Yong Chun aka Wing Chun

Have you ever heard of wing chun? Yeah, it is one of the many martial arts originated from China. Some call it Yong Chun, some called Wing Chun...the names bring the same meaning which means Eternal Spring. Just that the former is in Mandarin, the latter in Cantonese. However, this martial art is more often being called Wing Chun because it was first practiced by Chinese in the Southern region, the Guangdong region where the Cantonese reside. This martial art was popularized by Bruce Lee and later the movies sequel called Ip Man 1 & 2. What is so unique of this martial art? Different from other martial arts, this art was created by a woman in the dynasty of Qing. Lets go through some history of this martial art. Following the destruction of Shaolin Temple by the Qing government, many Buddhist monks were killed and some fled from the massacre. The notable one who fled was Nun Ng Mui (Wu Mei). Some might ask what was a nun doing in Shaolin Temple since Shaolin was a place for monks. Nun Ng Mui was one of the 5 Elders of Shaolin and resided outside but close to the temple. She was one of very few who escaped the massacre. During that time, a young lady by the name of Yim Wing Chun who was 17 years old that time was forced into a marriage by a bandit. Her profession was to sell tofu to make a living and her beauty resulted in the forced marriage. However, she refused her hands in the marriage and the bandit told her that he would cancel the marriage if she could defeat him in a boxing competition. As a weak young girl, she sought help and finally went to Nun Ng Mui. The nun sympathized on her and created a boxing for her. This nameless boxing techniques were created by the observations on a confrontation between a snake and a crane. Yim learned the boxing from the nun and mastered the skills in no time. She defeated the bandit in the competition and got married with her lover, Leung Pak Tou. Later, she taught her skills to her husband and Leung named the boxing as Wing Chun. Followed by many disciples later on, the skills were improved and a system of a master-a disciple was created meaning this martial art was passed down from a master to a disciple only. When it came to Ip Man, he recruited a lot of disciples and one of them was Bruce Lee. After watching Wing Chun 1994 and Ip Man 1 & 2, I have the idea of learning this skill too to protect myself and for health maintainence. Perhaps I could learn it from Youtube. lol