Wing Chun Hall has been dedicated to providing quality self-defense instruction since 1990.

HISTORY

 Most Wing Chun histories began at the destruction of the Siu-Lum (Shao-lin) temple and bring you to the present day. You can find that story on my lineage page and on most Wing Chun websites around the world, but that little story doesn't help you understand the art of Wing Chun unless you stop to think that what we believe, and what we are deep down, has a profound effect on what we say and do. Each of these people touched Wing Chun and shaped it in his or her own way. So what can we say about each of them?

    Jon Nielson is an educator, a linguist and an instructional designer with a background in Sports Medicine. Ron Heimberger has background in art, electronics, computers, and lending. Ip Ching owned a textile manufacturing company. Ip Man was in the military and law enforcement. Chan Wah Shun was a lender and herbal doctor. Leung Bik was also into textiles. Leung Jan was an herbal doctor. According to legend, Leung Yi Tai and Wong Wah Bo were both actors and guerillas. Leung Bok Cho was a salt merchant, and Leung Lan Kwai was also an actor. Yim Wing Chun was a housewife and the daughter of a bean curd vendor. Little is known about Ng Mui except that she was once affiliated with the Chan Buddhists of Siu-Lum.

    Of course, their lives must have been much more complex than the elements listed here. Unfortunately, historians know very little about them. From this information, we could expect the businessmen to look at Wing Chun with the idea of building assets. We could expect the guerillas and military and law enforcement men to make Wing Chun practical and something that you could use quickly and on the run. We could expect the educators to make it an organized curriculum; we could expect the doctors to make it something that would build health and fitness for long life. All of these characteristics can be found in Wing Chun as well as much more. In all of these ways, Wing Chun allows the practitioner to defend himself and once more proves to be Serious Self-defense.

    Still, it helps the practitioner to search for a broader view. Legend associates Wing Chun with the Siu-lum temple. Though there is no historical evidence for any of the Wing Chun ancestors previous to Leung Jan, there is reason to believe the martial knowledge encapsulated in the Wing Chun system had its roots in Siu-lum. The Siu-lum temple is relatively unknown to those of us in the west, and what is known is shrouded in mystery, legend, fiction and downright fabrication. Bearing this in mind, an introduction to the origins of the Siu-Lim temple is helpful to understanding the roots of Wing Chun.

The Shaolin Temple

    Though most martial artists agree that the Shaolin temple (or Siu-lum in southern China) was central to the development of Chinese martial arts, there is a wide range of legends purporting to explain how peaceful Buddhist monks became involved with deadly the fighting arts.

    Legend states that the Shaolin temple already existed when a traveling monk, Bodhidharma, sometimes referred to as the first patriarch of Chan/Dhyanna/Zen Buddhism, came to teach the monks how to meditate. Unfortunately they were not physically able to sustain the difficult meditation he taught them. For this reason he developed a series of exercises to strengthen them. Some say he taught 8, 12 or 72 postures. Others say he taught them to dance like the animals. Then from these teachings the monks eventually developed kung fu. Recent research suggests that this story is not factual. It was actually composed at a late date and used as a framing device to popularize the, Cleansing of the Bones and of the Marrow Classic, a book ascribed to Bodhidharma, but clearly written by a Taoist practitioner about a thousand years after the more famous monk first came to China.

    There are many other colorful legends about Bodhidharma, but they are not relevant to our discussion. The facts are that in the 7th century, Bodhidharma did travel from India to China and did teach there, but he was not the first patriarch of Chan Buddhism, and there is no evidence that he ever got within one hundred miles of the Shaolin temple.

    Actually, a monk known as Ba-tua asked the emperor of the Northern Wei dynasty in about AD400 to give him a grant so he could build a temple for the purposes of translating the Indian scriptures into Chinese and other languages. He received his grant and built a little temple in the Song Mountain Range on a mountain known as Shao-shan, or Small Mountain, near a forest (or "lin") of acacia trees. For this it was named Shao-lin, or "small forest." The location of the Shaolin temple was important because it was near the ancient capital of Loyang, and because it was situated on the mountain where the emperor would make sacrifices according to the ancient religion. The royal patronage assured Shaolin of a widespread reputation. Shaolin soon became famous as a center for translating and training translators.

    Famous Chinese Buddhist temples tend to collect precious stones and metals. When societies breaks down people often loose legitimate employment and seek for ways to acquire the wealth of others. Such was the case in the closing days of the Sui dynasty. It was not uncommon for bandit armies numbering in the tens of thousands to roam the countryside. In this environment, the monks of Shaolin deemed it prudent to assemble a local militia to protect their goods. They recorded their military successes and failures on large stone steles, which they erected near the temple.

    Another product of the breakdown of society is a lack of tax revenue. Since religious institutions were tax exempt, it was not uncommon for local landowners to donate their land to nearby temples to avoid taxes while continuing to work the land. In AD613, the rump Sui state began shutting down such temples to place the land back on the tax registers, and the Shaolin temple was no exception.

    Some of the dispossessed monks remained on the land, and it just so happened that a powerful family was waging war against the government on land once owned by the temple. These dispossessed monks united and formed an army of monks who engaged and overcame a garrison of formerly Sui troupes, among whom was a powerful general's nephew. The monks took the nephew hostage and delivered him to the opposing army's commander, Li Shimin. Li was able to use this hostage and eventually was victorious in the war. He and his father established the Tang dynasty and, though they were hostile to other Buddhist temples, they remembered how the monks at Shaolin had helped them win the war and granted them the land in perpetuity. Remarkably, every dynasty following the Tang honored that agreement, and Shaolin was free to further its new reputation as a martial temple.

    Shaolin continued in this manner until the Ming Dynasty, beginning in 1341. The Ming had no standing army, but would call on farmers and peasants to fight when the country was threatened. The government gave Shaolin a grant and built a wing that was to be used for training students to pass the military exam. Shaolin's martial ability was further put to the test in the middle of the Ming dynasty (1550) when the country was beset by pirates on their eastern coast. The local military was unable to defeat the pirates, most likely because the locals were in league with them. The government needed a disinterested fighting force, so they called on troops form other parts of the country (including the well known generals Qi Zhiquan and Zhang Yu Min) and the monks of Shaolin. According to reliable eye-witness accounts, the monks used their staffs to great effect and Shaolin's small monastic army brutally slaughtered villages full of pirates. From that point until the end of the Ming dynasty, the government increasingly called on Shaolin and other temples to aid in their military campaigns.

Shaolin's Destruction

    Here we must once again separate myth from history. The popular myth states that Shaolin weathered the transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties and that, in the middle of the 18th century, the Qing ran into a problem similar to that of the mid 16th century pirates. Their borders were being attacked and no local force or national force could prevail. The Qing had their own standing army, so they had not relied on Shaolin for their military campaigns. However, in this case they called for volunteers and Shaolin answered. They were successful in putting down the invasion, and upon their victorious return the emperor offered them whatever they wished in return for their service. They replied that all they wanted was to return to their peaceful lives as monks. At first, the emperor accepted this as a magnanimous offer, but he was later convinced that this powerful fighting force over which he held no power was a threat to national security. He therefore conspired with a treacherous governor and a traitorous monk and destroyed the temple with a great fire from which only five elders escaped. These elders later were responsible for nearly all of the martial arts of southern China.

    Such is the myth, but it seems that this story was invented and subsequently widely disseminated by many groups including street performers and secret societies in the late Qing period. Luckily the real Shaolin temple kept its own history, and it tells quite a different story. This alternate narrative is also supported by records left by Ching observers. By the end of the Ming dynasty, Shaolin's resources had been depleted from failed military campaigns and poor government leadership. Mount Shao-shan had also become the home of a powerful warlord who hated Shaolin, but was too afraid of their martial prowess to combat them openly. He therefore feigned friendship and offered them gifts until he had lulled them into a false sense of security. Then one day he asked them if they would perform an elaborate ceremony to help atone for his sins and celebrate his birthday. The ceremony required all of the monks left at Shaolin, and while they were prostrated without means of defense, the warlord released his troupes upon them and slaughtered them, and then burned the temple to the ground.

    Later, some of the monks who had not been present during the slaughter returned and began rebuilding the now derelict temple. Eventually, the powerful Qing emperor (1750) aided the monks in rebuilding their temple. The Qing maintained their own standing army, and did not rely on Shaolin to train or support their troupes. However, Shaolin's reputation as a fighting force continued to grow. The monks therefore changed their focus and began training individual civilian patrons and local militias. Increasingly their emphasis shifted from battle field tactics to unarmed boxing and medicine. At this point in time various forms of short boxing including, plum blossom boxing, druken boxing and Mizong Quan (confounding track boxing) were popular.

    They maintained their own militia until 1920, during the warlord period. The monks of Shaolin opposed a nearby warlord who marched against them and burned the temple once again in 1928. Then, during China's brief flirtation with a republic, political leaders sought to foster Chinese nationalism with a return to traditions such as the martial arts. Shaolin was only partially rebuilt and a new abbot was placed in charge of the temple. Unfortunately many of the great halls and the once famous library could not be reconstructed after their destruction. Chang Quan (Long Fist) forms, sometimes associated with China's northern Muslim minority, became popular in the temple at this point in time, and have remained so until today.

    The communists defeated the Shang Kai Shek and his republicans in 1949. The communists were expressly against the practice of the martial arts, and many well-known masters fled to Hong Kong, Taiwan, The United States and other countries. In 1966, the communists launched the Cultural Revolution, which once again shut down of the Shaolin temple. It remained mostly empty and closed until the popularity of Chinese martial arts around the world influenced the government to reestablish the martial arts as a prominent part of Chinese culture in the early 80s. This time, the government was closely involved in what was taught in official martial arts schools and university programs, and they established what is now known as "Wu Shu" (a projects whose roots go back to before the Cultural Revolution). They also reopened the Shaolin temple using one of the old abbot's advisors. It is a mixture of these northern forms of Chang Quan and highly acrobatic state sponsored Wu Shu that is taught at or near the temple today.

Major Religious and Philosophical Disciplines

    Before there was Buddhism in China, there were Taoism and Confucianism. Chinese Buddhism was heavily influenced by Confucianism and Taoism, but these two didn't show up until about 600 BC when Confucius started a school to prepare political leaders for public service. Taoism arose almost 200 years after Confucianism and partly as a reaction to it. Confucianism actually makes no attempt to explain the heavens, but it is clear that a belief in a supreme being is key to Confucius' thought process. Taoism is heavily spiritual. Most westerners tend to believe that these three make up the basis of Chinese thought, but such is not the case. It is estimated that at no point in Chinese history did the adherents of these three disciplines make up more than 11% of the Chinese population. Today, most Chinese know very little about the literature or philosophy of these three disciplines and care even less. However, they do have a strong tradition of spiritualism. They frequently go to the temples, to pray, but also to consult the diviners and mediums. They fill their houses with figures of gods that have been embraced by both Buddhism and Taoism, but have their origin in neither. The actual origin of these beliefs came out of what we now call "the matrix".

The Matrix

    Anciently the Chinese believed in three main gods: the Father of Heaven, His Son (the Savior), and the Revealer of Treasures. These gods ruled a hierarchy of other gods who had influence over cities, politics, mountains, rains, streams, fields, the hearth and every other aspect of life. The representatives of these gods were known as Shamans who held a form of priesthood and their duty consisted mostly of healing sick people, conveying the will of heaven to those who wished to know and performing the ritual sacrifices. These rituals were compiled into what became known as the Book of Rites. One of their methods of gathering heavenly knowledge consisted of throwing yarrow stalks and counting the different types to get to a yes or no answer. This formed a binary type of equation and somebody (some say Fu His; others, Zhou Yen) decided they needed a way to represent this graphically, and they came up with and - -, the unbroken line representing the yang (or yes) and the broken line representing the yin (or no). Eventually, Zhou Yen's school of naturalism developed a method to represent all relationships. He put these together in groups of 3, and assigned these to elements of the earth, the body and the heavens. These elements (or rather, agents) were allegorically connected to things with similar characteristics in very different contexts. These agents were found to interact with one another in a cyclical way. Eventually, a graphic representation of this model was developed as well. This began to play into what became the goal of this religion: immortality.

    At some point, probably during the Warring States period, the king of the province of Yin imprisoned another king, Wen, because King Wen called him a tyrant. While he was imprisoned, Wen started writing a book using the trigrams already addressed, only he doubled them to form 64 hexagrams. He used these to represent relationships in all aspects of life, and in order to say that the time was right for a revolution.

Confucianism and Taoism

    This book was eventually completed by King Wen's son, The Duke of Chou. It became known as the I-Ching, or the Classic of Changes. Years later, Confucius used this book, the Book of Rites, the Book of Poetry, the Book of Historical Documents, and Spring and Autumn to derive his code of ethics.

    Confucius never achieved great fame or social status in his lifetime, but many of his students were placed in prominent positions. Through them, Confucius' influence changed the shape of Chinese society. However, many people were dissatisfied with Confucius lack of emphasis on things spiritual. They recognized that the classics Confucius called upon were replete with spiritual references. So to create some balance, they formed Taoism. The Taoists' main volume of literature is the Tao Te Ching. Many people attribute the writings of this book to Lao Tze, others show evidence that this book is more likely the writings of several ancient masters from the school of naturalism, collected and compiled by the Taoist master, Chuang Tze. Like the Confucians, the Taoists attempt to convey a code of ethics, but their approach is quite different from that of the Confucians. They encourage the pupil to converse with the cosmos and find his own way. Much of the Taoist tradition is spiritual, and many early Taoists carried on the alchemists search for turning base metals to gold and to find the elixir of eternal life.

Buddhism

    Just about 0 AD, the emperor of China had a dream that told him of a great spiritual leader that had been born to the east, and that he was a great king. One of his advisors convinced him that this must be the Buddha, who had taught in India about 600 years earlier. Buddhism, by this time, had quite a following in India, but still hadn't caught on as the national religion. The Chinese government sent away for Buddhist ambassadors to come and teach the Chinese people. At first, the Taoists and the Buddhists collaborated. All of the Buddhist teachings and literature needed to be translated into Chinese, and they used Taoist terminology to do so, but there were a few Buddhist teachings that offended the Chinese. One of them was the doctrine of reincarnation. Another was the doctrine of celibacy. The family was very important to the Chinese, and of course, celibacy put a stop to family increase. These, among other differences, eventually created a rift among these three major disciplines. It should be noted here, that these disciplines did flourish in China, each vying for and sometimes achieving government preference, but they were always considered elite. A very small percentage of the population ever actually affiliated themselves with any of these disciplines. Most of the people continued to carry on their old spiritual traditions according to the matrix from which all these disciplines sprung. It was during a period of Buddhist favor when the Siu-lum temple was built.

Merging

    There was a point at which at least some of the factions decided it would serve better to merge than to continue fighting. So there was much more open discussion and sharing of information between them. The result was what is often called Neo-Buddhism, Neo-Taoism, and Neo-Confucianism. It was around this time that some branches of Taoism adopted the monastic, celibate life. It was probably about this time that the practice of Chan, a branch of Buddhism emphasizing meditation with a healthy mixing of Taoism gained popularity in China. Chan is pronounced "Zen" in Japanese. This school of Buddhism caught on, and became the preferred style of Buddhism in the Siu-lum temple. The temple was also heavily influenced by Confucianism. One of the emperors, very interested in the discipline offered by the Confucius school, instituted a series of tests that anyone from any level of society could take and, if they passed, could enter into government service. Of course, the Buddhists were interested in getting their people into the government, so they started teaching Confucianism in their temples. These different tensions among the disciplines lead to the current mixture.

    This page only covers the history of the elite philosophical groups so far, and hopefully, how they affected the Siu-lum temple. The martial training in the temple has yet to be discussed. First of all, such training wasn't like the movies depicted it. Monks did not go to the temple to do Kung fu all day. They might do that today at the Shao-lin temple in Mainland China, but they didn't back then. They studied and worshipped and went out into the world and they worked along with their martial training. But the martial tradition in China was also quite involved.

Martial Tradition

    The history of the martial tradition is much less documented than the philosophical history, and mostly lies in legends that are not very reliable. Not as much good scholarship has been done in this area, and once the scholars started looking into the philosophical disciplines, they destroyed many of the legends. That will probably happen with the martial tradition as well. However, it is clear that martial training was widespread throughout China. According to legend, martial arts began in China when the first emperor (Yao, not Ch'in) taught the people to fight so that they could drive out the robbers. Nearly all of the citizens learned to fight. Then, when Ch'in became emperor (often also called the first emperor who completed the great wall), he practiced his legalism. It was sometimes more profitable to be an outlaw than a law-abiding citizen. This resulted in a large number of robbers and brigands. If a family wanted to protect their merchandise, family and person, they learned to fight. Then, of course, there were the great generals of Chinese military, not the least of which was Sun Tze.

    The monks in the various temples each learned something about fighting. Different temples encouraged different styles. At the temples they tried to make their fighting art an extension of their religious or philosophical discipline. It is generally accepted that in Siu-Lum, they focused on the five animals system. The fame of the Siu-lum temple monks was widespread. They were especially utilized under the Ming dynasty. When the Ch'ings overthrew the Mings, they too used the Siu-lum monks to fight their enemies and help train their troops. Eventually, the only place where it was legal to do martial arts was in the temples or in acting troupes. Many of the martial artists sought refuge in the Siu-Lum temple. It is rumored that the heir to the Ming throne also sought refuge in this temple. Be that as it may, at about this time the Ch'ing rulers began to get jealous of the Siu-Lum temple. One of the elders, a Taoist by the nickname of Pak-mei (White Eyebrow) betrayed the temple and it fell into the hands of the Ch'ings.

    For centuries after that, the martial arts were taught secretly or within families. To teach them openly was almost a declaration of treason. It was this attitude of secrecy that led to the closed-door approach. In the later Ch'ing dynasty, the teaching of the martial arts opened up considerably until it was finally opened completely in Hong Kong under the British rule.

    After the destruction of the Siu-Lum temple in the mid 1700s, the temple was rebuilt under close supervision of the Ch'ing emperor. It is doubtful that any martial arts were practiced in the temple at that time. The temple was again razed to the ground during the warlord period of the early 20th century. When the Kung Fu television series, envisioned by Bruce Lee and starring David Caradine, became popular in the 70s, many people from all around the world felt the need to make pilgrimages back to the birthplace of the martial arts. The Chinese government, therefore, rebuilt the temple and peopled it with martial artists from their acting companies. Most serious martial artists, however, had by this time fled Mainland China.