History Of Wing Chun

The Shaolin (Siu Lam) Temple was known to have existed in Ancient China sometime after ca.500 A.D. Although it is thought the monks of the temple started off as scribes, for one reason or another the monks of the temple started learning and developing fighting skills and martial arts, and used these arts to protect themselves and others.

It is also known that an Indian Buddhist priest named Tamo (Bodhidharma) visited the temple sometime around ca.520 A.D. and taught the priests breathing and stretching exercises modified from Indian yoga's designed to both enhance chi's flow and build strength. Hence Shaolin picked up the basic principles of yoga at the base of its martial arts.

The monks amalgamated the prevailing Chinese philosophies of the time; Buddhism, and Taoism to become a new order which was Shaolin. A Shaolin monk was never the attacker, nor would they necessarily use the most devastating of their arsenal in any given situation. They studied Kung Fu that they might better understand violence and thus avoid conflict. When violence could not be avoided they simply returned it to the attacker.

Over time the Shaolin Temple had unsurpassed development in kung fu, refining these arts into many specific Shaolin styles based around different fighting concepts such as how a particular animal might fight. (e.g., snake, crane, tiger)

About 400 years ago (ca.1600) the Manchu's took over China collapsing the Ming Dynasty. In the course of the restructured China the Manchu government managed to learn one of the predominant styles of Shaolin (one of their harder more physical styles-similar to karate) and the Manchu's taught this style to its own solders.

The Shaolin Temple traditionally supported the monarchy and the monks would have liked to overthrow the Manchu government and restore the Ming Dynasty.

Around 280 years ago (ca. 1720), the leading Kung Fu Masters and Elders of Shaolin got together and decided to develop a master style with which would be able to overcome all the other styles, and hence one that would also over come the style used by solders of the Manchu government. Traditionally Shaolin Kung Fu took over 18 years to learn and they also needed a style which would take a much shorter time if it was to be something that could be effectively used against the Manchu's.

The Shaolin elders realized that in each of their styles there were techniques that worked very well, and other aspects that did not. They began combining all the best of each of their styles into one system, refining their moves, ideas and techniques, using only what worked best and discarding the rest. They used their knowledge to invent a way to take advantage of the weaknesses inherent in the other martial arts systems.

But before they had completely developed their new system, Shaolin was betrayed to the government, and the government attacked the temple destroying it. Only a small amount of the Shaolin masters and monks were able to escape, and were scattered throughout China.

In 1949, Ip Man, who is the grandmaster of modern Wing Chun, brought the style out of China into Hong Kong and eventually to the rest of the world. Here is the origin of Wing Chun as written by him.