by Sifu Wong Shun Leung
The following article is a personal account of what the late Wing Chun master, sifu Wong Shun Leung felt were the main lessons he had learnt about combat through his experiences of "beimo" or skill comparison, a somewhat subtle way of naming the many full-on fights he had with practitioners of literally dozens of Chinese and other fighting systems during his forty plus years as a Wing Chun devotee. The "beimo" is a long established tradition in the Chinese martial arts and in the Hong Kong of the 1950's and 1960's, one name shone out like a beacon when "beimo" was the topic of discussion. That name was Wong Shun Leung, student of Wing Chun patriarch Yip Man, classmate and trainer of Bruce Lee, and the man who became known in martial art circles as "Gong Sau Wong", the "King of Talking with the Hands". During these celebrated "contests", which took place on rooftops, in back alleys, behind closed doors, in the countryside and anywhere else that was found to be convenient, sifu Wong is said to have never lost a fight, and most witnesses claim that the majority of exchanges took no more than three techniques to determine his victory. Quite a few of these "contests" were arranged by a journalist who was keen to conduct these "tests of skill" so as to obtain exclusive articles for his newspaper, "The Star". Unlike the tournaments of today, these were real fights where rules and protective clothing were unknown, where serious injuries could and, occasionally, did take place, and where there was absolutely no room for "martial magic". The "beimo" sorted out the martial artists from the bullshit artists.
