Welcome to Western Lotus Athletics & Martial Club and the Greater City Wing Tsun Athletic Association
To begin your Wing Tsun Journey here are some tools and rules
The Legend
Sometime during the Qing Dynasty, a young beautiful woman by the name of Yim Wing Chun (嚴詠春) was engaged to marry. However, a military officer on a campaign of his entrusted territories spotted the young beauty and insisted she would become his bride. Already being engaged, she protested his advances with little results, until the interference of the Shaolin Nun by the name of Ng Mui. Ng Mui promised the officer that Wing Chun would be his bride, if at the end of his campaign he would return and was able to defeat the young beauty in a fight. Full of confidence, the officer agreed to the terms. The Nun, recently escaping Siu Lam (Shaolin) Temple in its destruction, had witnessed a fight to the death between a Snake and a Crane. Utilizing what she had seen between the snake and crane, and her prior Kung Fu practices, Ng Mui taught this newly formed system to the young woman. At the end of the officer’s campaign, the young Yim Wing Chun was easily able to defeat him. Even with his years of military training, Wing Chun was able to win, not by using brute strength and overbearing power, but by using speed and superior angles - the same as witnessed in the snake and crane battle. The officer left in embarrassment, and Yim Wing Chun was left to marry Leung Bok-Chau.
The Art
A Southern Chinese boxing system, Wing Tsun or Wing Chun (詠春) is a lot more than just kicking and punching. Bringing together power and ease, strength and flexibility, it is said to have hailed from the same ancestral martial art (Fujian White Crane) as Karate, and utilizes some of the same ideas as in Jiu Jitsu and Tai Chi. The Wing Tsun system focuses on superior angles and timing. Wing Tsun was traditionally passed from a Master to one or two chosen disciples, until the propagation of the art throughout Hong Kong by Yip Man (Ip Man). In his escape from his native Foshan from communist China, Grandmaster Yip Man began taking students as he adjusted to city life. The most famous of his students was none other than Bruce Lee, though Yip Man also taught several masters who have further propagated the system.
The Lineage
The last "closed door" student that Yip Man (葉問; Bruce Lee’s Sifu) took on was a young Leung Ting. Grandmaster Leung Ting would go on to found the International Wing Tsun Association. Under the IWTA's European Wing Tsun Organization, Alex Richter became a student of Grandmaster Keith Kernspecht at “The Castle,” where he would train 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Later, Sifu Alex would become a private student of GM Leung Ting himself. Sifu Alex Richter would then go on to found the City Wing Tsun Athletic Association in NYC in 2002. This is where, after 12 years of training, Jose Reyes would earn his title of Sifu and rank of Second Level Technician in the art of Wing Tsun. Jose would go on to found Western Lotus Athletics and Martial Club in Columbus, OH, upholding the high standards of CWTAA as an official Partner School.
Welcome to Western Lotus Athletics & Martial Club and the greater City Wing Tsun Athletic Association! Don’t forget to order you WLA&MC 101 shirt