Wing Chun Warrior: The True Tales of Wing Chun Kung Fu Master Duncan Leung, Bruce Lee's Fighting Companion - Softcover

Ken Ing

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9881774225 ISBN 13: 9789881774224

Publisher: Blacksmith Books, 2009

Synopsis

Duncan Leung was introduced to Wing Chun Kung Fu by his childhood friend, famed screen star Bruce Lee. At the age of 13, after the ritual of 'three kneels, nine kowtows' in the traditional Sifu worship ceremony, he became the formal disciple of sixth-generation Wing Chun master Yip Man. Between 1955 and 1959 he studied with his Sifu at home, where Yip taught him how to apply Wing Chun to actual fighting. Leung trained six hours a day, seven days a week for four years, and used this knowledge fighting in the streets and martial arts studios of Hong Kong.

In 1964 Leung befriended an old man who taught him rare secrets of close fighting, including the art of disarming a knife-wielding opponent, and silencing an opponent barehanded. When he opened his Wing Chun studio in New York City in 1974, he was challenged by martial art practitioners of every school and was undefeated. Since moving to Virginia Beach in 1976, he has taught US Navy SEALs, members of the FBI, and various SWAT teams.

In 2002 he accepted perhaps the greatest challenge of his life: to train six Chinese teenagers to become world-class professional fighters within two years. To this end, he returned to China to accomplish what many considered an impossible mission.

About this title

Review

There are some gems in the text that have the feeling of a 1950s Hong Kong film. For example, when Leung is queueing up for an evening function and two triads jump the queue, he decks them, much to the admiration of the crowd. But he has only a moment to enjoy their adulation before he spots 20 men with broken bottles heading for him. He then runs 2km, loses his entourage and comes to rest at the Queen Victoria statue in Victoria Park, where he promptly vomits.
There are also his references to his friend Bruce Lee, who to a certain extent has become more legend than man -- that as well as fighting, they were Elvis Presley fans and enjoyed dancing, at which they were apparently skilled. The book describes the two teenagers going to weekly dance classes so they could swivel their hips like the King. -- South China Morning Post, March 1, 2009

The story of Duncan Leung - childhood friend of Bruce Lee and disciple of Wing Chun master Yip Man - is valuable not only for the insights it offers into Chinese martial arts but also for its portrayal of the lost Hong Kong of the 1950s and 1960s. Reading Ken Ing's Wing Chun Warrior, which chronicles Leung's Kung Fu escapades, will be a jarring revelation to anyone familiar with the manic but orderly and largely peaceful city of seven million people that is Hong Kong today. The city described by Ing is a place where Kung Fu practitioners wielded eight-chop knives in the streets and literally battled their way from one martial arts studio to another to prove their fighting prowess.
-- Asia Times, May 16, 2009

Edition details

• Publisher: Blacksmith Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 9881774225
• ISBN 13: 9789881774224
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256