About 250 – 300 years ago, there was a Buddhist nun named Ng Mui. Reportedly she was a Shaolin disciple and also an expert of the ‘Weng Chun Bak Hok Pai’ style of kungfu, or the “White Crane” kungfu style of the Wing Tsun Precinct in Fujian Province.
Due to political problems, Ng Mui, together with a few other Shaolin members, was hunted down by the rulers of the Qing Dynasty. They ran from Fujian and dispersed to different parts of South China. Ng escaped to the border district of the Yunan and Szechuan Provinces and settled down in the “Bak Hok Koon” or “White Crane Temple” in the Tai Leung Mountain. There she accepted a few students. Ng Mui was a kung fu enthusiast with great talents.
She was constantly looking to improve on what she had mastered although she was already one of the topmost experts. It happened in the area where she took refuge she came by some local martial arts techniques which were quite different, innovative and useful. She reformed what she had learned with some of these techniques and created a new style.
Ng later taught all her skills to a young maid Yim Wing Tsun, an outstanding and beloved student of hers. Yim married Leung Bok Chau, a salt merchant from Guangdong. Yim taught the skills she learnt to Leung, and from then on the husband and wife team dedicated themselves to refining the art further. Leung later taught Leung Lan Kwai, an herbal physician of osteology.
It occurred that the newly created style of techniques had never had a name when Ng Mui passed it to Yim and Yim to her husband. By this time when Leung Bok Chau passed the skills to Leung Lan Kwai, he decided to name it as Wing Tsun Kuen, in honour of the efforts of his wife.