Usually I’m not a big fan of martial arts, despite studying Tae Kwon Do during my grade school days as a form of self defense, but last night by the time of writing, I got to see the latest (and according to the timeline, the final) installment of the Ip Man movie series, titled Ip Man 4: The Finale. The movie itself features Donnie Yen playing as a calm and composed title character who is a Wing Chun grandmaster. At first, the name Ip Man (or Yip Man, it’s all depending on the spelling) doesn’t really ring any bells, but after finding out that one of his students was the legendary Bruce Lee, I have to figure out who this man was.
Ip Man was born into a wealthy family in Foshan, Guangdong Province, China on October 1st1893. During his childhood, presumably around 9 to 13 years of age, he began studying Wing Chun (literally translates to “eternal spring” or “beautiful spring”), which is a form of Chinese martial arts (under the umbrella term Kung Fu) that mainly focuses on speed and relaxation favoring close range combat, which primarily targets vital points of the body. He once worked as a Police officer in his hometown of Foshan after a brief stint in Hong Kong attending secondary school, while at the same time, despite not running a martial arts school officially, he taught the Wing Chun martial arts to some of his subordinates at the Police Force. Two of his informal students, Kwok Fu and Lun Kah eventually went on to teach their master’s style of Wing Chun to their own students across the Foshan and Guangdong region. Master Ip even lived with the former during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and returned to Foshan and his career as a Police Officer.
Master Ip moved to Hong Kong with his family (mainly his wife, Cheung Wing-sing and daughter Ip Nga-sum) in 1950. His Wing Chun School in Hong Kong had a rocky start, with most of the students typically stayed for a couple of months. Between late 1956 and 1957, Master Ip accepted the 16 year-old Bruce Lee into his school, after losing a fight to rival gang members. This is due to Bruce’s frequent involvement into fights. In 1967, Master Ip along with some of his students established the Wing Chun Athletic Association. Surprisingly, he did this to cover his economical difficulties, due to his regular use of opium, according to one of his students’ claim. The association itself is still exist today. Master Ip died at the age of 79 on December 2nd1972, creating a seven-month gap between his death and Bruce Lee’s death on July 20th1973. He suffered from throat cancer.
When you talk about the legacy that Master Ip left behind, I have to mention one big step that he made besides making Bruce Lee his own student. He was the first Wing Chun grandmaster to document all the teachings and movements of Wing Chun on video, while Bruce did it in the form of writing. Master Ip decided to film the movements out of fear that when he died, the students would adopt the wrong system of the martial art form. He was also the first Chinese martial arts practitioner to accept a non-Chinese student (Bruce was a mixed heritage), thus making him the first grandmaster to made Wing Chun public. This move was considered as an act of deviation, and many of Master Ip’s students refused to train with Bruce, all because of a fact that he is not a full Chinese. Bruce later introduced this style to the American public, as well as developed his own Jeet Kune Do style Kung Fu, which he viewed as “the style of no style.” According to Bruce himself, this style is developed to suit the chaotic street fight environment, as he viewed that the traditional martial arts as “too rigid.” Master Ip practically wrote the history of Wing Chun to the wider public. The establishment of the Ip Man Museum on the Foshan Ancestral Temple Grounds further immortalized his life, with many artifacts of his life are on display. Many movies were made to include the witty grandmaster, mainly ones like Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and The Legend of Bruce Lee, both based on his student’s life. The first Ip Manmovie was the first movie to be based on the life of the grandmaster himself. This then expanded to four main feature films and a spin-off. Hong Kong actor/martial artist Donnie Yen (who is also a Wing Chun practitioner himself) portrayed him in all four main movies.
What began as a form of self-defense, Chinese Kung Fu is now the most practiced form of martial arts alongside Karate from Japan. With so many known practitioners of many styles of this ancient art, this is also one form of martial arts recognized as a full body contact sport, although only contested as demonstration sport at the Olympic level. From names like Jackie Chan, Cung Le, Donnie Yen, and the legend Bruce Lee himself, none of them would be at the level that they are today if it wasn’t for Master Ip Man. And I’ll end this by saying that no matter who we are, it is our cultural heritage and our ways of life that makes us what we are today, and one should not lose grip of his/her own identity. Embrace your culture to fully embrace yourself.
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