Ip Man lived from 1893 to 1972. In the city of Foshan, in China, he learned from a teacher called Chan Wah-shun. Later, in Hong Kong, he learned from another teacher, Leung Bik. 6,7
A new start
After 1949 many kung fu teachers moved to Hong Kong, which Britain then ruled. 1,6,7 Ip Man arrived there in 1949 or 1950, and he began teaching in the early 1950s. 6,7
What Wing Chun students learn
Wing Chun beginners usually start with , little idea, a form done standing still. 6,102 Students practise , sticky hands, keeping their arms touching a partner's, to feel every movement. 6 They train on the , the wooden dummy. 6 Most Wing Chun schools have six forms: three empty hand forms, the wooden dummy form, a long pole and a pair of butterfly swords, usually learned last. 6,103
The students
Ip Man's students included Bruce Lee, Wong Shun-leung, Leung Ting, and his own sons, Ip Chun and Ip Ching. 6,7 Today the spelling of the name often shows whose line a school follows: Ving Tsun for Ip Man's line as his association uses it, Wing Tsun for Leung Ting's. 6 In 1967, or 1968 in another account, Ip Man and his students founded the Ving Tsun Athletic Association in Hong Kong. 6,7
Before he died in 1972, Ip Man was filmed doing his forms, and the film was left to his sons. 6,7
Samuel Kwok, a Wing Chun teacher in Ip Man's line, gives Ip Man's code for students, as displayed at the Ving Tsun Athletic Association: be disciplined and courteous, avoid fights, and help the weak. 103
A film star
Bruce Lee lived from 1940 to 1973. He starred in The Big Boss in 1971 and Enter the Dragon in 1973, which came out six days after he died. 16 His films helped start the first wave of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West, in the 1970s. 2
Films about Ip Man himself came much later, from 2008, and they change parts of his life to make a better story. 6,7,16 In a real class, your , your teacher, shows you the real thing.
The next chapter is about the teachers who brought kung fu to Britain.