My late father was born in Foshan at the end of Ching Dynasty. Foshan was situated at the most prosperous region of the Zheyieng Delta of Guangdong province and it was the hub of land and sea transport. From ancient time, it had been called one of the Ever Major Historical Towns of China in association with Jingde, Thuxian and Hankiou. Industry and trade, in particular handicraft trade, prospered all along and the residents lived a stable and prosperous life. As a result, culture and art developed fully and as Chinese martial art was part of China's traditional culture and art, the trend of learn material art was very popular. Well known masters of the South School, e.g. WONG Fai-hung, CHEUNG Hung-shing, LEUNG Chan, LEUNG Siu-ching etc. came from Foshan. Master Ip was born in such an age and he was extremely fond of Chinese martial art. With talent and persistence as well as teaching by famous teachers(CHAN Wah-shun at the beginning and LEUNG Pik, son of LEUNG Chan later), Master Ip's achievement could be envisaged.

The Master put great emphasis on the selection of talent. He always said,” No doubt it is difficult for a disciple to select a teacher. But it is even more difficult for a teacher to select a disciple”. It was extraordinary for someone who taught martial art for a living to have such a mentality. This meant that he was serious in his attitude and responsible to the disciples he taught. Throughout his life, the Master had neither hung up a signboard nor put up enrollment advertisement. The aim for this was just to reserve” the active right to select disciple” . The Master adhered to this principle strictly for the past 20 years. It was commendable for someone who taught martial art for a living.
“Wing Chun” is practical, simple and direct without any fancy element. The Master put great emphasis on the basic training of the new disciples. When he taught them Xiu Nin Tau, he imposed no time constraint on the learning of correct stance, co-ordination of the waist and the stand as well as the use of strength. He would teach a new topic only after the disciple could prove that he could meet his requirement. He would never teach perfunctorily. This was in fact, a kind of award to those who worked hard to meet the requirement.
Another characteristic of the Master's way of teaching was teaching a disciple according to his aptitude. He would thoroughly analyze the mentally, character, physical fitness, physique, education standard, cultural accomplishment as well as power of absorption of the disciple first. Then he would teach him ways and means according to the different needs of individual to make sure that every disciple would absorb and learn easily.
In the course of teaching, the Master placed a lot of importance in practicing a show and free combat. The aim was to nurture disciple's love of and confidence in” Wing Chun” so as to guide him to study the rules of “Wing Chun” and the wooden dummy. Apart from great attainments in ”Wing Chun”, the Master received advanced education in his youth. Moreover, he continued to absorb modern scientific knowledge. Therefore, he could always make use of present day's technological knowledge such as mechanic and mathematics theories to explain the rules of Wing Chun. The Master could even give up unintelligible wordings such as the Five Elements, Eight Diagrams and mutual promotion and restraint between the Five Elements that were commonly used in metaphysics. This helped purification of martial arts and this was also the secret for the Master to achieve such high attainment. The Master had never said and even detested anyone who said,” I met a genius or hermit who taught me extraordinary skill or unique move in martial art” to cheat his disciple and to promote himself. He thought that such person had no confidence in what he had learnt and he was extremely shallow in the rules of martial art. He only wished to scare people by telling this kind of specious story. Such person was doomed to failure by using this kind of unsubstantiated means to teach martial art.
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