Top 16 facts about Wing Chun’s Ip Man

If you know about Wing Chun, then you’ll know about Ip Man. Ip Man is famous for bringing Wing Chun to the masses and famously mentored the legendary Bruce Lee. As a result, he is known as one of the most known and respected Wing Chun practitioners in history. As you will learn by reading this list of facts, his personal life away from the dojo was just as colorful as his life involving martial arts. Further, when it comes to the life of Ip Man, there is a lot of talk, rumors, and myths. Hopefully, the information below will clear up a few facts from the fiction surrounding his legendary life.

• Ip Man trained Wing Chun for almost all of his life. Like many founding martial artists, he was truly dedicated to Wing Chun and only stopped training after getting cancer which he eventually died from. Even then, he still practiced on his dummy for as long as he could. This was in 1972, a few months before his most famous student Bruce Lee died.

• According to one of his main students, Duncan Leung – Ip Man was an opium addict who used it regularly and funded his habit through his Wing Chun earnings. Interestingly, Bruce Lee was also meant to dabble with drugs.

• Ip Man was dedicated to Wing Chun and did not train any other martial arts. This wasn’t that unusual back then when mixed martial arts wasn’t a thing and so practitioners would often devote their training to one single skill, rather than a mixture of styles.

• He had 5 children (three boys and two girls) including the likes of Ip Chun and Ip Chung who helped preserve Wing Chun and teach it to the masses.

• Chan Wah-Shun was the name of Ip Man’s first teacher. He actually died a couple of years into teaching Ip Man, so although he was his original sensei, a lot of Ip mans techniques came after his teachers death.

• In 2008, a biopic movie was released about Ip Mans life. Here, he was played by actor and martial artist Donnie Yen. Many Ip Man experts claim that this movie was unrealistic though in its portrayal of the Wing Chun master.

• Apparently, Ip Man originally didn’t want to teach Wing Chun but did so when he arrived in Hong Kong to earn money. Perhaps if Ip Man was already wealthy, he’d have never taught Wing Chun in Hong Kong which would have changed the history of martial arts.

• Ip man was born in 1893 in Foshan, China. He originally moved to Hong Kong to avoid the communist party when they began entering the Foshan region.

• Shanghai Po was the name of his mistress and was what his students knew her as. She even mothered a child of Ip Man’s although his other 4 children were birthed by his wife.

• Ip Man wasn’t just a practicing martial artist within a dojo setting, he was also known as a fighter and won various fights over the years against challengers. As a result, his reputation of a top martial artist spread rapidly.

• During his 20s in Foshun, China, Ip Mans job was a police officer.

• Contrary to popular belief, Ip Man did actually lose some of his fights. One of these losses came against Leung Bik, who was also one of Ip Man’s teachers, so it’s understandable. Therefore, the idea that Ip Man somehow never lost a fight is simply untrue.

• Ip Man was 5’3 feet in height which was around average for a Chinese man during the early 1900s. He was also meant to weigh around 55KG. With this said, he was not a tall or muscular martial artist.

• Although most refer to him as Ip Man, he is also known commonly as Yip man as well.

• Ip man is known for birthing the classic quote that is still used often today even outside of martial arts. He said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore is not an act, but a habit”Many people believe that Ip Man created Wing Chung, but this is not exactly true. Whilst he certainly popularized it and is its most famous practitioner alongside Bruce Lee, he did not create Wing Chun and had a few teachers himself.

Want to learn more from the Wing Chun master Ip Man? Check out his classic book on how to train Wing Chun.