Official Blog of City WingTsun Kung Fu & Sifu Alex

 The first page of a 3-page interview the late great grandmaster Yip Man originally published in February 1972 issue of New Martial Hero.  The interview was arranged by Sifu Leung Ting.

I was in Chinatown the other day as I often am and I came across this find at Bok Lei Po martial arts store on Mott St.  It is from an anniversary edition of "New Martial Hero" magazine which was published last year.  New Martial Hero is basically the main kung fu magazine from Hong Kong since the late 60's.  It has survived even until this day, with new issues coming out every 2-3 months.  In this special anniversary edition they reprinted many famous articles from some of there really old issues.   I bought the magazine because it has significant historical worth for WingTsun (and wing chun) followers.  It is the only interview the late great grandmaster Yip Man ever gave during his lifetime!

As most of my students know, I am also a student of Chinese language and script.  I love finding these articles as it gives me something new to practice reading.  I'm going to work on a translation so that descendants of our great art can read what great grandmaster Yip Man himself had to say.

For now I will translate the second to last paragraph which has extra value for Leung Ting WingTsun practitioners. It was the time that great grandmaster Yip Man openly announced that the WingTsun instructor Leung Ting was his "closed door student" (the student accepted after the grandmaster retired).  Contrary to popular rumors, grandmaster Leung Ting never gave himself the title of "closed door student", it was great grandmaster Yip Man himself.  Here is the paragraph (if the following looks like a bunch of boxes, switch the encoding on your browser for tradtional Chinese characters):

 葉問現年七十六歲﹐ 十三歲即開始練拳﹐ 於一九四九年﹐ 從大陸來港。  當時﹐香港人對詠春所知有限﹐ 經葉問二十三年來之努力耕耘﹐ 成就漸見﹐ 葉師傅已於多年前 “封門”﹐ 刻在浸會學院﹐ 珠海書院﹐ 中華傳道會學生中心等各處詠春訓練班之主持教師粱挺﹐ 系其一位封門弟子。

This year Yip man is seventy-six years old.  At the age of 13 he began studying martial arts, and in 1949 he left mainland China for Hong Kong.  At that time, the Hong Kong people had really limited knowledge of the Wing Tsun style, and after 23 years of hard work and promotion his efforts can now finally be felt.  Sifu Yip "closed his door" (retired) many years ago already.  Now Wing Tsun classes are being carried out at the Baptist University Student's Union.  These classes are being run by the instructor Leung Ting, who is now Sifu Yip's closed door student. 

When I get the rest translated, I'll post it!

Enjoy...