The Female Founders of Kung Fu

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By Pete Mills, on 08-03-2008 19:21

Lesley Jackson studies the feminine foundations of two widely practiced kung fu styles, looking into the history of Wing Chun, created by nuns Ng Mui and Yim Wing Chun, and also the background to Southern White Crane, founded by Fang Chi Niang.

Chinese kung fu is not a martial art that is traditionally exclusive to men, and it never has been. There are a huge amount of kung fu styles with many of them dating back hundreds of years, so it is no surprise that at some point along the line, women were not only practising martial arts in China, they were developing them as well. It must be noted, however, that a lot of the stories of kung fu were passed on orally with some being only taught within enclosed communities until quite recently. For example, the story of Ng Mui and the origins of Wing Chun were not written down until the early twentieth century by the Wing Chun master Yip Man, the first person to teach Wing Chun to outside students. One cannot guarantee the absolute accuracy of these stories and can only present them from the various threads available, as I have attempted to do here. For that reason, the reader will notice similarities and cross references between the stories; it is quite possible that Ng Mui and Fang Chi-Niang was the same person, or even that Ng Mui may not have existed at all. We will never really know. Therefore, I have presented two separate stories to denote the two styles’ lineages, and the reader can then make up and debate their credence for themselves.

Ng Mui and Wing Chun

Ng Mui’s date of birth is not known but it is said that she existed during the mid to late seventeenth century. She was the daughter of a Ming General and was raised in the Forbidden City, where she would have had access to a privileged education not normally available to women including medicine, art, literature, music and of course, martial arts. By the time she entered the Shaolin Temple in the Henan province, she would have already been an accomplished martial artist.

During her time there, she continued to develop her own martial arts system where she moved away from the exotic styles and forms of kung fu towards a more practical form of combat that could be used for more competitive purposes. Her name has been linked with the Dragon, Crane and even the “Plum Flower Fist” styles but it is with Wing Chun that Ng Mui is most strongly associated. Being female, she would have been aware of her diminutive size compared to her male opponents and therefore adapted her style to conditioning the body and utilising her strengths to defeat her opponent.

She is thought to have developed several training techniques such as driving posts into the ground at various heights to help train for balance and leg strength. Also, in a parallel vein to Tai Chi Chuan, she developed an internal system to apply strength and power; as well as the fighting strategy of ‘form from no-form’. Instead of relying on the pre-arranged fighting sequences (or patterns) she would clear her mind to enable her to attack spontaneously and retaliate without any superfluous movements.

Meanwhile, during the mid-seventeen century, the Ming dynasty was usurped by the Manchu clan, establishing the Qing dynasty in 1668. It was during this time that Ng Mui’s parents are thought to have been killed and the Shaolin Temple at Henan destroyed. Ng Mui, along with four other monks, was among the only ones to have survived the massacre and she sought refuge at the White Crane Temple in the Southern Guangxi province. Here she further developed her own martial arts style and it is here she is thought to have developed the beginnings of Wing Chun.

The Snake and Crane – Early Developments of Wing Chun

It is alleged that one day, whilst walking around outside, Ng Mui witnessed a snake and a crane fighting. She admired the way the crane and snake used their own strengths against the other and from this she sought inspiration to apply this to her developing style. The snake’s direct attack and the crane’s avoidance and simultaneous block and strike gave her the idea of conserving energy and also using techniques directed at specific, vulnerable targets rather than matching strength with strength.

What seems to be consistent in the various stories of Ng Mui and Wing Chun is that she got to know a young woman called Yim Wing Chun and her father Yim Sam Soak, who supplied the temple with bean cakes. Yim Wing Chun was a very attractive young woman who had already had her marriage happily arranged from birth to a man called Leung Bok Chau. However, a local thuggish landlord called Wong took a fancy to Miss Wing Chun and decided he wanted to marry her instead. She and her father turned him down, a rejection Wong did not take kindly to and he threatened to force her hand in marriage. Ng Mui took pity on Yim Wing Chun and took her into the temple to teach her the fighting skills of her own style of martial art to enable Yim Wing Chun to defend herself. After Yim Wing Chun left the temple, she challenged Wong to a bout of unarmed combat in order to release herself from Wong’s attentions. Of course, Wong thought this was going to be an easy win but was proved painfully wrong when she used the tactics taught to her by Ng Mui and gave Wong a severe beating.

Yim Wing Chun later married Leung, to whom she taught this system of fighting, and continued to develop Ng Mui’s martial art. Leung later named this fighting system after his wife in her honour. And what became of Ng Mui? Well, nobody really knows but one could assume she continued to teach and train in her temple in southern China.

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Fang Chi Niang and Southern White Crane

As would be suggested in its title, White Crane style originated from the south of China and is thought to have been invented by a woman called Fang Chi Niang. As with Ng Mui, her exact details are not known but it is thought she lived in the early eighteenth century in the south-eastern province of Fukien or Fujian. Her father, Fang Fei Sze, who studied kung fu at the Shaolin temple at Nine Lotus Mountain, taught his daughter the martial arts skills that he had learnt. Although she was well trained by her father, she realised that as a female martial artist she was at a distinct physical disadvantage to her bigger male opponents.

There are many stories abound that speak of the destruction of the southern Shaolin Temple by the Emperor Chien Lung and of Fang Fei-Sze’s close escape, as those of Fang Chi Niang and her mother being harassed by local landlords (much like the story of Ng Mui) but what is consistent in the stories of Fang Chi Niang is her development of the Southern Crane fighting system.

The Crane and Staff – Early Developments of the Southern Crane style

One day, whist outside drying grain, a great Crane landed near her and started to peck away at the grain. This made Fang Chi Niang furious and she picked up a staff and started to wave it at the bird to get rid of it. However, the bird simply evaded the staff by avoiding it and blocking it with its wing, pecking away at the staff. This gave Fang Chi Niang the idea of applying these techniques to her martial arts training and thus giving her the foundation for the Crane style. As most kung fu training relied upon physical conditioning of the body and its muscles to increase their strength, she developed a style that utilised the vulnerable points in the body that no amount of training could protect, for example: the groin, solar plexus, throat and eyes. Also the idea of avoiding attacks by side stepping and launching an immediate counter attack enabled her to beat an opponent much taller than herself. Another tactic was to absorb her opponent’s forward attack, staying close to her attacker and controlling him with sticking hands whilst delivering a flurry of strikes using a spear hand or protruding index knuckle fist to the vulnerable striking areas.

The exact details of Fang Chi Niang’s life are not known, her life span varies from the late seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century; she is thought to have married but the name of her husband varies in different accounts. It seems certain that she did live in the Fujian province but it is from these foundations that the various Crane styles of kung fu are thought to have developed and spread around southern China.

From reading these two stories, it is easy to draw similarities and contradictions between them both. Whether these women actually existed in their own right, or were a combination of people, or are simply legends or merely metaphors for the origins of a style of martial art, we just don’t know. Nonetheless, their stories remain in various forms and their names will always be associated with the formation of two very distinct styles of kung fu that are still practised today in both China and the rest of the world.

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