1 Historical overview of the origins of Wing Tsun
The history of Wing Tsun is shrouded in legend. This southern Chinese martial art is said to have been developed by the Shaolin master Ng Mui, or in standard Chinese: Wu Méi Dà Shi, as the style she developed when she was older. According to folk history, Ng Mui was the daughter of a Ming general (Ming Dynasty 1368-1644). In the Shaolin temple, before its destruction, she was allegedly one of the so-called Five Elders, i.e. a kind of abbess and master of Chan Buddhism and the former type of Shaolin Kung Ku (or rather Shaolin Wu-Shu). This raises the question as to whether Ng Mui lived as a woman in an all-male monastery. Unfortunately, there are no reliable translated sources to clarify this issue. After the destruction of the monastery in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911, also called the Manchu Dynasty) about 300 years ago, Ng Mui is said to have fled to Southern China. In Southern China her great knowledge in Buddhism and Confucianism most likely mixed with the more Southern Chinese Taoism, which later provided the essential theoretical foundation for Wing Tsun. In Taoism, simplicity, adaptability and pliancy play an essential role. The guiding principle of Taoism is the behavior of water flowing steadily forward and flowing onto and around obstacles, without taking damage itself (see Lin 1994). The combination of Taoist thought, her personal aging and the fact that as a woman she had only little chance against younger men in purely sporting competitions must have led to the sophisticated, very direct and simple techniques and behaviors of Wing Tsun. Up to Grandmaster Ip Man (01.10.1893-02.12.1972), Wing Tsun, with only a few exceptions, was passed on within the family and was not taught publicly. Only Ip Man himself made it accessible to a wider Chinese audience in his later years. Through his student Bruce Lee, Wing Tsun became world famous.
All Shaolin styles are regarded as external, or exoteric, styles. Inner or esoteric styles are, however, only the Taiji, Xing-I and Bagua. Very briefly, the external styles originate from Bodhidharma’s desire to physically strengthen the weak and ailing monks of the Shaolin Monastery. The internal styles, however, try to avoid outer muscle strength and to translate especially the philosophical principles of Taoism and I-Ching into motion. A similar procedure as in the creation of Wing Tsun can be observed in the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), whose techniques are based on a modified judo for physically weaker people. The founder of BJJ, Helio Gracie, was “physically rather frail (...). For this reason, he changed the mechanics and leverage of many techniques and thus made them more effective and also applicable for physically weaker people.”
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