach it to all patriots wishing to bring about the fall of the Ching Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty. In honour of his wife he gave the system the name Wing Chun Kung Fu other versions of the legend maintain the name comes from a training hall inside the Shaolin temple, which was called Wing Chun Hall.
This is particularly clear with regard to the kicks, because they are exclusively used for low attacks and would have been feasible in the robes which Chinese women wore in former times. He in turn taught Wong Wah Bo , who at the time was a member of an opera group living on board a Chinese river junk It is reported that this refers to the legendary "Red Junk" opera group, whose existence from the beginning to the middle of the 18 th century is historically documented.
The close friendship between Wong Wah Bo and Leung Yee Tai and the innumerable training hours spent together brought them to exchange their knowledge of martial arts and to teach each other their different techniques.
This is the reason why the long pole fighting techniques have been included in the Wing Chun Kung Fu System. Leung Yee Tai passed this much broader system of Wing Chun Kung Fu on to an extremely well-known and highly esteemed doctor who lived in the city of Fo Shan in the Kwantung province.
Leung Yee Tai taught him all the secrets of the art and after some time his pupil attained perfection in the skills. It was there she met Yim Yee and his daughter Wing Chun from whom she often bought bean curd on her way home from the market. He tried to force Wing Chun to marry him, and his continuous threats became a source of worry to her and her father.
Ng Mui learned of this and took pity on Wing Chun. She agreed to teach Wing Chun fighting techniques so she could protect herself. She trained night and day, until she mastered the techniques. Then she challenged the bully to a fight and beat him. Ng Mui later traveled around the country, but before she left she told Wing Chun to strictly honor the Kung Fu traditions, to develop her Kung Fu after her marriage, and to help the people working to overthrow the Manchu government and restore the Ming Dynasty.
He in turn passed these techniques on to Leung Lan Kwai. Together they shared and improved their techniques, and thus the Six-and-a-half-point Long Pole was incorporated into Wing Chun Kung Fu. Leung Jan grasped the innermost secrets of Wing Chun, attaining the highest level of proficiency.
Many Kung Fu masters came to challenge him, but all were defeated.
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