Wing Chun trivia: This lethal kungfu style was invented by a woman

Students go to Sam Lau’s Hong Kong studio – some from as far away as Italy – to hone their moves in the kung fu style called wing chun, which is on the rise again decades after the death of its most famous follower, Bruce Lee.

Many also credit wing chun’s renewed popularity to a series of films about Yip Man, one of the art’s greatest “sifus", or teachers.

Lau, 64, was once Yip’s assistant and is now a sifu in his own right with over 1,000 students. He says that wing chun appeals to a broad range of students because of its emphasis on cunning and focus rather than brute force.

Legend has it, that a young woman in southern China during the Qing dynasty, Yim Wing Chun, had used techniques taught to her by a nun to overcome a local warlord trying to trap her into marriage.

Yip Man brought her art to Hong Kong and, through Bruce Lee and the heyday of Hong Kong film, to the attention of the world.

“A lady in a dangerous situation can do something very serious, very fierce – attack the eye, the chin, the neck – wing chun is real fighting, real defence that relies on your technique,” Lau said.

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