Yim Wing-chun is a Chinese legendary character, often cited in Wing Chun

Wing Chun

Wing Chun , also romanised as Ving Tsun or Wing Tsun, ; ; is a concept-based Chinese martial art and form of self-defense utilizing both striking and grappling while specializing in close-range combat.The alternative characters 永春 "eternal spring" are also...

 legends as the first master of the martial art

Chinese martial arts

Chinese martial arts, also referred to by the Mandarin Chinese term wushu and popularly as kung fu , are a number of fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common traits, identified as "families" , "sects" or...

 bearing her name. Wing-chun, though a person's name in Chinese language

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, literally means "spring chant" or "forever spring", or may be substituted with the character for "eternal springtime".

Different accounts of Yim's story exist, but the central sequence of events remains largely the same, beginning with Yim's teacher. During the Qing Dynasty

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

, a Shaolin Buddhist

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 nun and abbess, Ng Mui

Ng Mui

Ng Mui is said to have been one of the legendary Five Elders — survivors of the destruction of the Shaolin Temple by the Qing Dynasty....

 (五枚師太), reportedly fled the destruction of the Siu Lam Temple at the hands of the government; the temple was believed to be harbouring revolutionaries. According to one legend, Ng saw a crane and a snake fighting, and incorporated their movements into her style of Chinese boxing to form a new, unnamed martial art system.

Ng later took on a disciple, Yim Wing-chun, and passed the art on to her. Yim was well known for her beauty, and sold tofu

Tofu

is a food made by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft white blocks. It is part of East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and others. There are many different varieties of tofu, including fresh tofu and tofu...

 for a living. A local bully tried to force her to marry him, but she used the art to defeat him. Some accounts claim that Ng taught Yim the art specifically for the purpose of defending herself against the unwanted advances.

Yim later married Leung Bok-chau, a salt merchant, and he named the art Wing Chun Kuen (Wing Chun's boxing) after her. Lee (1972) attributes significant development of the art to Yim, crediting her with the invention of the chi sao (sticking hands) exercise. From there, the art passed through several men's hands before coming to Yip Man

Yip Man

Yip Man , also spelled as Ip Man, and also known as Yip Kai-Man, was a Chinese martial artist. He had several students who later became martial arts teachers in their own right, including Bruce Lee.-Early life:...

.

The movie Wing Chun

Wing Chun (film)

Wing Chun is a 1994 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping and stars Michelle Yeoh as the eponymous character Yim Wing-Chun, a tofu maker and martial artist who tries to protect her village's inhabitants from a group of bandits.The film was preceded by a 1994...

(1994) loosely portrays Yim's life within the action film

Action film

Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...

 genre, with Michelle Yeoh

Michelle Yeoh

Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng is a Hong Kong-based Malaysian Chinese actress, well known for performing her own stunts in the action films that brought her to fame in the early 1990s....

 portraying the central character. A more recent movie, Kung Fu Wing Chun (2010), Yim Wing-chun was portrayed by Bai Jing and Leung Bok-chau was portrayed by Yu Shaoqun.
Meng and Rudnicki (2006) have written a critical analysis of the legend surrounding Yim.

Lineage

Lineage in Wing Chun
Sifu Sifu Shifu is the identical pronunciation of two Chinese terms for a master. The character 師 means “teacher”. The meaning of 傅 is “tutor”, and of 父, “father”. Both characters are read fu with the same tones in Cantonese and Mandarin, creating some ambiguity...	Ng Mui Ng Mui Ng Mui is said to have been one of the legendary Five Elders — survivors of the destruction of the Shaolin Temple by the Qing Dynasty.... ; creator of Wing Chun
Yim Wing-chun (嚴詠春)
Only student	Leung Bok-chau (梁博儔); her husband