The new Qing government made life more and more difficult for the monks with a series of purges against the temple. It is said that five elders escaped the carnage and vowed to adapt their kung fu to overcome the existing styles (because there were traitors in the temple and the elders could no longer trust the monks) and to overthrow the Qing government.

It is said that one of the elders, a Buddhist nun by the name of Ng Moi developed a new art after witnessing a fight between a snake and a crane － the direct attacks of the snake and the deflections of the crane. In a village where Ng Moi was staying there was a local girl who was the subject of the unwanted attentions of a local warlord who demanded that the girl marry him. After hearing of this Ng Moi took the girl in as her first pupil and it was arranged that if she beat the warlord in a fight then he would leave her alone. The girl returned and easily defeated her admirer and therefore Ng Moi named the new art after her first pupil Yim Wing Chun. Wing Chun means beautiful or eternal springtime.

What is more certain is that Wing Chun was passed onto some members of a traveling opera group who were also anti-Qing agents known as The Red Junk Opera. Over a period of time the group dispersed and took with them their Wing Chun skills passing them on wherever they went. This has led over a period of time to at least twelve distinct styles of Wing Chun (all with a common theme but slight differences in application), some of these styles have hardly left their local area in China, some went to Malaysia, some to Vietnam etc. In 1949, Ip Man who was considered to be the grandmaster of modern Wing Chun, brought the style out of China into Hong Kong and eventually to the rest of the world. Our interest lies in the lineage that leads through to Grandmaster Ip Ching, as he is the son of Grandmaster Ip Man whose style we practise, and Ip Ching is regarded as the highest authority alive today on Ip Man Wing Chun kung fu.