The teachings emphasise

virtue and morality in government, righteousness, respect within families, and proper conduct in social situations. Elaborate and lengthy rules for conduct in social situations typify the teachings. Undoubtedly the etiquette we practise in the Kung Fu school derives a great deal from the teachings of Confucius. But also we must consider the moral environment under which such skills are taught, and the emphasis place on the correct image of the martial arts and the proper conduct and discipline of its exponents in daily life.
Confucius is also thought by many historians to have written lengthy commentaries on the I Ching, or Book of Changes. Indeed, some believe him to be the author of the I Ching itself. On the other hand, there is no indisputable evidence that he actually wrote any of the texts attributed to him, and their authorship remains a hot topic in historical circles.

Confucianism

Unlike Taoism and Buddhism, which advocate detachment from the mundane ways of the social world and attuning one's spirit with loftier principles, Confucianism wholeheartedly embraces human relationships, social structures, and commerce. It concerns itself with standards of social behaviour, morals and virtues in copious low level detail, contrasting again with the principles and truths of Buddhism and Taoism, which are small in number but transcendental in scope.
The teachings of Confucius are set down in a number of classic texts, most notably the Spring and Autumn annals and the Analects of Confucius, the latter being a large collection of aphorisms on all aspects of life, including government, politics, morals, and religion.

• Liberation from suffering is possible, by renouncing desire, attachment, and the illusion of self, stepping off the wheel of Samsara and entering the state of Nirvana.
• A way exists to attain this liberation and the state of Nirvana - called the Eightfold Path.
Its eight aspects are:
• Right view - seeing the world and ourselves as they really are, abandoning expectations, hope, and fear, viewing life simply, without prejudice.
• Right intention - If we can abandon our expectations, our hopes and fears, we no longer need to attempt to coerce or manipulate others to meet our expectations of the way things should be. We work with what is. Our intentions are pure.
• Right speech - if our intentions are pure, we need not be guarded about our speech. We need not lie, bluff, or put on airs and graces in an attempt to impress or manipulate. We say what is necessary, simply and genuinely.
• Right discipline - we need to renounce our tendency to complicate issues. We have a simple straight-forward relationship with our job, our house and our family. We give up all the unnecessary and frivolous complications which complicate our lives and relationships, practising simplicity.
• Right livelihood - we should earn our living, and perform our jobs properly, with attention to detail. We look for a simple relationship with our work, dispensing with the image or social status with which our profession may be regarded in society. Our work is important, and we must form a simple honest relationship with it, not allow it to define us.
• Right effort - we approach spiritual training not as a struggle, with evil inside ourselves which must be conquered, but with simple, constant practice. We work with things and ourselves as they are, not as evils to be rejected or overcome.
• Right mindfulness - we cultivate awareness of everything we do, speech, attitude, the way we work. We are mindful of the tiniest details of our experience. We cultivate precision and clarity.
• Right concentration - normally our minds are absorbed with all manner of internal chatter, desires, speculation, self-preoccupation and self-entertainment. Right concentration means that we are completely absorbed in things as they are, right here, right now. Only a discipline such as seated meditation can give us a way to silence our internal chatter and concentrate on simple, unadorned reality.

Buddhism

The Buddha's teachings and doctrine proposed a disregard for self and materialism, instead emphasising subsequent lives and the eventual deliverance from the eternal cycle of life and suffering which is human existence.
The foundations of his teaching are "The Four Basic Truths of Buddhism", or "The Four Noble Truths", which are:
• All life is suffering - life is an endless, illusory, unreal cycle of pain, unhappiness, and suffering, birth, existence and death. This cycle of birth, death and rebirth is called Samsara, and we are bound to it by the consequences of our actions (karma).
• This suffering has a cause - put simply, ignorance, ego, and desire - though some sects of Buddhism have spun this out into a complex web of predestination and cause and effect, with various actions incurring various credits and debits to a karmic account which must be paid off in future lifetimes. While all of have basic needs, these are generally simple and easily met. Not so desire - if we allow it to remain uncontrolled, it will control us; we will be constantly diverted from our higher goals due to the profusion of attractions all around, which we chase blindly, forgetting our original destination. And, unlike our needs, desire can never be satisfied; even if we have everything, we still want more.

Taoism also

promotes the concept of Wu Wei, or non-action. This is not a philosophy of indolence, nor of turning the other cheek, but rather of doing nothing which is contrary to the nature of things. Rather than confronting a superior force, yield to it, thus allowing it to unbalance itself, after which the natural order will be restored. This was a difficult concept for most of Lao Tzu's contemporaries to understand during the time of the Warring States, with persecution of the masses an everyday occurrence.
I too find Wu Wei a difficult concept, though a particular Taoist parable seems to point in the right direction, particularly for those of us involved with confrontations and violence.
Imagine a boatman, steering a small craft down a difficult waterway. A boat manned by another drifts directly into his path, and the boatman is unable to avoid a collision which damages his craft and his belongings therein. The angry boatman hurls abuse at the foolish, inept pilot of the other boat.
Now imagine the same boatman on the same river. This time an empty boat drifts into his path. Once again, he is unable to avoid a collision; but this time there is no one to blame.
Living in accordance with Wu Wei and the Tao is to become like the empty boat.

Taoism

promotes the concept of the "Uncarved Block", depicting man in his natural state of existence, unspoiled by social conditioning. Years of education, social and religious rituals, cultural forces, and, in modern times, media hype, condition our attitudes, perceptions and beliefs. Taoism contends that such a state is unnatural, that fulfilment and peace are forever beyond us unless we free ourselves from our conditioned responses to the stimuli of the world and return to our true nature.

Taoism

The doctrine of Taoism is concerned with living in harmony with nature, or more precisely in harmony with the natural laws of the universe. Salvation and enlightenment are to be found, not in the achievements and endeavours of the society, nor the doctrines and dogmas of education and organised religion. One lives in harmony with the Tao, not by resisting or trying to overcome the world, but by accepting and yielding to the forces around one. Where a powerful but rigid oak tree may be split by a hurricane, a blade of grass bends with the wind and survives undamaged. The experienced waterman survives dangerous seas not by fighting against a current stronger than he, but by swimming with it, unresisting, until he is out of danger. The Wing Chun fighter does not oppose a stronger force directly, but redirects it to his own advantage.

The fundamental

purpose of our art, fighting for survival, cannot be ignored or overlooked. Indeed, to do so would be to prostitute it. But the potential for misuse of the capability for violence of Kung Fu requires that we use it as a last, rather than a first, resort. Any other course also prostitutes the art. It is for use when we or others are under threat of violence, not as a means to intimidate or coerce others.
Proper training provides us with means for the reduction of stress through physical activity, and breathing and meditation exercises. We learn to deal with combat, fear, aggression and pain in a controlled environment, and develop discipline and tolerance.
So most martial arts, with Kung Fu being no exception, involve discipline and attempt to instil their devotees with a grounding in the traditions and related philosophies of the art.
In the case of Kung Fu and Wing Chun, we must look more closely at the underpinning philosophies of Chinese culture, starting with the teachings of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism.

Philosophy

The training in a Kung Fu school goes only part of the way to prepare a student to deal with real world attacks. While we learn efficient fighting techniques, and practise these in various drills, with varying degrees of contact, these only go some of the way to preparing us for the enormous emotional and physical duress of an encounter with someone wishing to damage us. Streetfights are not stopped because one of the combatants cuts or injures themselves, or because they run out of breath. Streetfights stop when one side is unable to continue - helpless, unconscious, severely injured or dead. The winner(s) may stop short of kicking the loser to death when he is down, but this will be a matter of luck as much as anything else.
To win a streetfight demands that you meet the attack on your person with equal, preferably greater, ferocity, that you overcome your fear and pain in a violent attack, often best done by flooding your system with adrenalin, and that you are prepared to act immediately to render your opponents unable to continue their attack, by any means necessary, fair or unfair, and with complete ruthlessness. Any second thoughts or philosophical principles that restrict your tactics in a streetfight will be giving your opponent an advantage. If your life is potentially at stake, you cannot afford your opponent ANY advantage.

Philosophy and Reality

Kung Fu without its traditional and philosophical basis would be little more than a brutal and inhuman science of injury, death and destruction.
However, it needs to be understood by the student that Kung Fu's primary purpose is self protection. In ancient China as well as in large cities today, real fights may end in injury or death. Philosophising over respect for one's opponent or strict adherence to Buddhist or Taoist principles in the middle of a streetfight is likely to earn the practitioner a ride in an ambulance. As Sifu David Crook wrote, "Anyone who believes in the [Marquis of] Queensbury rules in the street had better be fully insured."
A mugger or other assailant is unlikely to share your Taoist and Buddhist principles, or any sense of fair play. While club sparring and tournaments are conducted under rules and within limits, all such assumptions are off in a streetfight. There are no rules and no guarantees. Real and improvised weapons (chains, knives, iron bars), biting, clawing and gouging, group attacks and group stompings are all very real possibilities.

The communist

uprising forced Yip Man to flee Fatshan for Macau, leaving his fortune behind, as did many of his contemporaries. Leung Shan, a master of Pak Mei (White Eyebrow) Kung Fu found Yip Man living there in impoverished circumstances, and took him to Hong Kong.
Leung Shan ran a Kung Fu school on the premises of the restaurant workers' union in Hong Kong. Yip Man was put up in a small apartment there, and would occasionally watch the classes, occasionally criticising the techniques taught by Leung Shan, without intending offence.
One night in 1951, Leung became annoyed by Yip Man's criticism, and challenged him. Though Yip Man was older and less powerful than Leung Shan, the latter could not match the techniques of Wing Chun and was easily overcome.
Yip Man then revealed himself as the grandmaster of Wing Chun, and took Leung Shan as the first of a small number of disciples, who included the late Bruce Lee and the current Traditional Wing Chun grandmaster, William Cheung Cheuk Hing.

Chan

assumed the boy had stolen the coins from his parents, and marched him home to confront them. There he discovered that Yip Man had indeed saved the money on his own. Impressed with Yip Man's commitment, Chan accepted him as his final disciple.
After four years of study with Chan Wa Soon, Yip Man became a skilled fighter with a considerable reputation. After Chan's death, Yip Man moved to Hong Kong. Through some martial arts colleagues, he was introduced to an eccentric old man renowned for his Kung Fu ability. Yip Man, with the impetuosity of youth, challenged the old man, only to find himself soundly beaten.
The old man was Leung Bak, the hitherto lost surviving son of Leung Jan. Leung Bak explained to Yip Man the story of the modified Wing Chun system which was taught to Chan Wa Soon, and then accepted Yip Man as a student of the Traditional Wing Chun system. He stayed with Leung Bak for four years, and then returned to Fatshan, challenged and defeated his seniors, and declared himself grandmaster of Wing Chun Kung Fu. While respected throughout China for his Kung-fu skills, Yip Man took no students.

Leung Jan

had chosen his sons, Leung Bak and Leung Chuen, as his successors. However, a neighbouring money changer, Chan Wa Soon, was greatly interested in Leung Jan's Kung Fu and began to spy on Leung Jan and his sons while they were practising. Leung Jan became aware of this very early in the piece, and intentionally modified the techniques he taught to his sons to reduce their effectiveness whenever Chan was watching.
Eventually, Leung Jan became impressed with Chan's keen interest, accepting him as a disciple. However, he continued to teach only the modified version of Wing Chun to Chan, because he feared that Chan would dispute the grandmaster titleship of Wing Chun with his sons after his (Leung Jan's) death.
This fear manifested itself after the deaths of Leung Jan and Leung Cheun, with Chan, a much larger and more powerful man, driving the surviving son, Leung Bak, from Fatshan. Leung Bak went to Hong Kong.
Chan began to teach the modified version of Wing Chun to selected students. Despite his reputation an popularity as a Kung Fu exponent, he only accepted eleven students. Then Yip Man, twelve years old at the time, came to Chan with three hundred pieces of silver, seeking acceptance as a disciple.

The match was fought

on the stage of the Red Junk, Wong with a twelve foot Dragon Pole against Leung's pair of eighteen inch butterfly swords. Wong figured he had the advantage, and invited Leung to attack first. Wong found it very difficult to defend against the swift, tight techniques of the swords, and was forced to the edge of the stage. In desperation, Wong used the most deadly techniques of the pole, blocking Leung's double slash at his head with an upward bon kwun, then jabbing low at Leung's leg. Despite the almost simultaneous block and attack, Wong's strike missed, and he felt the cold steel of Leung's butterfly blade against his wrist. He had no choice but to drop his pole and concede defeat, begging Leung to teach him the superior techniques of Wing Chun.
Leung knew from the fight he had chosen well. Wong mastered the art of Wing Chun, and integrated its principles into the technique of the six-and-a-half strike Dragon Pole, thus making that weapon part of the Wing Chun system.
Next in the lineage was Leung Lan Kwai, a herbalist by profession, who introduced the Iron Palm training into the system. Leung Lan Kwai passed his knowledge to Leung Lee Tai, who then passed it on to Leung Jan, a famous herbal doctor in Fatshan. Leung Jan was famous for his Iron Palm technique.

Try as he might,

he could not move the boat. He summoned the others, who also thrust poles into the river bed, but the boat remained unmoved. Finally, in desperation, the poler summoned Wong Wa Bo, the best poler of all, still sleeping after an unusually long performance the previous evening. Even he was unable to make a difference.
The disguised Jee Sin began to laugh, and with his foot, began to rock the boat, threatening to flood it. Wong Wa Bo realised that the man in rags before him was no beggar, but a man of exceptional power and skill. He respectfully invited Jee Sin aboard and begged to be taught the master's skills. Jee Sin taught the Red Junk Opera members his Kung Fu, which they called Weng Chun Kuen ("Everlasting Spring Boxing") to disguise its Shaolin origins. Wong Wa Bo became his prized student, one of very few to learn Jee Sin's six-and-a-half-strike pole technique.
Meanwhile, Leung Bok Cho sought a worthy student to whom to pass on the Wing Chun system. He had heard about his nephew Wong Wa Bo's reputation as a performer and martial artist, and went to a Red Junk performance to see for himself. Leung Bok Cho and Wong Wa Bo got together after the show, and it was agreed that, if Leung could beat Wong in a friendly match, the Wing Chun butterfly swords against staff, that Wong would become Leung's student and be taught the art of Wing Chun.

The Red Junk

Opera members were trained in the performing and martial arts from an early age, and Jee Sin reasoned that, with such backgrounds, they could quickly be trained to become formidable fighters. Jee Sin went to see a Red Junk performance, watching Wong Wa Bo very closely. He was impressed with Wong Wa Bo's considerable skills and enormous strength, but noticed a few technical faults which he felt he could correct.
As the performers were packing up to travel on to a performance in Guangzhou, Jee Sin approached them and asked for passage. The poler of the ship, seeing only a filthy tramp in rags, informed him that the Red Junks were not passenger ships, and that the only way that Jee Sin would get to Guangzhou was by walking. The opera staff continued their packing, ignoring Jee Sin, and then boarded the boat, preparing to shove off. The poler saw Jee Sin take up a stance, one foot on the shore and one on the boat. The poler decided that the foolish beggar was overdue for a surprise bath, and began to push with his pole as hard as he could.

Meanwhile,

Ng Mui's fellow grandmaster at the temple, Jee Sin, was also travelling the country. Among other styles, he was a master of the dragon pole. He sought suitable students to train in his continuing quest to assist the overthrow of the Manchus and the restoration of the Ming dynasty. Like Ng Mui, he was hunted by the Manchus and, to evade detection, he disguised himself as a dishevelled beggar. It was in Guangdong that he heard of the Red Junk Opera Company, and its prized performer, Wong Wa Bo.

Shortly thereafter,

a salt (or silk) merchant from Shangxi named Leung Bok Cho visited the area. Leung Bok Cho had been a student of Kung Fu at the Honan Shaolin Temple. He stayed at an inn next to Yim Yee's shop, and witnessed Wing Chun practising her Kung Fu beside the tofu grinders. He fell in love with this beautiful and skilful young woman, and soon, with Yim Yee's approval, they were married.
Ng Mui eventually left the White Crane Temple, travelling far and wide. Before leaving, she made Wing Chun promise to adhere to the Kung Fu traditions, to continue to develop her Kung Fu after her marriage, and to help continue the struggle against the Manchus to restore the Ming dynasty.
Wing Chun and Leung Bok Cho moved back to Shangxi, but soon moved on to northern Guangdong to escape constant fighting between bandits and soldiers. Then they moved to Siu Hing, where they would eventually encounter members of the Red Junk Opera Company.

With only months

in which to train Yim Wing Chun, Ng Mui concentrated only on the most essential, direct and effective techniques and training methods in her instruction. The techniques would need to allow Wing Chun to overcome the gangster, who was bigger, stronger, and more experienced than she. As the 108 dummies of the Shaolin temple no longer existed, Ng Mui developed a single dummy on which all 108 dummy movements could be practised. Yim Wing Chun trained day and night, and, when the gangster returned, she was ready. Soundly beaten, the disgraced gangster left and never returned.

Ng Mui's

immediate inclination was to fight off the gangster herself, but realised that such action was likely to attract the attention of the Manchus, from whom she was still a fugitive. Instead, Ng Mui undertook to teach the girl combat techniques, thus allowing her to defend herself and her honour.
Wing Chun told the gangster that she would fight him in one year, and that if he could defeat her, she would be his. The gangster, a master of Eagle Claw Kung Fu, saw this as a fait accompli and agreed, laughing.
Ng Mui took Yim Wing Chun back to the temple with her.

Ng Mui

took refuge in the distant White Crane Temple in Yunnan. Periodically, she would journey to a nearby village for provisions including bean curd (tofu), which she bought from a shopkeeper named Yim Yee (or Yim Say) and his daughter, Yim Wing Chun.
Yim Yee and his daughter had fled Fatshan province before impending wrongful arrest by the Manchus, and settled in this remote area, selling the bean curd for a living. However, their lives were not yet free from trouble. One day Ng Mui entered the shop to find the young girl in tears.
Wing Chun was a beautiful young woman, and had attracted the unwanted attentions of a brutal gang leader, who had sworn to take her as his wife.

The system

was called Wing Chun, named after the Springtime (Wing Chun) training hall in the temple. Some accounts have it that the system was named after Yim Wing Chun, but it seems she may also have been given that name, after that of the training hall, by Ng Mui, the alternative meaning of the name being "Hope for the Future").
The Manchus heard of the revolutionary role of the Temple, and surrounded it, while a traitorous monk set fires within. The monks fought bravely, but were heavily outnumbered. Only five escaped - Bak Mei, Fung Do Dak, Mui Min, Jee Sin and the nun Ng Mui. The five went their separate ways.