It’s astonishing that it’s nearly two years since Ip Man (the movie) was released. The sequel, Ip Man 2, was released in Beijing on 21 April 2010 and is due for release in the UK on 25th June 2010. As in the first Ip Man film, Donnie Yen takes the leading role as the Wing Chun grandmaster – Ip Man.

Although to date the sequel has grossed more than HK$43 million domestically, public opinion is that it isn’t as good as the first film.

Ip Man 2 focuses on Ip Man’s life in1950′s Hong Kong, which is under British colonial rule. Of course, his attempts to promote Wind Chun, and the inevitable friction with rival martial arts schools make for lots of fighting opportunities!

Ip Man 2 Teasers

Ip Man 2 Trailer

It was always rumoured that the second film would include at least some portrayal of teh relationship betwwn Ip Man and his most famous student – Bruce Lee, and in fact Bruce appears as a child here.

Ip Man 2 Fight Scenes

Some are a “little” unbelievable! Riveting, nonetheless.

Fight With Twister

If there’s one thing guaranteed to motivate you to step up your Wing Chun training, it’s a cocky English boxer!

I know. It’s a bit “Rocky”.

Great. More Fighting.

Good Vs Bad

Exaggerated caricature of Good vs Bad.

Certain people are beating me up when I chi sau with them! So obviously I need to improve. The question is, “how?”. Well, I could just take the non-specific approach and trust that my consistent – and generic -  training will help me improve so much that I ‘lose’ less. And this will probably work.

But let’s take the scientific approach! For example, one guy is really quick. He’s so quick that I just don’t have enough time to react to his attacks. Let’s break it down. What are the components of my reaction to his attack? I need to do these two things:

1. sense the attack
2. process the stimulus
3. respond to the attack

I said “two things”, didn’t I? You could argue that 1 and 2 are so similar that they are actually the same thing. You could even lump them both into the sensitivity category. So obviously I need to improve my sensitivity. I need to be able to sense more quickly that an attack is taking place and how it’s taking place.

Improving Sensitivity

Your sensitivity will improve as a matter of course if you keep practising chi sau properly. But surely there must be a way to fast track this enhancement of sensitivity? Well, there is. Often, when chi sauing, I will adopt the role of responder and let my partner do all the attacking. If you do this, you don’t need to worry about executing your own attacks well, because all you’re doing is defending. This means that all you have to do is block and move your feet. Yes, I’m oversimplifying when I say that, but the point is that it’s easier to focus on feeling if you only have to defend, as opposed to defending and attacking simultaneously. With this extra focus on the contact between you and your partner, you can really heighten your sense of awarenesss.

Additionally, you can focus on yielding. If your mission is to offer no resistance and avoid meeting force with force, you have to listen very carefully to your partner’s hands. There are no two ways about it. If you don’t sense what your partner is doing, sooner or later you will end up ‘fighting’ their energy with yours and meeting force with force. Bad.

The above two exercises are very good for improving sensitivity. Of course, being relaxed all the time makes it easier for your hands to sense what your opponent’s hands are doing, so being relaxed is an integral part of those exercises.

Responding More Quickly

This is the easy one in that you can speed up your responses simply by drilling them over and over again. Pick an attack and response combination and repeat it over and over again. Pick another combination and drill that to death too. Mix them up and randomise. Drill, drill, drill!

You can also practise set responses on your own too, speeding up the transition between the different hands. For example, I like to do a kwan sau with the left hand in a tan sau and the right hand in a low bong sau. I then reverse the kwan sau as quick as I can so the right hand is now in a tan sau. I then keep repeating that transition – left, right, left, right – as quick as I can. If you practise this yourself, you will find not only that your kwan sau becomes lightning fast, but it becomes an instinctive response too.

As we’re already one third of the way into this year, I thought I’d do a progress report on my training. Well, I’ve not reached the lofty heights of a consistent 10 hours a week that I was aiming for, but I’m averaging more hours than my lazy alter ego managed last year. It seems I’m doing on average around 6 hours a week, which is roughly one hour a day. There’s two ways I can look at this. Being a perfectionist I can berate myself and say it’s nowhere near enough, and certainly not as much as I could easily do. But also being a postive person, I can see the value of setting targets that you don’t hit. If setting a target of 10 hours means that although I don’t reach it, I’m still doing 3 times as much as I was before, how can I complain?

The Cardio Connection

One way I am changing my training routine is by adding some cardio exercise. My wing chun training doesn’t give me enough aerobic exercise and I know I need it. I’ve found a way to integrate some into my training so that it actually helps the Wing Chun aspect. I thought I would start doing two long siu lim tau sessions per week (maybe 30 minute ones). The problem is, I really need to be warmed up for them or injuries prevail. So, in order to both warm up and get my aerobic exercise I’m going to precede my long siu lim taus with maybe 20 – 25 minutes of cardio work. Win win.

Also, I like having the muscle tone I used to have when I weight trained so I’ve started doing a mere 5 minutes of pressups and situps at the end of my Wing Chun training. Just as a compromise. Without breaks in between I do 5 pressups, 5 situps, 10 pressups, 10 situps, 15 pressups, 15 situps. I then have a little break to avoid passing out before doing 20 pressups and 20 situps. It’s not much for now (certainly not much compared to what I used to do), but I’ll aim to keep increasing that last pressup/situp cycle.

Searching For Ip Man

No, I didn’t manage to get an interview with Ip Man. It would take more than snappy interview technique to achieve that! I did a little survey this morning of all the phrases that people searched for in Google to find my site. There were masses of phrases relating to the great Bruce Lee that people searched for but twice as many people found my site after searching for the even greater (in my opinion) Ip Man. With that little revelation in mind, I thought I would write some words about Ip Man. But, I need to do some research before I can really do the man justice, as my knowledge is limited to the following lonely facts.

I know that in the early days, the Chinese were very reluctant to teach Wing Chun to westerners. Although there were other rebels who opened their doors to western students, Ip Man was the one who became famous for doing so. Maybe his fame was due to him having taught Bruce Lee.

I get the impression that Ip Man was very hot on his students learning the basics very thoroughly before letting them loose on the more advanced stuff. Hence the long hours of siu lim tau.

From listening to interviews with Donnie Yen, it appears that Ip Chun tried to impress upon him the fcat that Ip Man was a true gentleman. I take that to mean that he was very well mannered and had a good appreciation of social etiquette. He was quite well off too, by all accounts.

Ip Man’s Sons

Ip Man had two sons: Ip Chun and Ip Ching. Perhaps the most well known is Ip chun. My sifu says that “Chun” and “Ching” mean “correct” and “accurate” – if I remember correctly – so with those names, how could they not become skilled Wing Chun practitioners? But hold on. Rumour (of the forum variety) says that Ip Chun only started learning Wing Chun in earnest at the age of 38. I think he had a dabble when he was younger but nothing serious. The power of his surname obviously didn’t have that much influence on him in respect of Wing Chun if he left it until 38 to train properly. Given that Ip Man must have been knocking on a bit, just how much of Ip Man’s teaching did Ip Chun receive I wonder… I’m just thinking aloud now, because I don’t know the facts.

I know that Ip Ching is also a (perhaps lesser known) skilled practitioner of Wing Chun, having taught Samuel Kwok (as Ip Chun has done also). Wow, I didn’t realise how scrappy my knowledge was!

Ip Man Fight Scenes

I just couldn’t help myself. I’ve gone and compiled a series of fight scenes from the Ip Man movie on Youtube.

With the recent release of Ip Man the movie, interest in Ip Man has rocketed. Stay tuned for more (better informed!) stuff about Ip Man. I have some old and dusty martial arts magazines that I know have articles about Ip Man in them, so I’ll shake the dust off them over the weekend. Ip Man also gets quite a mention in the Bruce Lee biography I’m reading so I’ll revisit that one too.

The sequel to Wilson Yip’s Ip Man biopic, tentatively titled Ip Man 2 (originality: null points) focuses on Ip Man’s move to Hong Kong in 1949 and subsequent attempts to spread the word about Wing Chun.

As expected, Donnie Yen takes on the title role as Ip Man again. I think he did a tremendous job in the first film and hope he does us proud again in the next one.

Ip Man And Bruce Lee

Although the sequel starts in 1949, rumour has it that a young Bruce Lee will not appear in Ip Man 2. To put the story in context, in 1953 Bruce Lee started Wing Chun lessons with Ip Man at the age of 13. Originally, the film was set to show the relationship between Bruce Lee and Ip Man, but as negotiations with Bruce’s family are still underway, it is anticipated that the kung fu legend (Bruce Lee, that is) will appear only in Ip Man 3. I have not a clue who could play the role of the great Bruce Lee. But for a bit of fun, I’ll now have a guess at… Tony Jaa for his extreme athleticism or Jet Li simply for his kung fu prowess. Tony Jaa seems more of a gymnast than a martial artist though…

Tony Jaa In Ip Man 2?

Jet Li In Ip Man 2?

For my money, I’d prefer to see Jet Li. I just couldn’t resist this excuse to show some excellent Jet Li high octane bludgeoning  from Unleashed!

Owing to the negotiations with the Lee family, the original plan to shoot movies 2 and 3 concurrently has been shelved. Work on Ip Man 2, however, will start in August 2009. That’s only 4 months away.

Unlike the first Ip Man movie, the second will feature appearances by Sammo Hung, who plays a Hung Gar master pitted against Yen.  In 1949 Hong Kong there was a tradition of rivalry between “girly” Wing Chun and “manly” Hung Gar.  With Sammo Hung being the Hung Gar exponent in Ip Man 2, you can predict where this one is going. This film sees Ip Man trying to establish Wing Chun as the deadly art it is. The last time Sammo and Donnie fought one another was in Wilson Yip’s Kill Zone (SPL) in 2005.

The official line is that the HK$100 million sequel will be released some time towards the end of 2010. Unbelievably, imdb already have an entry for Ip Man 2!

Leo Au Yeung was one of the fight choreographers on the Ip Man movie set. Recently, he agreed to do the following interview.

Hi Leo. Thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview. How are you today?

1. Where did you grow up?
   I originally grew up in Hong Kong.
2. How did you come to be in England?
   I came here to study when I were 17.
3. How did you get involved in the martial arts?
   I always liked martial arts since I was 4 years old, however I didn’t know which style to choose or where to start. I was confused and did not know what to do until I met my uncle who had done Wing Chun for years. I showed my interest to learning kung fu and he introduce me to Wing Chun and suggested that I learn from Grandmaster Ip Chun as he is one of the best known Masters in Hong Kong. This is how I begin my Wing Chun training.
4. Can you tell us about your Wing Chun background? I understand you started training under the great Ip Chun. How was that?
   My first Wing Chun training started in 1995 and my first Wing Chun teacher is Grandmaster Ip Chun. The training was very enjoyable and I have gained quite a good understanding on what is good Wing Chun.

   After two years training I came to England to study but I go back to Hong Kong to train every summer. Every summer holiday I go back to Hong Kong and train for 6-7 days a week. I attended all the Ip chun’s classes no matter morning or evening class, he even give me the key of the gym, this means I can go there to practice if there had no class.

   In that’s period of time I learnt quite a lot about Ip Chun’s style because every summer there were a lot of foreigners came to Hong Kong to learn from Ip Chun, most of the time I am the only one who can speak fluent English therefore I did all the translation for him. For this reason I am not just learn Ip Chun wing chun, I also learn how he teach and the way how he see wing chun.

   I had done this for a few years until I started working in Preston, and I start to train under Master Samuel Kwok. Master Kwok just live about half hour from me, initially I just train once a week with Samuel, however for some reason we get on very well, may be we got a similar background and teacher, end up I see him 5-6 days a week again. I went to all his classes during the week and seminars every part in the country. After a year training I become his assistance, I help him to teach all the classes when he is aboard for holiday and seminars etc. I have done this for about 3-4 years until I got my new job in London.

5. How did you become involved in the making of the Ip Man movie?
   One of the Ip Man movie investors is a Wing Chun enthusiast. His intention in making this movie was to demonstrate the ‘real’ Wing Chun to the rest of the world. For this reason he searched for some top class Wing Chun instructors all over the world and he found Master Samuel Kwok lineage. At the end he contacted Samuel and asked him was anyone could recommend to him to choreograph the Ip Man movie. He was looking for someone with the requirement of having a very good understanding of Wing Chun and able to demonstrate the art in a more traditional manner. Master Kwok straight away thought that I would be the most suitable candidate, firstly because he has true confidence of my ability in Wing Chun. He believes that I am capable to represent him to choreograph the movie. On the other hand beside Wing Chun I also know a wide range of martial arts, so it really helped when making the comparison between Wing Chun and other styles.
6. Can you tell us about your experiences working as a fight choreographer on the Ip Man movie?
   Off course our biggest challenge was how to made Wing Chun look good on the screen, as you know most of the Wing Chun moves are very small and simple. Therefore sometimes we have to exaggerate the movement a bit, or we have to close up the movements, in order to make them look impressive on screen. However, we still have to keep the accent of Wing Chun. In the end we still spent over 7 days to choreograph just 3 mins in the movie.
7. How can I get a role in the next movie you choreograph?!
   If you are serious you could send some of your detail to me e.g. picture and video of you, you martial arts background, may be some video you doing some wing chun or other martial art. I can help you to give them to the movie producer or director. Who knows may be you will in Ip man 2.
8. Did you spend much time with Donnie Yen/Sammo Hung? How were they?
   I only meet Donnie very briefly but the impression he gave me is he is very passionate about martial arts and he is a very professional action actor.
   Sammo is a very easy going and humours person. He just like a ‘big brother’ to us, he always looks after his crew. For example he would always buy us breakfast in the morning, in order to keep us warm. Sometimes he would ask his wife to cook something the night before and he would bring it to us in the next day. Moreover he would always be the first few to arrive on set, so he would really set a good example to the rest of the crew. I really respect him and it is a pleasure to work with him.
9. Although I’ve not seen the full film yet, I’ve seen some of the Ip Man fight scenes on Youtube and love them! Do you have a favourite fight scene?
   My favourite would be the fist fight scene when ip man fighting in his house and when Donnie fight one against ten Japanese.
10. I believe that there are 2 more Ip Man movies planned. Will you be working on those?
    As far as I know they still working on the script and the story at the moment, so it is still early to say will I get involved yet but of course I will if I have the chance.
11. How much do you train each day/each week?
    I train about 1.5h per day, however in my opinion martial art is not just about how long and how hard you train, it is more important how correct you train. I have come across a lot of wing Chun practitioners who have trained for years but they still don’t know some fundamental concept and principle of wing chun. I always tell my students how many years you had been training doesn’t mean a thing. What is the most important is how correct do you train.
12. Do you have a favourite martial arts movie?
    I would say all Lau kar leung’s movie, eg the 36th Chamber of Shaolin , My Young Auntie and Mad Monkey Kung Fu etc . Firstly he is the grandmaster of my Hung Gar, secondly all the actors who acted in the movie are martial artists, there are no special effects or computer graphic etc. In my opinion those are ‘pure’ martial arts films. Of course the more recent one is Ip Man.
13. Do you get to meet up with Ip Chun often?
    Ip Chun is my first teacher in wing chun of course I will see him from time to time, I tried to see him every year but I cannot really made it because my my job etc.
14. You run a martial arts school in London. Tell me more…
    The objective of our school is to teach first -rate traditional Chinese kung fu. I only teach kung fu to a small group of people, because I believe quality is more important than quantity. Especially in Wing Chun, for me half of an inch difference is dead or alive. I pay attention to every single detail, even one finger is out of place is an mistake for me. I am not teaching martial art for living, this mean I don’t need to run my school like a business or factory, my first priority is train my student up, not increase the number of school.In wing Chun it is important to have correct body structure and arm position .It just takes an inch out of position to have a negative impact on a student. In larger classes you don’t have the opportunity to notice or correct this and over a period of time this becomes a habit with the student. This flaw becomes apparent when the student goes onto Chi Sau, giving more opportunities for an opponent to hit. It is sad for me when I chi Sau with some wing Chun practitioners who have trained for years only to find they have not covered the foundations properly.

Again, thank you Leo for taking time out to tell us more about yourself. The following is a gallery of photos that Leo took whilst on the set of Ip Man.

Ip Man Movie Photo Set

Leo is currently teaching Wing Chun, Hung Gar and Tai Chi in London. Check out his website for further details

As expected, Sammo Hung brings exciting fight choregraphy to the Ip Man movie. Donnie Yen puts on a great show of speed and accuracy when he takes on ten Japanese fighters at once. This is possibly the best  fight scene in the Ip Man movie, with Donnie Yen demonstrating his grappling and chain punching prowess. Towards the end of the fight, there is a shot of Yen chain punching a Japanese fighter all the way to the ground! Nice.

Other fight scenes see Donnie Yen fighting with a pole and a feather duster (a la Jackie Chan make-do style).

There are not too many fight scenes in Ip Man, owing to the fact that the film’s intention is to portray the events of Ip Man’s life. It is not supposed to be a non stop fight fest. Nevertheless, let’s cut the yada yada and show some Ip Man fights!

Ip Man vs Sifu Liu

This is more like friendly chi sau than a fully fledged fight, but it’s excellent nonetheless. I love it. The other guy didn’t stand a chance. Whaddya mean it’s not real?!

Ip Man vs 10 Black Belts

The title sums up the action and there are no prizes for guessing the outcome of the fight.

Northerner vs Kung Fu Schools

Check out the new kid in town. He fights his way through the towns top martial artists in less than 5 minutes. OK, I know it’s flashy, but all those showy moves are just too unnecessary and a waster of time and energy. What he needs is a lesson in Wing Chun Just Enoughness.

Ip Man vs Northern Kung Fu Stylist

Ip Man displays minimalist movement here when fighting the new guy in town. He throws some nice looking Wing Chun shapes. Feather duster mayhem ahoy! I hear that Ip Chun is thinking about introducing a feather duster form to complement the six and a half point pole.

Factory Workers vs Bandits

Having been forced to do one hour siu lim taus every morning, the factory workers are not the easy target those banditos anticipated.

Fight For Rice

These looks like the seeds of revenge being sown.

Ip Man Ultimate Fight

You know Donnie Yen (sorry Ip Man) meant business when he rolled his sleeves up! There was never really any doubt about who’s fight this was. But wait – was that a spinning back kick that Ip Man did at 2:05? I don’t remember doing that in the forms! Love the bit where he uses the general as his own wooden dummy.

According to my sources (internet rumour!), the Ip Man movie was released on Blu-ray on 13th February 2009 via Yesasia. I’ve done a bit of searching on that site and only the Hong Kong version of this movie seems to be available. Still, it’s not going to be too hard to figure out the plot, is it!

Ip Man Movie Review – Yesasia

Here is a summary of the comments on the Ip Man movie found on the Yesasia site (for those who need comments to go!). Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first.

There is some dissatisfaction with the quality of the English subtitles:

…the English subtitles are so horribly and unprofessionally done that they are laughable.

Shocking, I know, but someone questions Donnie Yen’s acting talent:

Donnie’s acting is static and the rest of the movie. Too much Donnie lately. He was great in supporting roles in the old HK movies. As the lead ???

Another was disappointed in the quality of the Blu-ray release:

i am VERY dissapointed with the Blu-Ray release. It has a very ghostly effect in dark scenes and very grainy, i would just say get the DVD version. I watched it on the PS3 and havent tried it on any other player yet. HDMI cables etc and still a distorted picture at times.

OK, onto the good bits. Good fight scenes:

I bought “Ip Man”, “champions” and “Legendary assassin” I think “Ip Man” is BEST!
The fight scenes are amazing, powerful and lifelike compared to the other two movies

i really enjoyed the movie. the story was beautiful and the fight scenes were well done

Another viewer sees a natural progression in the intensity of the fights:

So, all the fight senses is well organize. The first fight is entry level and funny because his son. Second fight mid-level with more power and intense. The later fights, you can expect more power from it.

From looking at the comments, I would say that if you can live with poor quality, acting and subtitles, and you want good Wing Chun action, this film is for you. From my point of view, I don’t really care about the subtitles, it’s just the Wing Chun I’m interested in. Obviously the quality of the sound and picture are a factor, so maybe Blu-ray isn’t the way to go. I don’t know. I’ll be able to give you my own subjective opinion when I’ve actually seen the Ip Man movie.

Ip Man Movie On Amazon

You can get the Ip Man movie on Amazon.

All Out Wing Chun Training

In the run up to the instructor’s course that I’ve been invited to attend, I thought I would go all out in my training, just for the hell of it. Motivated by my hours to mastery estimation (just for fun), I worked out that training twice a day I can accumulate many more training hours in a year than I have in the last three years of training. I didn’t realise how half hearted my training was until I detailed it on paper. I recommend you doing the same.

So what I propose to do is spend an hour in the gym before work and then half an hour in the gym at lunch, working on various aspects of Wing Chun. If you add to that three hours worth of lessons (there are three lessons I can attend a week), then that makes a total of 10.5 hours a week I can train. I’ll give myself half an hour off a week and round it down to 10 hours, for the sake of my maths.

A Monk’s Life

If I hope to achieve this goal, one of the things I’m going to have to do is give up booze. I just don’t feel like training the day after a night drinking, so boozing is a real impediment. With Friday night being a popular time for a booze fest, my Saturday class is in a precarious position. Must be strong!

Santa – Motivation Guru

As far as motivation goes, look what Santa brought me! That erudite man brought me three different books on Bruce Lee:

• Tao of Jeet Kune Do
• The Art of Expressing the Human Body
• Bruce Lee: Fighting Spirit

They all look good, but the one I’ve started reading is The Art of Expressing the Human Body. I found even the first few pages very motivating. I think the book is going to turn into some kind of training journal for Bruce Lee, which may or may not be useful to me in my Wing Chun training. I never really knew much about Bruce Lee, but the thing that strikes me so far is his dedication and commitment to his art. He was a real perfectionist. This is just the kind of role model I need so I’ll be reading this book every night.

Vanity

In stepping up my Wing Chun training, something else has to give and that’s my weight training. I’m sacrificing my lunch time weight training session for Wing Chun. Whilst this will accelerate my skill development, I’m concerned about how my body will change.

At the moment, I like the way that my regular weight training makes my muscles look toned, and bigger than they ordinarily would be. This is pure vanity, of course, and I realise it. All the same, I’m going to miss that muscle size and definition. Going back to Bruce Lee for a moment, he strove for functionality in all things. He did weight training himself, but for the purpose of developing speed, power and endurance. Not solely for enhancing aesthetics (though by all accounts he did enjoy the side benefit of looking good). In contrast, my weight training is in no way geared to making my Wing Chun better; it’s just for looks. So what I think I will do is focus on developing my Wing Chun skill and revisit the idea of developing speed, power and endurance through weight training at a later date.

I’m excited, because I’ve not made such a big positive decision regarding my Wing Chun training before. I’ve been weight training consistently now for eight years, so giving that up is a big change too!

I can report that this morning’s session was a doddle. I got up at 6:30 and was in the gym by 7:15. After a 15 minute warm up I did an hour of Wing Chun practice and then went to work. I’m now going to set off for my lunch time practice (yeah, I know I should be working….).

Here is an Ip Man Interview that Donnie Yen gave. It’s a bit difficult (OK, impossible) for me to understand what’s being said because it’s all in Cantonese, but I’m sure chisautube gets mentioned!

In a more in depth Ip Man interview, Donnie Yen explains that the Ip Man movie is a biography of Ip Man, the great grandmaster of Wing Chun. The charts the events in Ip Man’s life in Foshan and portrays his refusal to teach Wing Chun to the Japanes army after they invaded. Here, Donnie Yen reveals that the Ip Man movie is only one half of the Ip Man story. There will be a sequel.

Part two will feature his move to Hong Kong and his later introduction to Bruce Lee.

I did smile when Mr Yen told the interviewer that Ip Man resembles him. Of course Ip Man probably wasn’t as modest as Yen! I’m just messing.