Who Was Yim Wing Chun?
[38] Several Xenites compared Xena to Yim Wing Chun, and expressed an interest in the story of Yim Wing Chun and her fighting style. Here is the story of Yim Wing Chun as I learned it from grandmaster William Cheung. [39] In the early 1700’s the Manchu destroyed one of the Shao Lin (also called Sil Lum, or, in Japanese, Shorin) temples. Of the five great masters at that temple, only one escaped, the nun Ng Mui. These masters had refined the preying mantis system to make it more efficient against the linear kung fu styles. (I am familiar with seven star preying mantis, some of the southern styles are radically different, but you can see the rudiments of the Wing Chun techniques.) Ng Mui is considered the founder of many kung fu styles. The hall they met in to develop the style was named Wing Chun hall (beautiful springtime) in the hope that it would usher in a new renaissance in Shaolin martial art instruction. Ng Mui spent some time on the run from the Manchus. She hid in the nunnery o
