Yip Kai Man: attempt of biography (part 1)

Yip Kai Man - 葉繼問

THE LEGEND IS BORN

Yip Kai Man (叶继 问 - in simplified characters: 叶继 问 - or Yè Ji Wen in Mandarin) was born in Fatshan (or Foshan) in the province of Kwantung (or Guangdong), into a wealthy merchant family, on 14 October 1893 (this is the year according to the son Yip Chun, while according to other sources, the year is 1895 or 1898) - on the website Wikipedia (English version) shows the date November 6, 1893 - under the Qing dynasty. This is the third of four children born from Yip Oi-dor and Ng Shui

At age 11, as Yip Man himself said in an interview, he began his apprenticeship in Weng Chun (with the character for "Eternal" as appearing on the Chan Wah Shun's grave) Kuen. Still today, Yip Man's sons say that he began the training when he was 9 years. His SiFu is the at least seventy years old Chan Wah Shun, the "money changers" (so called because of his work), who taught Weng Chun Kuen in the Hung Fa Yi form, transmitted by Leung Jan.
Chan Wah Shun had another nickname less graceful, "Ngau Chin-Wah", that is, 'Wah the Bull'. With the Lo Kwai, who worked as butcher and pork seller, he can be considered the best student of Dr. Leung Jan. From Yip Man we know that Chan Wah Shun admitted only 16 students to his teachings: Yip Man, in particular, studied with him in the last year of Chan Wah Shun's life, as the last student admitted, and particularly loved and followed.

Leung Ting, interestingly, says he got the same treatment in the last year of Yip Man's life, from whom he took many private lessons without - he said - any secret...

At that time were practicing with Yip Man, Ng Chung So (student and assistant principal of  Master Chan wah Shun), Ng Siu Lo (together with the previous one, it's said that he studied for 36 years with Chan Wah Shun, and they both were the Mater's first students), Lui Yiu Chai and others.

In 1905, Chan Wah Shun dies (Yip Man is 13), but just before, the Master asks Ng Chung So to help the young Yip Man to learn the all Weng Chun Kuen system.

From 1905 to 1907 Yip Man thus continues to learn, up to the 16 years from Ng Chung So. In that period also participated during the lessons Yuen Kai Shan (in a certain period, the families of Yuen Kai Shan and Yip Kai Man were living in the same house; some sources claim that they were relatives, given the great similarity between the two and because of the common surname, Kai. Yuen's father hosts the Yip family at his residence for a certain period (the house of Yip Man had been burned by some locals who were against the Yip Man's grandfather's trade of opium). During this period Yuen Chong Ming asked the son Yuen Kai Shan to teach the young Yip Man some Chi Sau, since the young Yip has not learned this from his teacher, Ng Chung So

 From sources Hung Fa Yi we know that Ng Chung So ask Yip Man to promise that he will not show anyone the footwork, teaching at most only hand techniques: this opinion takes more credibility if we see the forms with footwork shown by Sifu Tam Woon Biu of the Chan Wah Shun's lineage, for example, less static in comparison with the future Yip Man's Ving Tsun forms.
Due to the pressure from his father, Yuen decides to teach Yip some Chi Sau techniques, with the promise that Yip would never show this to his elder brothers of the Kwoon. Later, however, he will do that, defeating, thanks to the fluid movement of the legs, Yiu Choi (powerful Ng Chun So's and Yuen Chai Wan's student and also father and teacher of Yiu Kai) and other students.Yip Man interrupted his studies in Weng Chun in 1908, he moved to Hong Kong where he found an apartment with the help of a relative, Leung Fut Ting, and he went to study English, thanks to a scholarship in the St. Stephen College.

After 6 months of stay in college, and thanks to a fellow surnamed Lai, the young Yip Man met Leung Bik (whose on real existence the mystery still lingers), son of the late GM Leung Jan and his father's friend.

Leung Bik, fifty, expert in Wushu, in a first moment asks Yip Man if he has at least reached the Chum Kiu  level. Then, Leung Bik invites Yip Man to attack:, so Yip Man launches his attacks, but he is defeated several times, until Leung Bik reveals the truth: Yip Man has been defeated by the son of Leung Jan, a great expert of Weng Chun. Yip Man immediately becomes a student, learning from him for a little less than four years, until 1913.

Leung Bik, then, goes back to Fatshan, tired of Hong Kong, while Yip Man remains in Hong Kong. According to this story, Yip man studied and learned Wing Chun in 13 years, including at least 8 years spent as a child/teenager (strange event, but in China at that time, who knows ..)!

Apart from some recent proofs which have to be still verified in China, we know Leung Bik only by the interview given by Yip Man in 1968 at the New Martial Hero magazine. Mok Pui On, reporter of this magazine, was a student of the Weng Chun GM Chu Chung Man. No other interviews, he always refused. Someone compares Leung Bik, more didactic and skilled but less strong in the fight than Chan Wah Shun (from here the story that Leung Jan didn't want to allow Chang Wah Shun to be stronger than his own sons, and so he taught Chan Wah Shun some kind of modified Weng Chun, as told to us by GM William Cheung). The same Yip Man, before this interview, never mentioned Leung Bik (notice that the only document written by Yip Man in which he says "Always to thank the source from which we drink" starts with a list of all his teachers, including Sihing a little older, but "accidentally" Yip Man forgets a certain Leung Bik who should be the greatest meeting in his Weng Chun development).

 The interview to the New Martial Hero marks the distinction between Ving Tsun and Weng Chun, because it prevents Yip Man to go to the Dai Duk Lan (a poultry market owned by Wai Yan, of the Lo Family Weng Chun, in which many Weng Chun Masters, as well as others well known Masters ), becauase Yip Man was guilty, for them, for contaminating Weng Chun with his previous learning, and also for exploiting and teaching to the mass what he learned at Dai duk Lan. But later, in front of Leung Ting, who had arranged  the interview with Mok Pui On, Yip Man makes fun of Mok Pui On, who had said that he was not able to implement some techniques taught by Chu Chung Man, despite he had been learning Weng Chun for 13 years (perhaps to make clear to Yip Man that if he didn't know the system after 13 years, how Yip Man could teach it?). Absent Mok Pui On, Yip Man makes Leung Ting to understand that somehow those things that Mok Pui On spoke about, he already mastered and taught (without 13 years of practice under Chu Chung Man).  

Other students of Yip Man, however, said that the Leung Bik story was just a story created by a friend of Yip Man, Lee Man, for promotional purposes, and that Yip Man refined his skills through hard work and personal insights in Foshan. There are also stories of how Yip Man had trainings with friends like Chu Chung Man, Cho On and Yuen Kai Shan...


(continues...)