Stories
about Yip Man’s unparalleled kung fu skills are widely known as well as stories
about how good teacher he was. Every year Yip Man and his skills become little
better although he died almost half a century ago. Every generation of students
add a little more to his legend, every year more stories appear about his
martial exploits. For many people Yip Man is much more than a man, he is a
deity they worship unconditionally. As it is often case among kung fu
practitioners very few people are able to think about Yip Man through the filer
of critical thinking and put him in a realistic context not only of the time
and culture he lived in but also in a context of an ordinary human being which has
proven to be an impossible task for majority of his followers.
So
let’s look Yip Man and his life through the lens of real historical evidence
and common sense that comes from critical thinking.
As
it was said Yip Man is today celebrated as one of the best kung fu fighters of
all times. Not only that, he was also regarded as an extraordinary teacher and
even full time philosopher and philanthropist. Sadly, non of this is true.
If
want to present only real, historically accurate and verifiable data about Yip
Man’s life we will find our self in the situation where we can offer very little
to nothing. Besides that Yip Man was born, lived and died in certain time frame
and that he had taught wing chun everything else is simply very hard to prove.
If
we start with Yip Man’s young age we find very hard to find out how long he
spent with his first teacher Chan Wah Shun. In older books we can find that he
started to practice wing chun when he was 13 or 14 and that he spent only 6
months with old teacher and then he continued to learn from Ng Chan So for less
than two years until he left to Hong Kong. In later years , time Yip Man spend
with Chan Wah Shun and age he started training was slowly changed and today’s “official
“ version written by Yip Chun, Yip Man’s son is that his father started
training when he was 9 and stayed with old teacher full 4 years. Training with
Ng Chan So didn;t change drastically in following years but from less than 2
years became full 2 years or 2,5 years according to different sources. All the
data we have about Yip Man’s young life and training come from his sons and
close students. Oral sources are the most unreliable sources of information and
this is a clear example why. Over time , “sources” felt uncomfortable with
their original claims and then changed them the best they could. Let’s admit ,
for most of people who spent decades to learn Yip Man’s style, his less than
two years training looked really inadequate. On the
other hand 6 and half years looks much better. Feeling that even that is not
enough, Yip Man or his students invented a story about Leung Bik to add more
time to his learning process and to find explanation for their claims of his superior
kung fu. Of course, it is impossible to prove Leung Bik was a real person and
even if he did exist( he did not but let’s assume he did for the moment), Leung
Bik would never teach Yip Man. Yip Man was no family, they didn’t have same
social circles and even if they did meet by some impossible odds , Leung Bik
would never invite Yip Man, nor anyone else to be his student, simply in China
of that period teachers could not invite anyone, students actually had to
request to be accepted . So when we
clean all the hype and outward lies about Yip Man’s learning period we can
conclude that he probably learned for about two years. Could he learn complete system in
two years? Probably yes because Wing Chun of that time was much simpler and had
much less content than today. What was the quality and level of his art? We
will never know, we have no recordings of his performance and we have no evidence
he had any fights. Of course there are a lot of “oral” evidence about how good
fighter he was but all those stories are just that, stories and they are fairly
exaggerated and hard to believe. For example the story when Yip Man supposedly
broke a revolver with his fingers. A weapon made to withstand pressures much
higher than any human can possibly achieve no matter what skill he posses was
broken by fingers of a fairly small man, it is simply physically impossible. Or
another story where Yip Man as police inspector engage a fight with a dangerous
criminal although he had a lot of police officers around him who cornered the
criminal and were ready to arrest him. All police operates by same basic
principles and only in the moves a brave inspector engage a fight where he can
be killed despite his fellow officers can apprehend the criminal with little to
no effort. No one in the right mind would do such a thing, no one would risk
his life if it is not really necessary, in this case if criminal would assault police
officers he would probably be killed, definitely not engage the fight with a
police inspector who had family, children and was extremely wealthy and would
be really stupid of him to risk his life. All stories about Yip Man’s supposed
fights are just like this, they have no support in reality , actually go
against common sense and on top of all we have no evidence these fights ever happened.
Yip
Man was extremely wealthy, belonged to the highest social circles and had good
connections everywhere. He simply had no need to put his life and his health in
danger, even more, wealthy Chinese people of the time would do anything to make
their life as comfortable as possible. Just as today we don’t see billionaires
like Bill Gates fight, people of same wealth and social status of the past did
not fight. That is why so many unbelievable stories were invented by Yip Man’s
students, to give him credibility as a kung fu master and teacher. Unfortunately,
invented by people who never fought , these stories have no support in reality
and later each new generation of students added a little more making these
stories a total opposite of what they suppose to be.
Everything about Yip Man and his life is exaggerated
to enormous proportion. Chinese culture allows to exaggerate things or even lie
in order to give “Face” to ancestors. In reality neither Yip Man nor Win Chun
have real historical significance . While other styles in republican period had
thousands of followers , Wing Chun didn’t have even 50 people all together in
period from 1911 to 1948. Wing Chun was completely unknown to outsiders , like
so many other styles and was not popular as people tend to believe today. Real
world is different from the orld of myths and legends. Having a successful kung
fu school at that period as a matter of political influence, connections and of
course money. Challenging a master from another school would probably result in
retaliation with serious consequences , we have several examples that happened
, the most famous case is Baji master Li Shu Wen who was poisoned because he
challenged and won over several other masters. People who had successful school
with many students had good political connections and also had been connected
to various lucrative businesses , not always completely legal , they were influential
ad dangerous people, challenging them would only bring troubles.
Let’s
not forget that Yip Man and other top wing chun names of that time were opium
addicts, like Ng Chan So and his students from Yiu family, Yuen Kai San…They
probably weren’t full time junkies , just recreational users bt still…using
heavy drug like opium definitely influence physical abilities and changes personality.
As
we can see Yip Man led quiet life of wealthy upper class and practiced his art
with other members of the same class. Wing Chun, as well other arts was not practiced
for practical purposes but as sign of prestige and wealth as well as a sign of
patriotism and national pride.
We can summarize Yip Man’s life before his
escape to Hong Kong in just one sentence, he led quiet, leisured life and
practiced kung fu because that was a fashion of the time.
After
communists took over Yip Man escaped to Macao leaving his family behind. He
gambled away all his family wealth and became basically homeless until friends
brought him to Hong Kong and gave him shelter. While this episode is mentioned
in his biography no one actually pay any attention on it but this actually
gives us great insight what kind of person Yip Man was. He left his family in a
situation where they could be killed any moment and he left alone with the
money he had. Instead to use that money to save his family he gambled all away
and then started to heavily use opium. Without other people who gave him food
and place to stay in Hong Kong he would probably die.
How
and why Yip Man started to teach Wing Chun?
It was out pure necessity, he hadn’t any real skills, he couldn’t do any
real job, not even work physical jobs because he was already too old and he
never worked hard before. Only option for him to survive was to sell kung fu
people willing to pay for it. During his life Yip Man was not well known nor
very popular teacher in Hong Kong, nor Wing Chun was respected and well known
style. In his 20 years long teaching career, Yip Man had around 200 students.
Other schools in that period had thousands of students. Yip Man became popular
after his death solely because he had connection to Bruce Lee. Wing Chun was
fairly unknown style even in Hong Kong until Bruce Lee died and kung fu craze
exploded aover the world. If Bruce Lee had practiced some other kung fu style
Yip Man would be forgotten today and his style would probably not exist
anymore.
Now,
let’s see what kind of teacher Yip Man was. We can see a great degree of
difference even the arts of his students. Most of them justify that by the
claim that Yip Man taught everyone differently according to his abilities and
understanding. While that may be the case there are so any variations and
differences in even basic principles and techniques. All other Wing Chun
lineages are pretty consistent over time, you can clearly tell what is Yuen Kai
San’s or Snake Crane Wing Chun by watching forms and basics, no matter of the particular
line of succession in given style everyone is doing same things , have same
forms , although training and application can vary, still it is clear what
style is in question. In case of Yip Man there are so many differences in
almost everything and to make things more interesting, those variations we can
find only with Yip Man’s direct students. Later generation follow the known
pattern of other styles so we can clearly say what is Leung Ting’s WT
or Wong Shun Leung ‘s style, they did not pass their styles the way they claim
Yip Man taught them.
Why
Yip Man taught different people differently is an open question. While claim
that he taught everyone according to his ability is valid, it is the fact that
most of the teachers are doing the same. It is also suspicious that different
students have different knowledge about same things. Either Yip Man taught completely
different styles to different people or he didn’t actually taught much. Second
is probably closer to the truth because according to Yip Man’s students he
would teach very little and then let students practice that for a long time,
just like “old times” teachers. For example, there is a certain lineage of Yip
Man’s style that is famous for their “advanced” kicking techniques. How they
became famous for that? Well, according to founder of that lineage Yip Man
payed him a visit one day and showed his some kicking techniques on wooden
dummy!!! ONE DAY, showed him something he base his style on in one visit,
seriously??!!! We can just from that example how little Yip Man actually showed
to his students. We can see that Yip Man’s
Wing Chun is much simpler than other styles and lack a lot of elements that can
be found in other styles. According to his own students Yip Man was an opium
user till the end of his life. While many followers praise Yip Man’s
simplification of the art as something positive and advance, the probable
reason behind that was no intention to modernize the art. Being a heavy drug
user he probably couldn’t remember all the things correctly and he taught what
he could remember at the particular point, that is why there are so many
differences among his students, he taught what he could remember at the certain
point and also was he in the mood to show more or less details. Many of his
students later being aware of enormous gaps in their knowledge supplement their
styles from other sources. For example Leung Ting learned from Sum Nung, Chu
Song Tin borrowed things from Tai Chi Chuan and Ba gua , William Cheung invented
his style him self , many of the students exchanged bits and pieces they got
from Yip Man to make their styles more
complete. No one stayed more than 3 years in Yip Man’s school ( although few
students claim differently, older sources show they changed their stories in
recent times). Even at slow pace Yip Man was teaching he didn’t have enough
material to teach for more than a three years. Later, styles developed to such
extent that Yip Man’s students have material to keep someone occupied for 20 or
more years, and that says a lot about them.
As
we can see Yip Man was not a fighter and he was not particularly good teacher
as well. His only accomplishment in the field of martial arts was a connection
to Bruce Lee. Generations of people were unfortunately cheated by learning
incomplete, watered down style without any real substance. Many became aware of
this fact and while no one wants to admit it publicly, more and more people
from Yip Man’s style are leaving that art and learning other , older, more
complete and more traditional Wing Chun styles.
