Ip Man (born Ip Kai-man; 1 October 1893 – 2 December 1972), also known as Yip Man, was a Chinese martial arts grandmaster. He became a teacher of the martial art of Wing Chun when he was 20. He had several students who later became martial arts masters in their own right, the most famous among them being Bruce Lee.
Ip Man was born as Ip Kai-man (葉繼問) to Ip Oi-dor (葉靄多) and Ng Shui (吳瑞) as the third of his parents' four children. He grew up in a wealthy family in Foshan (Fatshan), Guangdong (Kwangtung) and received a traditional Chinese education alongside his elder brother Ip Kai-gak (葉繼格), elder sister Ip Wan-mei (葉允媚), and younger sister Ip Wan-hum (葉允堪).
Ip started learning Wing Chun from Chan Wah-shun when he was 9 or 13. Chan was 57 at the time, and Ip became Chan's 16th and last student. Due to Chan's age, he was able to train Ip for only three years before suffering a mild stroke in 1909 and retiring to his village. Ip learned most of his skills and techniques from Chan's second-most senior student, Ng Chung-sok (吳仲素).
At the age of 16, with help from his relative, Leung Fut-ting, Ip moved to Hong Kong and attended school at St. Stephen's College, by then a secondary school for wealthy families and foreigners living in Hong Kong. Six months after moving to Hong Kong, a classmate of Ip's named Lai told him that a friend of Lai's father who was an expert in Kung Fu techniques was living with them, and had offered to have a friendly sparring match with Ip.
At the time, Ip was undefeated so he eagerly accepted the challenge. He went to Lai's house on a Sunday afternoon and, after exchanging brief pleasantries, challenged the man to a duel. The man was Leung Bik and he easily overwhelmed Ip Man. Incredulous at the speed with which he had been countered, Ip requested a second duel and was beaten again, just as soundly.
Discouraged by his defeat, Ip left without a word and afterwards was so depressed that he did not dare mention that he knew Kung Fu. A week later, Lai told him that the man he had fought was asking after him. Ip replied that he was too embarrassed to return, at which point Lai told him that Leung Bik had highly praised his Kung Fu techniques and that he was the son of Leung Jan, who trained Ip's master, Chan Wah-shun. Ip proceeded to train with Leung Bik, until Leung's death in 1911.
Ip returned to Foshan in 1916 when he was 24 and became a police officer there for the Nationalist government. He taught Wing Chun to several of his subordinates, friends, and relatives, but did not officially run a martial arts school. Noted students of this time were Lok Yiu, Chow Kwong-yue (周光裕), Kwok Fu (郭富), Lun Kah (倫佳), Chan Chi-sun (陳志新), and Lui Ying (呂應). Chow Kwong-yue was regarded as the most talented of Ip's Foshan students, but he devoted himself to trade and abandoned the martial arts. Kwok Fu and Lun Kah began teaching and spreading the art of Wing Chun in the Foshan and Guangdong region. Chan Chi-sun and Lui Ying moved to Hong Kong but neither accepted students.
Ip married Cheung Wing-sing and they had several children: sons Ip Chun and Ip Ching, and daughters Ip Nga-sum (葉雅心) and Ip Nga-wun (葉雅媛).
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ip Man sided with Kuomintang during the conflict. What Ip Man did during the war remains unclear. It is rumoured that he had joined the Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics in its academy in Guizhou in 1938, after which he would have returned to Foshan as an undercover intelligence officer. However, the veracity of this has been disputed. It is believed Ip went to live with Kwok Fu during the war and only returned to Foshan at the end of the war.
After the war, Ip Man served for a few years as captain of the Foshan police patrols. Ip found some time to train his second son, Ip Ching, during the year 1949. At the end of 1949, after the Chinese Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War, as Ip was a member of the Kuomintang, Ip, his wife and their elder daughter, Ip Nga-sum, left Foshan for Hong Kong.
Ip, his wife Cheung, and their daughter arrived in Hong Kong through Macau in 1950. His wife and daughter later returned to Foshan to retrieve their identity cards. Due to the closure of borders between China and Hong Kong in 1951, Ip and Cheung were separated for good, with Cheung remaining in Foshan until her death.
After having moved to Hong Kong, the 56-year-old Ip Man struggled with unemployment. Ip's only prior experience was as a policeman in Foshan, but he was either unable or refused to join the Hong Kong Police Force. Ip's friends were able to help him get a job at a restaurant, where he would make new associates via the Hong Kong Restaurant Workers' Association. The association also had a club for martial artists, led by Leung Sheung, but Ip Man didn't want others to know that he was a martial artist.
Ip is known to have been addicted to opium and, after moving to Hong Kong, he was able to buy it on the black market. Opium was very expensive at the time, so Ip had to earn a steady income to smoke opium while supporting his family in Foshan.
Ip began teaching Wing Chun in the early 1950s, to escape poverty and to allegedly feed his opium addiction. His earliest students
consisted mainly of "poor and uneducated" members of the Restaurant Workers' Association and "restless and angry young men", who were attracted to Ip Man's charismatic personality and the prospect of getting tougher in order to survive the dangerous environment of 1950s Hong Kong. Initially, Ip Man's teaching business was poor in Hong Kong because Ip's students typically stayed for only a couple of months. He moved his school twice, first, to Castle Peak Road in Sham Shui Po, and then to Lee Tat Street (利達街) in Yau Ma Tei, to where only a few of his former students followed and continued to train with him. One of the notable students was Grandmaster Chow Tze Chueng, the teacher of Sifu Donald Mak. By then, some of his students had attained proficiency in Wing Chun and were able to start their own schools. They went on and sparred with other martial artists to compare their skills, and their victories helped to increase Ip's fame.
Around 1955, he had a mistress from Shanghai, who was referred to by his students simply as Shanghai Po (上海婆). Ip and this mistress had an extramarital son named Ip Siu-wah (葉少華). In Foshan, his wife Cheung died of cancer in 1960. Ip never formally introduced his mistress to his other sons, who eventually arrived in Hong Kong to reunite with him in 1962.
By the 1960s, Ip Man was becoming more famous in the Hong Kong community. This allowed him to attract wealthier and better-educated people to become his students. In 1967, Ip and some of his students established the Ving Tsun (Wing Chun) Athletic Association (詠春體育會). The main purpose of the Ving Tsun Athletic Association was to help Ip tackle his financial difficulties in Hong Kong, which was due to his regular use of opium. One of his former students, Duncan Leung, claimed that Ip used tuition money to support his opium addiction. Ip's mistress died of cancer in 1968, and their son later became a Wing Chun practitioner, as did his half-brothers.
Ip died on 2 December 1972, in his unit at 149 Tung Choi Street in Hong Kong, from throat cancer, only seven months before the death of Bruce Lee, his most famous student. He was buried at Wo Hop Shek, Hong Kong.