Part 1
Beginners are often bewildered about the choices on the market when looking for a Wing Chun school. It begins with the romanization of the Chinese system of
Wing Tsun Kung Fu. What's the difference between Wing Chun, Ving Tsun and Wing Tsun? Wait a minute, want it even more confusing? In Europe, particularly in Germany you find even more variations starting with Ving Chun, Wing Tschung, Ving Tchun and many more exotic versions. Let’s simplify it. Bruce Lee needed as the first an English version and chose Wing Chun. Other students of the late Grandmaster Yip Man immigrated to England and picked Ving Tsun. Grandmaster Leung Ting, who formed his own organization, secured WingTsun or WT as a trademark, today often listed as LeungTing-WingTsun™.
In Germany under the leadership of Keith R. Kernspecht Wing Tsun schools grew more and more in numbers and size throughout the end of the 70’s and 80’s. At the beginning of the 90’s the European Wing Tsun Organization EWTO began to explode, reaching numbers of over 2000 schools with an estimated several hundreds of thousands of students.
New organizations began to form, some more successful, others less, which led to the different spellings of Wing Tsun, to position themselves on a market with an enormous demand for self-defense schools.
In my schools I teach Wing Tsun Kung Fu, relating to the fact that I have studied WingTsun (WT), beginning in 1984, for over 16 years in various branches of the WT system. Today Wing Tsun Kung Fu Vancouver, the first Canadian branch, operates successfully as independent school.
Part 2 follows tomorrow.
We have added more photos to our online photo album. Weekend Seminar Info for March 31st & April 1st.
