 Yip Man was the first martial arts master to teach
the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun openly. He had several students who later
became martial arts teachers in their own right, including
Bruce Lee.
Yip Man was the last Wing Chun student of Chan Wah-shun when he was 70 years
old. He was the second son of a very wealthy family in Foshan, Guangdong, and
received an exceptional traditional Chinese education.
When Yip Man was thirteen years old he started learning Wing Chun. Because of
his sifu's old age, Yip Man learned most of his lessons from his second sihing
Ng Chung-sok. After three years Chan Wah-shun died, but one of his dying wishes
was to ask Ng to continue with Yip's training.
At age sixteen, Yip Man went to attend school at St. Stephen's College in Hong
Kong, which was an up market secondary school for wealthy families and
foreigners who lived in Hong Kong.
According to one story, one day one of his classmates challenged him to try his
martial arts skill with an older man. The man who Yip Man competed against beat
him with a few strikes. It turned out that the old man was his sibak Leung Bik,
son of his sigung. After that encounter, Yip Man continued to learn from Leung
Bik. At age 24, Yip Man returned to Foshan, and his Wing Chun skills had
improved tremendously while he had been away. His fellow students believed he
learned a different kind of martial art and treated him as a traitor to Wing
Chun.
In Foshan, Yip Man didn't formally run a Wing Chun school, but taught Wing Chun
to several children of his friends and relatives. Amongst those informal
students, Chow Kwong-yue, Kwok Fu, Lun Kai, Chan Chi-sun and Lui Ying were the
most well known. Chow Kwong-yue was said to be the best student among his group
of pupils, but he eventually went into commerce and dropped out of martial art
all together. Kwok Fu and Lun Kai went on to teach students of their own and the
Wing Chun in the Foshan and Guangdong area was mainly descended from those
individuals. Chan Chi-sun died young, and Lui Ying went to Hong Kong; neither of
them taking on any students.
During the Japanese occupation of China, Yip Man refused several invitations to
train the Japanese troops. Instead, he returned to Hong Kong and opened a
martial arts school. When he initially began the school, business was poor
because his students typically stayed for only a couple of months before
leaving. He moved his school to Hoi Tan Street in Sham Shui Po and then to Lee
Tat Street in Yau Ma Tei. By that time some of his students were trained to a
sufficiently high enough skill level that they were able to start their own
schools.
Some of Yip Man's students and descendants compared their skills with other
martial artists in combat. Their victory over other martial artists helped to
bolster Yi Man's reputation as a teacher.
In 1967, Yip Man and some of his students established the Hong Kong Wing Chun
Athletic Association.
Bruce Lee, Yip Man's most famous pupil, studied under him from 1954 to 1957.
When Yip Man retired, many of his students were themselves teaching Wing Chun,
including William Cheung, Lo Man Kam (Yip Man's nephew), Moy Yat and his two
sons Yip Chun and Yip Ching.
In 1972, Yip Man suffered from throat cancer and subsequently died on December 2
of that year. As a fitting obituary for the man, within the three decades of his
career in Hong Kong, he established a training system for Wing Chun that
eventually spread across the world.
Quote
" - It is difficult for a student to pick a good teacher, but it is more
difficult for a teacher to pick a good student."
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