KOVILJAC WING CHUN

There are many people claiming to teach Wing Chun, and as many different "versions" of Wing Chun as there are teachers, or so it seems. The reasons for these variations are many and complex, one factor which immediately springs to mind being that there are at least three or four different systems of Chinese boxing which take the name Wing Chun (though the Chinese characters may differ). At least two of these appear to have originated in or around the city of Fatsaan (Foshan in the Mandarin dialect), the southern Chinese city where Grandmaster Yip Man of the Hong Kong-style first studied the system under his teacher, Chan Wa Sun, who in turn had learnt from the most celebrated of Wing Chun "ancestors", Leung Jan, the undefeated "King of Wing Chun", a man who was very protective when it came to passing on his skills.
Herein lies just one of the many causes of today's confusion, that Leung Jan in fact seems to have taught two interpretations of the same art, one to his own sons (whom he hoped would inherit and pass on his skills), and a somewhat less sop...histicated method to "Chan the money-changer", the man under whom Grandmaster Yip Man began his Wing Chun training. If we are to believe the stories handed down through history concerning Leung Jan and his attitude to teaching "outsiders", it is fair to assume that Leung (who was an intelligent, educated man) did in fact "simplify things" for his not so bright, but physically powerful student Chan, who was a far more gifted fighter than he was a thinking man. What Chan learnt and made use of was a cruder, less sophisticated, but nevertheless very effective form of Wing Chun.

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