History

The Legend of WingTsun states that a warrior priestess in hiding, Ng Mui, and her fellow warrior monks in exile had developed the Wing Tsun fighting system to thwart and overthrow the government forces of the time. These forces the myth says, had conspired with high level Shaolin traitors to help the government overthrow and destroy the Shaolin Temple of which Ng Mui and her compatriots were a part.

While in hiding, Ng Mui took it upon herself to teach a young village girl, named Wing Tsun, this new fighting system. The myth goes on to state that after a fight with the village bully in which Wing Tsun was victorious, this new fighting system became referred to as the Wing Tsun Kuen, or “way of the Wing Tsun fist”.

The History of Wing Tsun seems to indicate that it was a number of Chinese secret societies, triads, organized against the government at the time of its inception that were responsible for its development. In essence, Wing Tsun was developed to be a bare-bones method of fighting that was at once quick to learn, yet effective to use.

Over time, the fighting system began to find its way into main-stream Chinese culture and flourished. Although there have been many notable practitioners of Wing Tsun, two have come to be lauded as the pinnacle of historical Wing Tsun reference. The first is, Dr. Leung Jan, known as “the King of Wing Tsun” as it is said he never lost a fight. More recently, the late Wing Tsun Great Grandmaster, Yip Man, who is considered to have fathered Wing Tsun into the may roots and branches of modern Wing Tsun lineages including having taught Bruce Lee for a time.