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Brief History:

Wing Chun (also known as Wing Tsun, Ving Chun or Ving Tsun) is one of the most popular types of Chinese martial arts. Though it’s basically an unarmed combat technique, Wing Chun may include weapons as part of its course. The origin of Wing Chun can be traced back to China, but the real history of its creation has long been a topic of much debate. The most credible suggestion regarding the origin of Wing Chun dates back to 1700 AD in the Henan Shaolin Monastery.

When the Qing forces raided and ravaged the Southern Shaolin temple, a nun named Ng Mui fled to the distant Daliang Mountains, the only survivor. Ng Mui already had knowledge of Kung Fu in the Shaolin temple, which she assimilated with a new form she had learnt while observing a battle between a snake and a crane. She taught this new combat style to her adopted daughter whom she named Yimm Wing Chun. The new system was refined and then passed on from generation to generation, and was eventually named Wing Chun, after Yimm.

The modernization of Wing Chun started in Hong Kong during the 1950s under a Grandmaster called Yip Man. The discipline began to gain real popularity in Asia and the West when actor Bruce Lee became one of the most famous Wing Chun practitioners.

The Concept of Wing Chun:

Wing Chun is based on three basic principles – Practicality, Efficiency and Economy of Movement.

1. Practicality: Techniques such as Palm-up Hand (tan sau), Wing Arm (bong sau), Slapping Hand (pak sau) are designed to maim the most sensitive or vulnerable parts of the opponent’s body such as throat, groin, eyes and lower torso. Many movements and techniques in Wing Chun are often meant to be fatal.

2. Efficiency: Wing Chun does not use force against force, in order to gain the most efficient manipulation of the body’s energy. It believes in accurately timed and appropriately positioned little movements, and counter-attack is based on the opponent’s own force. This concept is also called Contact Reflexes.
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Just about everyone knows about the popular martial arts, such as Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu and Tai Chi…some people have even thought about trying out a class. Bt have you ever actually done it? Do you need a reason?

Just about everyone has thought about taking up a martial art at some point in time. Maybe as another way to stay in shape. Possibly as a means to protect yourself from the school bully. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of reasons why people choose to take up an art, but I want to take a second to outline what I feel are the most important reasons to at least try a martial art. Maybe it’s for yourself, maybe it’s for your children…whatever the reason, all martial arts contain a unique wealth of knowledge and discipline that you simply can’t get anywhere else. My hope is that this article will inspire you to get out of your chair and into a school to see what martial arts is all about.

Self Confidence
As you train in martial arts, you will notice a lot if improvements, such as your physique, balance, awareness, flexibility, and many other physical and mental characteristics. Martial Arts will teach you how to combine these capabilities and use them to succeed in competitions, attaining higher belts, building friendships and protecting yourself if necessary. The more you can do, the more confident you will be.

Self Defense
One of the most common reasons to study martial arts is to learn how to defend one’s self. A number of schools may dedicate class time and/or offer a scheduled class that strictly goes over self defense tactics. Also, depending on the MA style or school, self defense can be a large part of the curriculum, which can be beneficial to those interested in “applicable arts” (arts you can use in everyday life) as opposed to “traditional arts”.

Self Discipline
Webster defines self-discipline as the “correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement”. Whether it be trying to make a high school team or meeting company deadlines, once you learn the focus necessary to succeed in Martial Arts you can apply it to the rest of your life. Success is mental, and Martial Arts will teach you the self discipline necessary to succeed at anything you put your mind to.
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Qigong is a general name for the systems of hardening and improvement of body and mind, treatment and health enhancement created in China. They primarily based on the ability to control your own consciousness, mentality and through them all the physiological processes of the organism. Practicing Qigong you can achieve stunning results some of which even the powerful modern science cannot conceive and explain.

There are three main categories of Qigong: Health-improving, Fighting and Mystical.

1. It was Chinese physicians who developed and evolved the Health-improving Qigong during many centuries. They created special exercises aimed to preserve and promote health as well as to cure various diseases.

2. Fighting (or Hard) Qigong was developed by those practitioners of Qigong who at the same time were masters of martial arts. These exercises serve to enhance the energy concentration in muscles and other parts of the body allowing to hugely increase the bodily strength and its resistance against the attempts to cause it a physical injury.

3. Mystical Qigong is a child of Buddhist monks and Taosian anchorites. The goal of Mystical Qigong consists in achieving the so called Enlightenment – a special psychophysical state of the human being. Taosian anchorites also developed methods of anti-aging based on Mystical Qigong. Mystical Qigong is the most difficult to master.

Qigong is not only the art of Qi energy control; it trains the mind and helps to work out the ability to control your volitional impulse. Qigong techniques include a huge variety of exercises but they all consist of the three main parts: control of position, control of breath, and control of mind.

Controlling his position, a man can acquire some optimal posture of body which would allow Qi to flow in the organism without delays or blockages not causing any disturbing feelings and removing diseases. The exercises are mostly performed in common stands, for example, in the Rider’s stance.

You need to control your breath to let the external Qi (from the air) not only to pass mechanically into the internal state but to spread along energy channels, fully feeding all the organs.

Consciousness is crucial in breath control; it distributes Qi along the body. At the highest stage, the breath is controlled at the level of subconsciousness and do not require too much of your attention.

Step by step learning to control his energy resources, a practitioner will pass from using the physical strength (Li) to the internal burst of effort (Tsin). This internal effort, as Chinese masters believe, is produced not by muscles but in tendons and marrow.

This is the reason why the most of Kung Fu exercises aimed not to increase the mass of muscles but to strengthen tendons and bones. While muscles tend to loose their strength (Li) as the man grows older, masters preserve their internal effort (Tsin) until great age. That’s why Chinese masters of Kung Fu say: “If you do not practice Fighting Qigong but train only your physical strength you’ll be left with nothing when you grow old enough.”
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According to the FBI, four women die everyday as a result of domestic violence and about 130,000 women report that they’ve been victims of rape or attempted rape annually. Because of statistics like this, many women enroll in self-defense classes to learn the skills they need to defend themselves.

The thing is, a short-term self-defense class may not address all of the areas you need to be able to fully defend yourself. While martial arts classes won’t specifically train you for combat and fighting, they will give you the ability to defend yourself if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to practice self-defense. The best part is that this self-defense isn’t always physical. What most people don’t know is that in a good martial arts class you’ll learn a variety of skills to help you gain the awareness, peace and physical conditioning you need to be a stronger person, in all aspects of your life.

Confidence. All the physical defense skills in the world won’t help if you don’t have the confidence needed to use them. That’s the beauty of martial arts training. In order to successfully train a martial art, you need to have your mind and body in tune with one another. This self-awareness gives you the confidence your need to control and defend yourself if needed. You’ll be able to handle everyday and extraordinary situations without losing your temper. You’ll be able to stand your ground. You’ll appear to be (and will be) more confident – and people who appear to be confident are less likely to be the victims of violence because they don’t look like “easy targets”.

Focus and Awareness. While training martial arts, you need to focus and concentrate on what you are doing so that you don’t injure yourself or those around you. This focus and concentration carries over into other aspects of your life as well. Soon, you’ll find yourself better able to concentrate on work, school and home. You’ll even find yourself being more aware of your surroundings which can help you avoid potentially harmful or violent situations.

Peace. Training martial arts will also give you an inner peace that can change your life. First of all, to effectively train martial arts, your workout will always be changing. You’ll never get bored with your workout because it will always be challenging to your abilities (both physical and mental). In addition to that, training martial arts is a great stress reducer. You probably already know that regular physical exercise can reduce physical stress, but what you don’t know is that martial arts go one step further to reduce emotional stress as well. Activities such as martial arts that require you concentrate on your movements and your core strength can give you full stress relief in one activity.
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