Book Feature: Wong Shun Leung by Sifu Kendra Mahon

The eighth book in Sifu Kendra Mahon’s Masters of Kung Fu series turns to the young man who set out to discover whether Wing Chun really worked. Wong Shun Leung: The King of Talking Hands follows his life from wartime Hong Kong to Ip Man’s school, his own classes in Kowloon and his teaching trips abroad, across 56 short chapters. It is coming soon to Amazon in Kindle and paperback.

Facts Before Legend

Mahon is careful with the part of his life that made him famous. The beimo challenge matches of 1950s Hong Kong were held on rooftops and in back rooms, away from the police, and almost nothing about them was written down at the time. Sources put his number of fights at sixty, seventy or more than one hundred, and some say he never lost. The book declines to repeat any of these figures as fact, and explains why: “Be careful with numbers that cannot be checked. A good story often grows each time it is told.” What can be said with confidence, she writes, is that he earned a reputation as an exceptional fighter, strong enough that people called him Gong Sau Wong, the King of Talking Hands.

The same care runs through the rest. His birthday appears as both May 8 and June 8, almost certainly because of how a lunar date was converted. His first visit to Ip Man is dated to 1953 by many sources and to early February 1954 by his own lineage’s biography. The book also records a documented loss at a 1957 competition in Taiwan, and treats the claim that he choreographed Enter the Dragon as unconfirmed. Remarks attributed to him, to Ip Man or to Bruce Lee are paraphrased and marked as reported.

The Teacher

Much of the book is about what he did after the fighting. He helped Ip Man teach a generation of students, among them the teenage Bruce Lee, who was introduced to the school by William Cheung and trained with several senior students. The book focuses on Wong Shun Leung’s part without taking anything away from the others. It follows his informal classes at home, where students called him “Leung Goh,” Brother Leung; his first formal school, opened in Yau Ma Tei in 1969; his seminars in Europe and Australia; and a short course in Beijing in 1996, a few months before his death in January 1997. The book names several of the students who carry on his teaching and deliberately does not rank them.

A Wing Chun Perspective

Mahon teaches Traditional Wing Chun as it was passed down to her by Master Brian Lewadny, who learned it from Grandmaster William Cheung, and she notes that Wong Shun Leung trained in the same school and the same years as her teacher’s teacher. His lineage, which uses the spelling Ving Tsun, is a different branch of the same family, and she writes about it with respect: “As a teacher in the Traditional Wing Chun lineage, I can learn a great deal from Wong Shun Leung’s emphasis on principles and testing, just as students in his lineage can learn from others.” The section on his philosophy covers the approach his students call the Science of Ving Tsun: principles before techniques, the centreline and the shortest path, simplicity, chi sau as a laboratory, and honest testing under pressure, which she shows can be practised safely in any training hall.

An Honest Hero

The book does not present a flawless figure. It mentions, without adding detail, that he sometimes provoked fights in his youth and later regretted one in which an opponent was seriously hurt, and it describes a sociable man who enjoyed the dai pai dong food stalls with friends. Each chapter ends with a lesson, each part with a workbook, and the closing pages add a timeline, a glossary and a guide for groups. Her conclusion sums up why he matters to every lineage: “His story reminds us that our art was not handed down untested. It was proven, questioned, and refined by people who cared enough to find out the truth.”

About the Author

Sifu Kendra Mahon, known as Kung Fu Kendra, has trained since 2005 and holds Master level (purple sash). She teaches Traditional Wing Chun as it was passed down to her by Master Brian Lewadny, who learned it from Grandmaster William Cheung. She is the author of 13 books and counting, including The Way of Wing Chun and Masters of Kung Fu series, and created the Become a Sifu Wing Chun Online Certification Course. Read what her students say on the Kung Fu Kendra reviews page.

Where to Get It

Wong Shun Leung: The King of Talking Hands is coming soon to Amazon in Kindle and paperback. Book 1 of the series, Bruce Lee: The Philosopher Behind the Fist, is available now. See all of her books on her Amazon author page and on kungfukendra.com.

Editor’s note: Wing Chun Magazine is published by Sifu Kendra Mahon.