William Cheung

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William Cheung

William Cheung
Born 1940
Hong Kong Flag of Hong Kong
Residence Melbourne, Australia
Other names 張卓興, Cheung Cheuk Hing
Martial art practiced Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu
Teacher(s) Yip Man
Rank Grandmaster
Notable students Keith Mazza, Phillip Redmond, Ian Protheroe
Website http://www.cheungswingchun.com/

William Cheung (張卓興, Cheung Cheuk Hing in pinyin) (born 1940) is a Wing Chun Kung Fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster of his lineage of Wing Chun, entitled Traditional Wing Chun (TWC). He also heads the sanctioning body of TWC, the World Wing Chun Kung Fu Association.

In 1951, at the age of ten, Cheung started his training in Wing Chun Kung Fu under the late Yip Man. According to Cheung, it was from 1954 to 1958 that he was a live-in student of Yip Man and inherited the complete system of Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu.

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[edit] Accomplishments

[edit] Martial Arts

Duncan Leung, a Yip Man student, says it was William Cheung who first made Wing Chun famous in Australia. "In 1957 another early student of Yip Man, William Cheung, immigrated to Australia. On the way there an incident occurred when he locked himself in the sailor cabin and fought more than 10 sailors. This got into all the newspapers and so Wing Chun was even known in Australia then." [1]

Cheung is also known for demonstrating "Egg Standing" to demonstrate his skill in weight distribution and overall control of his body. [2]

[edit] Teaching Accomplishments

After moving to Melbourne, Australia to teach Wing Chun professionally in 1973, Cheung began operating a Martial Arts School. In 1976 he was elected the President of the Australian Kung Fu Federation.

[edit] Writings

Books by Cheung include: "Wing Chun Bil Jee", "Wing Chun Butterfly Swords", "Wing Chun Dragon Pole", "Advanced Wing Chun", "How to Develop Chi Power", "Wing Chun Kung Fu" (in French), "A Comparison of Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do" Volumes I and II (with Ted Wong). He has also produced a number of videos, including "The Wing Chun Way", "Tao of Wing Chun" and "PRO-TEKT: A Personal Protection Program".

[edit] Controversy

[edit] "Traditional" Wing Chun

As an official successor to Yip Man was not named publicly, some Wing Chun exponents have been involved in the politics of claiming to be the rightful successor. Cheung claims to be the only one taught what he calls the "Traditional Wing Chun" style, which he says was previously a secret, purer version of wing chun only taught to those expected to become the style's standard bearers. Cheung claims that all the rest of Yip Man's students were taught what he calls the "Modified Wing Chun" system, alleged to be a simpler and less effective style taught to outsiders. All of the other senior students of Yip Man, including the directors of the Ving Tsun Athletic Association (VTAA) and Yip Man's two sons, have disputed Cheung’s claims.

[edit] Challenge

In the 1980s, Cheung made these claims in a series of martial arts magazines, starting a published war of words with other students of Yip Man and fellow board members of the VTAA. He offered to demonstrate the practical (combat) superiority of his system against anybody who wished to try, and he was subsequently challenged to a fight unexpectedly in the midst of a seminar in Germany by a WingTsun fighter named Emin Boztepe.[3] Cheung tried to persuade Boztepe to wait until after the seminar, but Boztepe insisted on fighting immediately. The ensuing confrontation was captured on video; however, the footage of video tape starts suddenly at the middle of the fight, with no beginning, at a point of physical engagement and does not reveal any such provocation, and also varies brightness and contrast in certain stages. Cheung contends that these are all consistent with editing of the footage. The outcome of this was both Cheung and Emin emerged unscathed and unharmed, and Boztepe's appearance at a seminar to initiate a "fight" has been viewed as an embarrassment to the Wing Chun community. The incident has turned into something of an Internet phenomenon.

[edit] Start Date

His claimed start date of 1951 with Yip Man [4]is also controversial, as he has also stated that he started after fellow Yip Man student Wong Shun Leung[5]. Wong said his own start date with Yip Man was early 1954, making the 1951 date impossible. In the article Wong wrote, entitled "Wong shun leung and his friendship with Bruce Lee", he further suggested that Cheung (Chang in Mandarin) began after him, but not long before Bruce Lee:

"At first, when Bruce learnt the fundamental boxing form of Wing Chun Kung Fu, he seemed to have a sense of suspicion towards it. It was true that the boxing form was a bit dry, so he did not seem to have much interest in it. However, he had seen how Chang, a youngster of the same age, won over his opponent. He also knew that his history of learning Wing Chun Hung Fu was not long." [6]

[edit] Live-in status

Cheung also claims to have been a live-in student of Yip Man between 1954-1958, overlapping the 1951-1955 time period when his senior Chu Shong Tin, also claims to have lived with Yip Man. [7] Chu has never corroborated the claim, and has only suggested the opposite in the 1986 VTAA letter regarding Cheung, where he described Cheung's training as intermittent. [8]

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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