WONG SHUN LEUNG: THE LEGEND BEHIND THE LEGEND
by David Peterson
January 28th 1997 was a very sad
day for the martial arts, and indirectly, for fans of Hong Kong cinema,
specifically, for fans of the legend that is Bruce Lee. On that day, wing chun
kung-fu master, Sifu Wong Shun Leung, 61, teacher and friend of the late martial
arts superstar, lost his fight for life following a massive stroke and ensuing
coma that had befallen him some 16 days earlier. Considered by many to be a
fighter and instructor of unparalleled skill, Sifu Wong was renowned for earning
the title of Gong Sau Wong (“King of Talking with the Hands”) after surviving
countless beimo, or “comparison of skills”, throughout the 50s and 60s, emerging
every time as undefeated and undisputed champion.
These were not tournament fights as conducted in the
West, with rules, protective equipment or time limits. Instead, they were
full-on fights between representatives of the various schools of combat in Hong
Kong, and Sifu Wong is said to have “let his hands do the talking” by winning
the majority of these “contests” within just three punches! In one such match,
arranged by a reporter working for a prominent Hong Kong newspaper of the day,
Wong (who stood barely 5’6” tall and weighed in at around 120lbs) easily
defeated a visiting Russian boxer named Giko, a giant of a man who weighed over
250lbs and stood some twelve inches taller than the dynamic wing chun exponent.
Wong almost single-handedly put this previously
low-profile martial art in the public spotlight, gaining great prestige for his
teacher, the late grandmaster, Yip Man. Wong’s reputation as an invincible
fighter also attracted the attention of the young Bruce Lee, who had only
recently joined the Yip Man wing chun school after having been introduced to the
system by his friend, William Cheung, who was later to become a prominent, some
might say controversial, spokesman for the wing chun clan. Initially, Lee had
trained with his friend Cheung, but when Cheung left for Australia to further
his education, Lee became the protégé of Wong Shun Leung who, at almost six
years his senior and assistant instructor at the school, commanded the young
(around 16 years of age) Bruce Lee’s unwavering respect.
In the beginning of their student/teacher relationship,
Wong found the young Lee to be quite lazy in his approach to training,
consequently his progress in the art was relatively slow. It wasn’t too long,
however, after witnessing first hand the devastating effectiveness of Wong’s
skills, that Lee began to take his wing chun training far more seriously. In
fact, Lee was so keen to learn from Wong that he even found devious ways of
monopolising his sihing’s teaching time. Wong was, at the time, running training
sessions out of his home (his father had helped him to set up a small area for
this purpose), as well as helping his teacher Yip Man conduct the classes at the
kwoon. After unsuccessfully approaching Wong for private lessons, the young
“Little Dragon” found another method of getting his own way.
On more than one occasion, after school was finished for
the day, Lee would rush over to Wong’s house in order to arrive before his
sihingdai. Later on, Sifu Wong would often recount this story to his students,
this writer included, saying how Bruce would check that he was indeed the first
to arrive, after which he would make up some excuse to leave for a while,
whereby he would head downstairs to wait for his classmates to arrive. Sitting
on the steps, looking dejected, he would greet his friends with the news that
Wong was ill, out on an errand, or otherwise indisposed, then walk with them
down the street, even going as far as to help them board a bus for home. Once he
was sure that they had all departed the scene, Bruce would double back to Wong’s
to take advantage of what was now a private lesson. Eventually, Wong became
aware of this little ruse and, according to others of that era, gave his young
disciple an especially realistic lesson, complete (so the story goes) with black
eyes, split lips and a bloody nose!
Despite his awesome reputation as a fighter, Wong was
not a violent man per se, but he revelled in the chance to test his skills and
the effectiveness of Yip Man’s art. “I didn’t actually learn wing chun just to
go out and fight. Kung-fu should really be used as a way of protecting yourself
in circumstances where you are physically threatened”, he was quoted as saying
in an interview conducted in Australia some years ago. “After I learnt the
skills of wing chun from Yip Man, I often had the opportunity to test them. By
experimenting with my skills I could discover their limitations and how they
compared with other disciplines and so improve myself.” It was during this
period of “experimentation” that Wong Shun Leung first introduced Bruce Lee to
the experience of the beimo and in the very first of Lee’s matches, Wong (who
was actually refereeing the fight) coached him between rounds, urging him to
continue when it had appeared that Lee was about to give up the fight.
It could be rightly said that the resulting victory
changed the course of Bruce Lee’s life, certainly it heralded the beginnings of
the training regime that would see him become the martial arts superstar that
the world was to discover many years later. It is reported that grandmaster Yip
Man, on learning about what had transpired, took Wong aside and said,
“Fortunately you accompanied him to the venue and encouraged him to go on with
the match. This trial of martial skill may well be a decisive influence on him
in the future. If someday, Siu Lung (Bruce) succeeds, the credit should
rightfully go to you.” In writing about this period in Lee’s life, Jesse Glover
(his first American student) stated, “Wong was four years senior (in training)
to Bruce in Yip Man’s clan and Bruce studied privately for a year and a half
under both him and Yip Man.” Glover also wrote that Wong was “...the man most
responsible for the development of Bruce Lee”, and that “In ‘59 Bruce told me
that Wong was the greatest fighter in the wing chun style, and that he had
successfully defeated all challengers.”
As fate would have it, circumstances arose that lead to
Bruce having to leave for a new life in America, curtailing his opportunity to
train with Wong. For the next several years, apart from the occasional visit by
Lee to Hong Kong for filming or family visits, his relationship with Wong was
restricted to a steady stream of letters between teacher and student. Many of
these letters still survive today, and in one such letter Lee wrote, “Even
though I am (technically) a student of Yip Man, in reality, I learned my Kung-fu
from you.” Over the years, Lee would strive to be able to overcome the skill of
his teacher, using Wong’s level of expertise as the yardstick by which he
measured his own development as a fighter, but try as he might, Bruce Lee was
never able to defeat Wong Shun Leung in combat.
Many of the personal fighting concepts by which Lee
would eventually become famous for can be traced back to the lessons that he
learnt from Sifu Wong and, even after obtaining both fame and fortune from his
martial arts and film careers, Lee never forgot where his roots were, spending
whatever time he could with his teacher when back in Hong Kong during the final
years leading up to his own premature demise. Sifu Wong once spoke to me of an
occasion when he and Lee began to discuss their favourite topic early one
evening, retiring to the hallway while their wives sat with their children
watching the television. At 7.00am the next morning they were still there,
having talked, trained and tested their martial theories right through the
night!
Lee was keen to involve Wong in his movies, offering him
a part in “Game of Death”, specifically the role that was later to be played by
basketball star Kareem Abdul Jabbar, that of Lee’s final opponent at the top of
the “Tower of Death” at the end of the film. “My character was to have beaten
Bruce,” Wong told Bey Logan in a 1986 interview for Britain’s ‘COMBAT’ magazine,
“...but he would still have managed to kill me! I told him that I didn’t want to
go and die in my first movie!” Wong also added that, “...(besides) I wasn’t in
dire financial straits at the time, so I didn’t have to do the film (just) to
make money.”
However, Lee wasn’t one to give up easily and, when
shooting “Enter the Dragon” in Hong Kong, he invited Wong to come “on location”
to discuss the fight scenes. Anyone viewing the documentary “Bruce Lee: the Man
and the Legend” can briefly observe Wong on the “Han’s Weapon Room” set,
“sparring” with an extra, and reacting to punches thrown by Lee himself. Over
the years Sifu Wong was involved in a number of film and television projects,
including the movie “Bruce’s Fingers” in 1976, starring Bruce Lee look-alike
Bruce Le (Lu Hsiao-lung), in which Sifu simply played himself, the hero’s
instructor. He was also the wing chun consultant and action choreographer for
the film “Stranger From Shaolin” (aka: “The Formidable Lady From Shaolin”)
starring Michelle Yim, and a Hong Kong television mini-series called “The Story
of Wing Chun”.
Sifu Wong Shun Leung also “starred” in a training video
on his style, entitled “Wing Chun: the Science of In-fighting” which was
produced as part of a series of instructional tapes in the early ‘80s. He also
occasionally authored articles on his beloved wing chun for a number of
Chinese-language martial arts magazines, and was the subject of several articles
and interviews in magazines all over the world. A number of these articles were
concerned with his famous pupil, Bruce Lee, and delved into the relationship
between the two of them, attempting to determine his role in the career of the
superstar, and often attempting to extract controversial views on Lee and other
wing chun practitioners. Always the diplomat, Wong would never allow himself to
be drawn into such discussions, preferring to either restrict himself to
positive comments, or else choosing to make no comment, dismissing the enquiry
with a wry smile.
On the whole, Wong preferred to downplay his role as
Lee’s instructor, not wishing to take advantage of someone else’s achievements.
Instead, he just got on with the job of passing on the skills of wing chun which
he constantly tested and refined over the years, adhering to the motto “To
improve myself with each days training.” In addition to teaching Kung-fu, Sifu
Wong was a practitioner of the ancient Chinese art of tit dar (“bone-setting”),
the traditional method of treating sprains, bruises, dislocated and broken bones
(a very useful skill, considering his line of work!) He was also an accomplished
self-taught calligrapher with a profound knowledge of ancient forms of writing
unknown to many modern Chinese, with which he would spend many hours writing
classical poetry as a form of relaxation and self-improvement.
Rather than standing up on his own personal soap box,
proclaiming his own greatness as many of his contemporaries in the martial arts
have tended to do in recent years, Wong made no such claims and rejected the
many grandiose titles which others attempted to bestow upon him, preferring to
quietly set about destroying the myths and “kungfusion” associated with the
Chinese fighting arts. He taught a devoted band of followers who travelled from
all corners of the world to obtain his instruction, and he regularly travelled
to Europe and Australia where he conducted seminars and workshops for the
students of his representatives there. Sifu Wong shared his knowledge with great
enthusiasm, believing that anyone, regardless of race, colour or creed, was
worth teaching. As long as a person was prepared to work hard, Sifu was more
than willing to call them his student.
Refusing to cash in on his connection with Bruce Lee, or
on his own formidable reputation as a fighter and instructor par excellence,
Sifu Wong insisted that he was a simple man, with no special talent, and was
never one to “blow his own trumpet”. You were more likely to hear of his past
exploits from other people and on those rare occasions when he did speak of such
events, he would always refuse to name names or criticise rival styles, his only
real gripe being with instructors who wasted their student’s time with endless,
useless techniques and combat drills. “You can always get more money (if you run
out)” he would say, “...but you can’t get more time.” On the subject of wing
chun, his most common advise to his devotees was, “You must be the master of
wing chun, not it’s slave”, meaning that one must take the concepts of the
system and make them work, rather than get bound up in unnecessary analysis and
potentially dangerous limited thinking.
It appeared that, after so many years, Sifu Wong was
finally about to gain the recognition and rewards that had long eluded him. All
manner of book, film and video projects had been discussed in the months leading
up to his untimely passing, the most significant of these being the proposed
movie, “Story of Yip Man”, starring none other than comedic sensation Steven
Chow Sing Chi, himself a former student of Wong Shun Leung and a lifelong
Kung-fu fan and Bruce Lee aficionado. Chow had been in training with his former
instructor in preparation for the upcoming role and had negotiated for Wong to
be the technical consultant on the film. There was also a distinct possibility
that Wong would have an on-camera role and would most likely be involved in the
choreography of the action sequences.
At the time of Sifu Wong’s death, the 25th anniversary
of Bruce Lee’s death was fast approaching, and there had been much talk of
interviews and book projects, including one arranged by Steven Chow. Writers and
producers from Hong Kong and around the world had approached Sifu with a view to
include him in their proposed ventures and preliminary work had been done on at
least two of these. Australian producer, martial artist and Bruce Lee
aficionado, Walt Missingham, was already set to begin shooting at the beginning
of April that year when I had the sad task of informing him of my teacher’s
death. Sadly, this and all the other projects will now either not take place, or
else will be completed without the input that Sifu’s vast knowledge and
experience would have added to them. More disappointing still is the realisation
that Sifu Wong will now not be able to personally enjoy the recognition which
was long overdue.
The man whom was often referred to as “Wing Chun’s
Living Legend” is now no longer with us, but his influence will be felt for many
years to come through the efforts of his many students, both in Hong Kong and
around the world. The members of the world-wide “Wong Shun Leung Wing Chun
Martial Art Association”, this writer included, are dedicated to spreading the
skills and knowledge that has been passed on to them by this outstanding teacher
and exponent of the art. While Wong Shun Leung was not one to take flashy titles
with any seriousness, always insisting that to be called Sifu by his students
was sufficient recognition of who he was, in the hearts and minds of all who
witnessed his awesome talent or benefited from his wisdom and instruction, he
was one of the greatest Masters of wing chun (and the Chinese martial arts in
general) in this, or any other century.
Tragically, like his famous student Bruce Lee before
him, Sifu Wong left us far too early in life, but like Lee, those of us
fortunate to have been touched by his greatness, whether directly as his
students, or indirectly through the cinematic exploits of his famous pupil and
friend, are all the more richer for having known him. The “Legend Behind the
Legend” may be gone and will certainly be greatly missed, but Sifu Wong Shun
Leung, father, teacher and friend to so many, will definitely never be
forgotten. The next time that you enjoy watching your film hero Bruce Lee on the
large or small screen, spare a thought for the great man who inspired him to
such greatness.
Wong Shun Leung... 1935-1997