What is Wing Chun ?

Wing Chun is a Southern Chinese Kung Fu system which was developed around 300 years ago.
The system is characterized by its usage of close range striking/sticking methods and its lack of "flowery" techniques.
Wing Chun remained a mysterious and elusive art in the West until the explosion of the Bruce Lee phenomanon onto the martial arts world. Lees first system (and his base art for his "Jun Fan Gung Fu") was Wing Chun as taught to him by Grandmaster Yip Man.

Bruce Lee training chi sao with Grand Master Yip Man.

The origins of the art are shrouded in mystery, the most popular being that the Nun, Ng Mui (one of the 5 surviving Shaolin elders) witnessed a fight between a snake and a white crane and subsequently decided to base a system of self protection based on what she already knew (Shaolin) and on the principles she'd witnessed during the fight.

In truth it is highly unlikely that only one person devised Wing Chun and that the system was probably created by a number of individuals - the core aim being to come up with a stripped back fighting system which could be learnt in a few years and perhaps mastered after diligant study in a few more years. This is in stark contrast to many of the established kung fu systems of the time.

Systems like Mantis,Choy Li Fut, Hung Gar for example contain dozens of forms, drills,weapons sets and took many years just for a student to learn the basic syllabus before being able to make their arts functional. In this respect Wing Chun has only 6 forms in total.
Wing Chun is an excellent system for street self protection and our system (Chu Sau Lei) has been proven even in NHB (no holds barred) tournaments.
It doesnt require lightning fast reflexes or the practitioner to be super flexible
It doesnt require the practitioner to be muscle bound and rely on brute strength
Wing Chun uses scientific principles and utilizes strategy, technique and the students natural body structure to deal with assaults.