When Lee Shing came from Hong Kong to London in 1955 he was sent as the ambassador for the Yip Man Athletic Association. Prior to this he had opened his own school of wing chun in Hong Kong with the blessing and the opening by grandmaster yip man. This is so long ago but unfortunately these monumental moments in modern wing chun history have been largely forgotten and I say for some deliberately so for many commercial and egotistical reasons.
In any of them Lee went onto propagate the first generation of Chinese wing chun instructors in London/England in the 1960s and 70s. He also continued with the legacy of grandmaster yip by maintaining a very secretive opening “closed door“ “approach to his teaching and no non-Chinese were allowed to take part in these classes.
The world was a very different time. We’re now talking well over 50 years ago, this is something that the modern generation of wing chun practitioners probably cannot even conceive. Nevertheless, it is the accurate history of the birth of wing chun in Europe which started in London and propagated out the cross to Europe.
Many of the famous early karate practitioners such as Terry O’Neal and Steve Morris also sort out and trained in this art with Joseph Cheng who went onto become the sultan of Brunei bodyguard.
Such of now long since become legend in the UK wing chun archives and only those of the older generation even though of such wing chun royalty.
This photograph is very important , especially for those that know , it shows Lee Shing with a young Yip Chun. Lee played host to Yip Chun when he first came to the U.K. and obviously contributed to propagate and promote the system of wing chun popularised in Hong Kong by his late father.
At 108 wing chun we continue to honour and promote this legacy and these teachings in our traditional wing chun program which is unsurpassed by any other in terms of knowledge, lineage and history.
If you are genuinely interested in learning from a source as close to the origin as possible, then why not get in touch and book a lesson?
#wingchun #yipman #london #martialarts #wingchung #vingtsun #kungfu #sidcup #chislehurst #bromley #brucelee
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