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Wing Chun is first and foremost a fighting art, one that was developed specifically for that purpose.  However, it’s roots lie in a history and culture containing a depth of knowledge and experience.   In seeking to move beyond using Wing Chun as a fighting tool, mastering Wing Chun can offer a path back to this wisdom, to self-realisation.

Wing Chun as a Fighting Technique

Unlike it’s more philosophical and spiritually minded Northern Style brother, Southern Style martial arts has a first and foremost focus on combat.   The job is simple – to hit the opponent.   This does not require any fancy spinning kicks, flying through the air looking like a dragon, or making noises like a bird.  This does not require spending the first years of training cultivating qi.  You just need to hit your opponent, keep hitting them and continue to hit them as quick and hard as possible so they do not get up again.

Wing Chun is quick to learn, requires no great strength or suppleness, is practical and fast – offering techniques that can be learned quickly and applied in a real fight.  Instead of using complicated sequences of moves, Wing Chun has a small vocabulary of simple moves which work in isolation and can be applied in hundreds of situations.  The sophistication within this fighting art comes from doing these simple things really well. It may not look impressive, but as a fighting art it is devastatingly effective.

This unrelenting focus on destroying your opponent as quickly and simply as possible is often a difficult one for new students looking to learn a martial art to take on board – yet one which makes sense when understood in the historical context from which Wing Chun was born.

The Historical Context of Wing Chun

We have Yip Man’s account of the origins of Wing Chun (See The History of Wing Chun page) to thank us for recognising that it was the Buddhist Abbess Ng Mui from the Siu Lam [Shaolin] Monastery of Mt. Sung that taught a functional combination of Shaolin style techniques to a young Wing Chun in order to protect herself from a local bully.   This story cannot be historically verified, yet it is strangely analogous with the historical socio-political context of its time.  The quick training of Wing Chun to defend herself against a bully is a perfect metaphor for the training the Shaolin Monks provided to the revolutionaries fighting the Ching Dynasty.

It was the burning of the Southern Shaolin Temple, in the Province of Fukien, that released Wing Chun to the revolutionary hotbed surrounding the Ching Dynasty.   The monks who survived helped promote the growth of three key fighting styles amongst revolutionary societies. Those styles were Crane, Hungar, and Wing Chun.

The challenge the monks faced was to employ the extensive knowledge of human physiology and animal fighting postures in the development of a fighting style centered around natural human motion.  In addition, the style had to lend itself to training revolutionaries in minimal time without many years of acrobatic and spiritual discipline.  Finally, the style needed to be accompanied by highly scientific training methods grounded in a system that could be replicated to production effective fighters in far less time than it took to train Imperial fighters in the Ching army.

The burning of the Southern Shaolin Temple represents a significant turning point in martial arts history.  For the first time in over 1,000 years, the teaching and spread of kung fu moved outside of the temple walls.  It was in these historical roots that the fighting system of Wing Chun was born – an effective and efficient martial art focused on combat but one developed from a culture and history deep in knowledge and understanding.

The Unique Nature of Wing Chun

It is often said that it is difficult to classify Wing Chun as either a hard or soft style of martial art.  It is generally accepted that Wing Chun sits in the middle as a soft-hard style relying on internal strength and explosive power.   This is because it draws on elements traditionally associated with both hard (external) and soft (internal) arts.   Wing Chun borrows elements from both to make the most compact, effective system – including direct explosive attacks and fighting application on the External side whilst including the coordinated use of the whole body to drive power through relaxation and softness on the Internal side.

Although the concepts and tools within the Wing Chun armoury are simple to grasp and use in a practical way against someone off the street, to become an effective fighter against someone trained in another martial art this requires the Wing Chun student to develop to the next level.  Anyone who trains in Wing Chun knows that having the elbow down will give protection against a street type punch, but equally so that having the elbow in the right place using the correct forces is critical against another Wing Chun practitioner – to the extent that a being a centimetre out of the correct position means your entire structure can be compromised.

In order to reach these higher level skills in Wing Chun means you have to be able to call upon both of the elements drawn from the hard and the soft styles.  In particular, power and speed come through relaxation and correct structure – these internal aspects do require the student to look within themselves, developing their physiological, psychological and neurological responses.  It is possible to instruct a student to hold themselves in the right position in terms of structurally keeping their elbows in, for example – but certain elements like relaxation and isolation of the shoulders do require the student to actively use their muscles in new ways.

What is clear from studying Wing Chun for over a decade, is that although it may be relatively easy to use as a martial art, it is difficult to master. Ng Mui is often referred to as saying that Wing Chun was intentionally distilled into a fighting art that could take 3-5 years to learn rather than the 10-15 years it took for her to learn Siu Lum Kung Fu – a comprehensive martial arts system, made up of multiple systems, that dates back over 1,500 years.

What is also clear, however, is that the depth of knowledge and understanding of the Shaolin monks is embedded in the concepts, principle and techniques of Wing Chun.  In seeking to master these, rather than just to use this in a fight, a pathway is opened up to the original higher learning and spiritual path of the Shaolin Monks.

Higher Learning in Wing Chun

Originally, practicing kung fu did not just mean to practice Chinese martial arts.   Generally it referred to any activity that lead to excellence achieved through a long period of practice.   In terms of Chinese martial arts this become associated with the process of training – strengthening of both the body and the mind.   This is certainly true of the Shaolin understanding of the essential unification of the development of both body and mind together – bringing together kung fu (the physical art) with Ch’an Buddism (the mind/spirit).

Anyone who has studied Wing Chun for a long period of time understands that, as a martial art, there is a deeper level of understanding and meaning that comes from its learning.   Although it is possible to train to a level in Wing Chun to be a good fighter, the very nature of the ‘Internal’ system means that to progress to the higher levels of mastery, that the student must pass through a path of self discovery and self realisation.

Here the Shaolin concept of training the mind and the body together must be understood and embraced in order for the student to attain higher levels of understanding and ability.  Understanding and developing qi, the alignment of the Dantian, diaphragmatic breathing, meditative practices are all a part of this higher learning.

For those looking to truly understand Wing Chun rather than just do Wing Chun, learning the art offers a world of introspective learning across many areas – including neurology, psychology, biology, anatomy, physics and more!  For example, understanding the anatomy of how to isolate the elevator scapulae muscle to avoid lifting the Bong-sau, understanding molecular biology of cross-bridge hatching in how the muscles expand and contract as part of the spring-force in the body, understanding the physiological response involved in the flight / fight response and how to bypass activation of the Autonomic Nervous System by the Hypothalamus amongst a great many more.

By applying its physical & mental insights Wing Chun can change from something you do, to something that is an essential part of who you are.   It can indeed become a way of living.    There comes a beautiful point, having trained body & mind in Wing Chun, where it merges with who you are, becoming an expression of yourself.

Here the wisdom, knowledge and experience that gave rise to the fighting art offers a structured path to find self realisation/self actualisation, which in turn connects us as one to all around us.  In this way, its training path moves beyond the the basic behavioural code of conduct towards the  Buddhist practical principles of self development and further towards the Taoist concepts of being at one with everything around us, key principles that underpin Chinese Kung Fu.

Conclusion

It is important to remember then that Wing Chun has a fundamentally different goal and different strategy for achieving this than pure internal martial arts, or those traditionally attuned to religious or spiritual paths.  It is intentionally small, compact, simple by design and intended to be a direct, unforgiving fighting art.  Attempting to deal with detailed internal aspects, philosophical, or spiritual elements from the outset would add unnecessary complexity, and detract for the essential beauty of this simple, effective system.   It is important not to loose sight of this – destroying an opponent is the name of the game in Wing Chun.

However, keeping this in mind, Wing Chun can indeed offer a positive route to discover new meaning in life, for those who are interested in stepping into higher areas of learning – the two are not mutually exclusive.  Instead, if we can recognise that Wing Chun is a compact fighting style born of a rich, deep history, experience and knowledge then we can embrace both.  In embracing both Wing Chun can indeed then offer a new practitioner the chance to become both a capable fighter, but also (in time) to move to a deeper path embracing learning into personal development and self-realisation.

As Ip Man once said  “A man should always think of the source of the water as he drinks it”.

Copyright @ Craig Sands 2014