KUNG FU - YIP MAN 5

Strength of the Wing Chun Stance

During his time as the chief of police of Futshan, it happened once when Yip Man was having a chat about Kung Fu with some of his subordinates. In his enthusiasm, he took up the Wing Chun stance 'Yee Chi Kim Yeung Ma' and invited four strong men to pull his legs apart, two on each leg. To their surprise, no matter how hard they pulled, they could not cause the slightest movement of Yip Man's legs.

Display of Kicking Power

It was recalled by one of the retired detectives of Yip Man's squad that he once witnessed Yip Man's amazing strength. The story goes that one day Yip Man was leading his squad in hunting down a gang of robbers. They arrived at a large farmyard, where the robbers were suspected to be hiding. In front of the main door of the farmhouse there was a gate made of fir trunks as thick as a man's arm. It was extraordinarily strong and compact. Yip Man seeing that the gate was under lock and chain, realised that the robbers had made use of it to stop Yip Man and his team. They were not carrying any tools with them, so Yip Man, without further thought, gave the gate a kick which was powerful enough to break instantly four of the fir trunks forming the gate. They were then able to break into the farmhouse and arrest the robbers.

In Pursuit of a Robber

Once, Yip Man was chasing a thief who had just ascended to the flat roof of a house by means of the inside stairway. When Yip Man came up onto the roof, the thief had already jumped over the parapet to the roof of the neighbouring house, which was quite close, and was about to go down the staircase from the roof of that house. Yip Man risking his life rather than allowing the thief to escape, followed suit by jumping over the space between the two roofs. The thief, seeing that Yip Man was hard after him, suddenly slammed the door of the roof stairway towards Yip Man, who had just landed in front of it. This scared all those who were watching him as the door might force him to fall back and Yip Man would fall off the ledge of the roof. But they were wrong, for Yip Man's upper body only slightly swayed backwards and he was able to retain his balance. After this, the people of Futshan were even more convinced of Yip Man's competence in Kung Fu.
The people of Futshan had very high regards for Yip Man's Kung Fu skills, but he had never the slightest thought of teaching his skills to anyone, always keeping the commandment of Wing Chun Kuen, that ‘to spread it is in contrast to the wishes of the founder’. He used to think that Wing Chun Kuen was a deadly form of martial art. The more he knew of the profundity of Wing Chun Kuen, the more he admired it as an art of self defense. That was why he never imagined that he would one day become an instructor of this art.

In 1937 following the invasion of China by the Japanese Imperial Army, Yip Man's fame soon reached the ears of the Japanese soldiers and he was offered several invitations to train the Japanese troops. But due to his nationalistic feelings and a hatred towards the invaders, he refused to be used by the Japanese Government. Because of this, his family wealth was confiscated and Yip's fortunes changed radically. Luckily one of his good friends gave him financial support from time to time. In order to repay his friend's kindness, Yip Man accepted his son as a student. From 1941 to 1943 he taught Wing Chun Kuen in Luen Cheung Cotton Mill at Wing On Road to a couple of people. During this time his wife became terminally ill and soon passed away and Yip Man was left alone to raise his two sons and two daughters. Yip Man continued in this manner until 1949.

Return to Hong Kong

When the communists took over China, they began to persecute the wealthy and influential and anyone connected to the Kuomintang, the political party of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the first president of the Republic of China. Yip Man felt forced to flee mainland China, abandoned his family and fortune to seek sanctuary off-shore and returned to British-occupied Hong Kong after a short stay in Macao with some friends who owned a bird shop, reaching Hong Kong alone and destitute, facing certain poverty. What made it very difficult for Yip Man to find a suitable job, was his unusual temperament and pride, coupled with the fact that he was from a wealthy family. Therefore he had to be content with living in relative poverty. However, Yip Man quickly fell back on his martial arts expertise to earn a living. He decided to break with the Wing Chun Kuen tradition of limiting instruction to a select few and started teaching members of the Restaurant Workers Union.
According to Lok Yiu, the second most senior student of Yip Man in Hong Kong, this happened in the following way:

Among the staff members of this Union, there were Leung Sheung, Lok Yiu and Lau Ming who were all Chinese martial arts enthusiasts. The secretary, Tsui Fung, worked with the newspaper 'Sing Pao Daily News', and did not have enough time to handle the business of the association. So Lee Man was employed as an extra helper in assisting with the Association's daily affairs. Lee Man often did the 'Huen-Sao' movement. Leung Sheung recognized this as a basic movement of Wing Chun Kung Fu, because he had once learnt some other Wing Chun style and therefore knew something about this particular system. He asked Lee Man if he too had learnt Wing Chun Kuen before. There and then Lee Man related stories of the deeds of Yip Man and everyone present got very much interested. Lee Man then brought Yip Man to the Association after work was done for the day. Leung Sheung was teaching martial arts to a group of people. Leung Sheung was an expert in Dragon style, Choy Lee Fut and White Eyebrow style. Yip Man was quietly observing but when asked about his opinion, he started to make fun of Leung Sheung's martial skills and told him that it was more or less useless. Leung Sheung wasn't convinced at first just listening to Yip Man explaining the principles of Wing Chun Kuen, but when Yip Man had no problem handling Leung Sheung who was 190 pounds and 5 feet and 11 inches tall, which is big for a Chinese person while Yip Man was only about 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighted about 125 pounds, then Yip Man won everybody's admiration for his Wing Chun skills. After a great deal of persuasion, Yip Man finally accepted the post of Kung Fu instructor of the Restaurant Workers Union.
At first, members of the Association did not pay much attention to Yip Man, nor did they have much regard for what he was teaching, as Wing Chun Kung Fu, unlike the ‘long bridges and wide stances’ of other Kung Fu styles, was not very attractive at first sight. Besides, Yip Man, like his own masters, did not wish to boast about his skills, not to mention taking part in public displays. That is why Wing Chun Kung Fu was not well known at that time.

Development of Wing Chun Kuen in Hong Kong

After two years of serving as the instructor for the Restaurant Workers Union of Hong Kong, where he had only a few students, he opened his own training hall in the district of Yaumatei in Kowloon. Many of his early students, who had followed him over the past two years also came to the new location and lent a helping hand in teaching Wing Chun Kuen. It was then that this new Kung Fu style started to draw the attention of Kung Fu enthusiasts from all over Hong Kong. Later, when more and more students came to the classes, he had to move his gymnasium to a larger site. Yip Man's fame, which ran fast, and the practical value of Wing Chun Kuen were especially admired by members of the police force of which more and more attended the classes.
From the time, Yip Man started to teach Wing Chun Kuen in Hong Kong around May 1950 until his retirement 20 years later, he attracted many students. There were many challenge fights by the Wing Chun students to the other Kung Fu styles to test their fighting abilities. These were bare-handed, no-rules fights, called either 'Kuo-Sao' or 'Beimo', and were mostly held in the back alleys of Hong Kong or on rooftops of apartment buildings. On some occasions, the challenging parties even invited journalists to document the fights. It was mostly through these matches that the fame of Wing Chun Kuen started to spread as a practical, efficient and no-nonsense martial art style which actually delivered results.

Final Years

In 1970 Yip Man officially retired from teaching at the gymnasium and enjoyed a leisurely life, going for tea in the afternoons and dining out in the evenings with friends and students. But he still was giving private lessons by appointment at his home though. In 1972, however, a medical check-up revealed that he was suffering from throat-cancer, which had stripped him of his physical strength.
That was also the time, when he decided - just a couple of weeks or 10 days (depending on the source one wants to believe) before his death - to have the 'Wooden Dummy techniques' committed to 8 mm film, so as to leave the correct dummy techniques for posterity. When watching the uncut version of this film, one can clearly see that Yip Man was using the last ounce of his strength to have his dummy techniques filmed. During this time, he still kept on going to the tea-house or dining out in the evenings with his disciples.
However, when his condition worsened, he was at once admitted to the hospital and finally succumbed to this fatal disease on December 2nd, 1972.