Legend Of Ip
Man
Our greatest grand master. Yip was born to Yip Oi-dor and Ng Shui, and was
the third of four children. He grew up in a wealthy family in Foshan, Guangdong,
and received a traditional Chinese education. His older brother was Yip Kai-gak,
his older sister was Yip Wan-mei and his younger sister was Yip Wan-hum. Yip
started learning Wing Chun from Chan Wah-shun when he was 13. Since Chan was 70
at the time, Yip was Chan’s last student. Due to his teacher’s age, Yip learned
most of his skills and techniques from Chan’s second oldest disciple: Ng
Chung-sok. Chan died three years after Yip’s training started and one of his
dying wishes was to have Ng continue teaching Yip. At the age of 15, Yip moved
to Hong Kong with help from his relative Leung Fut-ting.
One year later, he attended school at St. Stephen’s College — a secondary
school for wealthy families and foreigners living in Hong Kong. During Yip’s
time at St. Stephen’s, he saw a foreign police officer beating a woman and Yip
intervened.The officer attempted to attack Yip, but Yip struck him down and ran
to school with his classmate. Yip’s classmate later told an older man who lived
in his apartment block. The man met with Yip and asked what martial art Yip
practiced. The man told Yip that his forms were “not too great”. The man
challenged Yip’s Wing Chun against the man in chi sao (a form of training that
involves controlled attack and defence). Yip saw this as an opportunity to prove
that his abilities were good, but was defeated by the man after a few
strikes.
Yip’s opponent revealed himself to be Leung Bik, Chan Wah-shun’s senior and
son of Chan’s teacher, Leung Jan. After that encounter, Yip continued learning
from Leung Bik. Yip returned to Foshan when he was 24 and became a policeman. He
taught Wing Chun to several of his subordinates, friends and relatives, but did
not officially run a martial arts school. Some of his better known informal
students were Lok Yiu, Chow Kwong-yue, Kwok Fu, Lun Kah, Chan Chi-sun and Lui
Ying. Among them, Chow Kwong-yue was said to be the best, but he eventually went
into commerce and stopped practicing martial arts. Kwok Fu and Lun Kah went on
to teach students of their own and they passed down art of Wing Chun in the
Foshan and Guangdong region. Chan Chi-sun and Lui Ying went to Hong Kong later
but neither of them accepted any students. Yip went to live with Kwok Fu during
the Second Sino-Japanese War and only returned to Foshan after the war, where he
continued his career as a police officer. Yip left Foshan for Hong Kong in 1949
after the Communists established the People’s Republic of China on the Chinese
mainland. Life in Hong Kong Yip was known to be an opium addict, and he obtained
opium illegally from the black market. The cost of opium was considered high at
that time and Yip needed a dependable source of income to support his opium
smoking habit and his family members, who were still living in Foshan.
So he opened a martial arts school to teach Wing Chun. Initially, business
was poor because Yip’s students typically stayed for only a couple of months. He
moved his school twice: first to Castle Peak Road in Sham Shui Po and then to
Lee Tat Street in Yau Ma Tei. By then, some of his students had attained
proficiency in Wing Chun and they were able to start their own schools. Some of
his students and descendants sparred with other martial artists to compare their
skills and their victories helped to increase Yip’s reputation. In 1967, Yip and
some of his students established the Hong Kong Wing Chun Athletic Association
.
