Iconic Chinese Kung Fu Styles: Wing Chun EXPLAINED

If you've watched Kung Fu movies in the past 10 years, you will definitely have seen the style of Chinese Kung Fu known as Wing Chun, known for its close-range hand techniques, flurries of punches and low kicks. In fact, the style is so compact and close-range that it is often said it is the style best suited for a fight inside an elevator or phone booth. While other styles have fancy moves and poses, Wing Chun is direct and practical with no bells and whistles. It is And this style of Kung Fu actually has a very interesting legend behind it. You see, it is the only major style to be developed by a woman. And it was developed for a very special reason, to fight off a man who wanted to marry a young girl. And that young girl's name was, you've guessed it, Wing Chun. And here is the story of this iconic style of Kung Fu. So Wing Chun Kun, or Wing Chun Fist, that's how they pronounce it in Cantonese, since this is a southern style. So most of the schools that teach it are going to be teaching in Cantonese, or if they're using English, they will still be using the Cantonese pronunciations of names of forms and moves. But for reference, in Mandarin, it is pronounced Yong Chun, or Yong Chun Quan, Yong Chun Fist. My Mandarin pronunciations are 100% accurate. I will try give you the Cantonese for everything too, but it might not be 100%, so you may want to double check it. And yes, you heard me say this was a southern style. So like almost every southern style, its history starts with the legend of the burning of the Shaolin Temple, which no one really knows if it happened or not, but it makes a great story. This is where the Shaolin Five Elders escaped and fled south after the Qing Dynasty burned down the temple. The most famous of these elders is Pai Mei, or Bai Mei, literally White Eyebrow. You may know him from Kill Bill. But amongst these five, there was one woman, the nun Wu Mei. You may sometimes see this name written as NG Mei, that's the Cantonese pronunciation or writing system. She developed a style for her top student, who the style was named after, Wing Chun. Now, if you believe the legend, the story of how Wing Chun Kung Fu was created goes something like this. Wing Chun, the girl, has an unwanted suitor, a guy who wants to marry her. And for some reason, he challenges her to a fight. And if she loses, she has to marry him. I mean, that's not the way I would go about it. I'm used to something more like this. Or this. But I know Chinese marriage proposals can be a bit weird sometimes. Like this guy, who made two hearts out of 999,999 chili peppers to propose to his girlfriend. I mean, he was from Sichuan, they're known for their chili peppers. But this proposal to Wing Chun was even stranger. If I succeed at beating you up, you then have to marry me. You can stand at the altar with a fat lip and a black eye. Beautiful wedding photos these guys are going to have. Anyway, the man gives her time to prepare. In some versions of the story, they say it was a year. In the 2010 movie, Wing Chun, it is three months. And at this time, the Buddhist monk Wu Mei trains Wing Chun in a special style of Kung Fu that she has created just for this purpose. She goes on to tell the girl, Wing Chun, about centerline theory, how this style of Kung Fu attacks the centerline of the body and guards one's own centerline. The centerline is the central axis of the body and features a lot of the body's weak spots such as the groin, the solar plexus, the neck, the mouth and nose along it. When two centerlines face each other, that creates the shortest distance between you and the opponent. Now, because this style is meant to be learned quickly, Wu Mei created only three forms for Wing Chun to learn in that time frame. Let's take a look at them now. So the first form is called Xiu Nim Tao in Cantonese. In Mandarin, we pronounce that Xiao Nian Tou and it means a little thought or a little idea. This form consists of hand movements performed in a static horse stance. Yes, you heard that right, there are no leg movements. It just teaches you the basic hand techniques from a static stance. This is Ip Chun demonstrating the form, by the way. He is the son of probably the most famous master of Wing Chun Kung Fu, Ip Man, who taught Bruce Lee. This foundational form contains many secrets within it and is looked at as both a beginner's form and a master's form since you can practice it for your whole life and still improve and find new applications through practice. It contains the essence of Wing Chun Kung Fu, how the whole structure of the body is set up, rooting to the ground, and how the hand movements should feel within the stance. The next form is Tam Kyu in Cantonese and Xun Qiao in Mandarin. It means seeking the bridge. It builds upon what the student learns in the first form, a little idea, but now includes leg movements too. Some instructors explain the idea of seeking the bridge as learning to connect one rooted stance to another through transitional movements. It still focuses on centerline theory and straight line attacks, but we have movement through swiveling on the feet, stepping, and even some kicks, although the movements are still very economical. These are the first two forms that students learn. There is then a third form known as Biu Ji in Cantonese or Biao Zhi in Mandarin, and it means thrusting fingers, and it includes larger techniques that are less economical. Some teachers say that you use the moves in this form when you're in a sticky situation and have no choice but to go beyond the typical economical moves of Wing Chun to get out of it. Although this is the third form, it may not be the third form that students learn, if you know what I mean, since there is another very famous training method that Wing Chun uses that has its own set of forms. Yes, that would be the wooden dummy or Muk Yan Zhong in Cantonese in Mandarin. The first two characters mean wooden man and the last one means stump or post, so it's a wooden man post. The wooden dummy gives the Wing Chun practitioner the feeling of delivering techniques against a real physical structure rather than just punching air. Master Ip Man used to practice with the wooden dummy. This is actual footage shot shortly before his death. His wooden dummy form consists of 116 individual techniques. Each technique has a real life application. The dummy has become synonymous with Wing Chun, although there are a few other southern kung fu styles that use it as well. So students may very well start learning wooden dummy forms before they learn Wing Chun's third empty handed form. But Wing Chun is not just an empty handed fighting style. There are also weapons. So there are two weapons forms in Wing Chun, the long staff or dragon staff and the butterfly knives. First, let's talk about the long staff. This is called the Lu Ding Bun Guan in Cantonese and Liu Dian Ban Guan in Mandarin. You can translate that directly as the six and a half point pole, but they often also call it the dragon staff in English. I don't know why. Maybe they're just like, oh, throw in the word dragon. The white people think it's cool. I don't know. Six points refers to six main techniques. And then you have one additional technique that I believe is a retreating technique that they refer to as half a point. There is also a very small amount of footage of Master Ip Man demonstrating the dragon staff. And we see Donnie Yen using it in his portrayal of Ip Man in one fight scene in Ip Man 3. The staff was the weapon of Zhishan Chanshi, one of the five elders who fled the burning of the Shaolin Temple. So it makes sense that the nun Wu Mei would have known it. But the staff is highly associated with Shaolin in general. Next, we have the butterfly knives, which are in Mandarin. This translates as eight chopped knives. Here is Ip Jun, Ip Man's son, demonstrating the eight chopped knives. And actually in that same scene in Ip Man 3, the one with the staff, we also see Donnie Yen portraying Ip Man fighting with the butterfly knives. And if you didn't know Ip Jun, Ip Man's son, was involved as a consultant with Donnie Yen for the Ip Man movies. So they really do value accuracy. And I guess that's why they use those two specific weapons in that fight scene in Ip Man 3, because those are the weapons of Wing Chun Kung Fu. And that brings me to the final thing that I want to talk about with this topic. What movies can you watch to see Wing Chun in action? Well, if you want the whole story of Wing Chun's creation, the 2010 movie called Wing Chun is pretty good to watch. Don't watch the Michelle Yeoh movie from the 1990s, okay? Yes, the character is called Wing Chun, but I don't think she's even doing Wing Chun Kung Fu in that movie. But anyway, the 2010 one called Wing Chun 2010, just search that on YouTube. It shows the challenge from the unwanted suitor, Wu Mei, training Wing Chun, and then her beating her would-be husband, and then a little bit extra story after that, some other things that are perhaps fictionalized, I'm not totally sure. The whole thing is on YouTube though, I'll put it on screen in just a moment. Then you have the Ip Man movies with Donnie Yen, of which there are four, and the martial arts in these movies is mostly accurate. Remember, they had Ip Man's son as a consultant, and then Ip Man 5 was announced back in 2023. Donnie Yen even shared a poster for it, but there is no release date for that movie yet. Another great one to watch if you want to see Ip Man's son, Ip Chun, in action is Ip Man, A Legend is Born, or Ye Wen Qian Zhuan is what it's called in Mandarin. It features Ip Chun playing Ip Man's master, okay, so like the master's master, whose name is Leung Bik, training the young Ip Man. You should be able to stream those online too, perhaps for a fee. All right guys, that is the video for today. If you want to support our work, do consider joining our channel as a member for $4.99 per month. You're really just buying us a coffee each month, but as a thank you, your comments will be highlighted to us, so if you ask a question, we are more likely to see it and give you a response, and you also get early access to some of our videos, the ones that we're able to get up online a little bit early before we're scheduled to release them. It's hard to get lots of views on traditional Chinese culture stuff on YouTube, so we really thank our channel members for their support, but if you don't want to become a member, you can still just subscribe. The subscribe button is down below, which is free, and you can see all our videos when they are publicly released. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.