Spreading the Gospel of Kung Fu: Print Media and the Popularization of Wing Chun
pt. 3
So what does the early publication record for Wing Chun look like? When might an informed or curious martial arts student have first encountered this style?
Chances are good that such an individual (if living in North America) would have first seen Wing Chun mentioned in the pages of Black Belt Magazine during the late 1960s. It wasn’t until March of 1965 that a Chinese martial artist was first featured on the cover of this important magazine (Wong Ark Yuey). Shortly thereafter Dr. William C. C. Hu was tapped to start a regular column dealing with Chinese martial arts and culture. Obviously much of this material focused on Taiji and more general history.
Bruce Lee made his first appearance in Black Belt (as part of a “round-table discussion”) in June of 1967. He appeared on the cover of the magazine for the first time in November of that same year dressed as Kato from the “Green Hornet.” While he mentioned his teacher Ip Man, he never specifically spoke about Wing Chun in that issue.
Fans would not have to wait long to learn more about his style. Black Belt ran a follow up piece the next month. This article featured more positive references to Ip Man, and the first discussions of both Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do to appear in a nationally distributed format.
On February of 1968 the Chinese martial arts were once again on the cover of Black Belt. This time the discussion of Wing Chun would be much more substantive and explicit. In fact, it is the earliest account of Wing Chun that we have in a major publication.
Discussion of the Chinese fighting styles pervades this entire issue of the magazine. If you are interested in the social history of the TCMA in the west this is one source that is well worth looking at. Be sure to start with the opening editorial.
Following along with the general history above, the author begins by noting the strong tide of emerging interest in the Chinese martial arts. Yet his entire discussion of this phenomenon remains situated in the larger struggle between Karate and Judo. In fact, one suspects that by the late 1960s the term “karate” had simply come to mean “the striking arts,” while Judo had come to dominate the popular imagination of what a grappling could be. The entire discussion is actually somewhat interesting to consider from the vantage point of our current debates about MMA.
In this editorial Kung Fu is clearly seen as being part of the “striking camp.” It is explicitly acknowledged as the forerunner of modern Karate and readers are informed that the issue’s main feature will examine the fate of these arts in “Red China today.” We are also told that a number of tournament karate fighters, including Chuck Norris and Mike Stone, have been training with Bruce Lee. As such we should expect to see some new strategies and techniques from Kung Fu emerging in the contact karate arena. But never fear, even if you don’t have access to a personal Kung Fu coach, Ohara Books will soon be releasing a full line of new publications on the Chinese martial arts (including Wing Chun, Taijiquan and Bagua).
At its most basic level this “special issue” of Black Belt is really an infomercial designed to promote a new line of books published by the same individuals who owned the magazine. Still, it is fascinating to note that by 1967 (when this issue would have gone into planning) there was enough interest in the Chinese martial arts to justify this sort of advertising push.
The “Green Hornet” ran on television from roughly September of 1966 to March of 1967. It is likely that Lee’s role in the production helped to promote awareness of the Chinese martial arts among a more general audience. Still, interest in these styles had been rising among established martial artists for some time. I suspect that this may have been precisely why they latched on to the series (which did not turn out to be a hit with a broader audience and was canceled after a single season) in the first place.
The main article is just as revealing as the opening editorial. It features a lengthy introduction that attempts to situate the Chinese fighting systems within the larger world of the martial arts and mainland China’s Communist ideology. Neither efforts show a huge amount of familiarity with the underlying subject matter, thought the author (Anthony DeLeonardis) makes a game attempt.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this initial discussion is the author’s analysis of the Communist Party’s new found enthusiasm for Wushu and Qigong in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Oddly the article indicates little awareness of the Cultural Revolution, which had been in full swing for two years by the time of publication. Ironically things went very badly for the Chinese traditional medicine and martial arts “sectors” during this period. By 1968 both were being decimated.
The author also attempted to argue that criticism of the TCMA as flowery or ineffective are misplaced. He notes that martial artists from a variety of styles focus on forms training, and in the case of the Chinese martial arts true sparing might be “too dangerous” to allow. Still, he points to the long history of “challenge fighting” within the Chinese hand combat community as proof of their seriousness.
The article then proceeds to present nine one page illustrated discussions of various Chinese fighting styles. The second of these is dedicated to Wing Chun.
The description of the Wing Chun system starts off by mentioning Yim Wing Chun and the female origins of the style. It then introduces chi-sao (sticky hands) which is described through contrasts with Taiji’s push hands. While brief the discussion employs a number of concepts that are representative of Wing Chun’s training philosophy. Lastly it ends with a photograph and nod to Ip Man. In fact, he gets the only photo in this section of the article.
The actual text bears a striking resemblance to James Yim Lee’s book on Wing Chun that would be published by Ohara press in 1972. One wonders if either he or (more likely) Bruce Lee had a hand in filling out this discussion.
As one might expect the brief discussion leaves one wanting more, but that was the point of the exercise. Each of these snippets was just as much about building demand for the new line of soon to be released publications as it was about informing readers of what was happening in “Red China.” In fact, no Wing Chun (or very little), was happening in mainland China at this point in time. The Communist party had not been in favor of the art to begin with. And after the start of the Cultural Revolution openly practicing any traditional fighting system in an urban area was extremely ill advised.
Still, we have gone some way towards addressing the first question outlined in the introduction to this post. Any practicing martial artist with a subscription to Black Belt (which was the publication of record for the American martial arts community in the 1960s) would have heard about Wing Chun by the fall of 1967 or the spring of 1968. Bruce Lee, who had been cultivating his contacts with the editors and staff of Black Belt, was probably key to the early exposure that the art enjoyed in this magazine. But at the same time he appears to have been riding a larger wave of growing popular interest in the Chinese martial arts going back to at least the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Of course his own fame would massively accelerate and reshape these trends. But that had not happened yet. The years of 1967-1968 are interesting as Lee had managed to achieve a certain amount of celebrity status among individual who were already interested in the martial arts. And many of these same practitioners were already looking for something exotic and new. Yet Lee was not yet a household name in North America or Europe.
-BENJUDKINS
*Photo:
Cover of the February 1968 edition of Black Belt Magazine. This issue contains the earliest detailed English language. discussion of the Wing Chun system that I have been able to locate. Source: Google Books.
