Bruce Lee was the most influential martial artist of the 20th Century. After his death, the world was flooded with knockoff movies and Hong Kong actors imitating him using names like Bruce Le and Bruce Li and everyone was claiming to have with trained with him or taught him.

Bruce Lee learned Wing Chun Kung Fu from Wong Shun Leung.

“After Bruce died, I had the opportunity to read some of (Wong Shun Leung’s) writings. It was instantly clear that many of the things that were attributed to Bruce were actually things that had come to Bruce through Wong.”
Jesse Glover (Bruce Lee’s first U.S. student)

Wong Shun Leung put the Wing Chun way of fighting on the martial arts map in the 1950s when he won over 70 challenge matches (no-hold barred bare knuckle brawls to knockout) on the streets and rooftops of Hong Kong.

David Peterson , a long-time student of Sifu Wong, has captured his fighting wisdom in a book called The Combat Philosophy of Wong Shun Leung .

In my opinion, this is the best book yet written on Wing Chun.  Peterson does not attempt to illustrate the forms or demonstrate techniques, in the way of so many previous works on the subject.

Wing Chun is a principle-based fighting art.  This means the general ideas about what works and what doesn’t work are more important than any particular technique.  Peterson’s book captures Wong’s take on the principles.  How did Wing Chun principles allow him to defeat all those other fighters?

Wong Shun Leung was a practical and pragmatic man and he took a scientific approach to fighting. He called his version of Wing Chun “the science of in-fighting.”

“I view Wing Chun as a skill, not an art.”
Wong Shun Leung

He tested his theories on the other fighters in Hong Kong and for him, a successful test resulted in a knockout. He had been a boxer and originally came to Ip Man’s school a skeptic. After Ip Man beat him easily, he signed up and within months was beating the top young fighters of Hong Kong.

“When fighting, one should fix one’s eyes firmly on the target with only one idea in mind, that of attacking the enemy most simply and directly”
Wong Shun Leung

This is a video Sifu Wong made in the Eighties called Wing Chun: The Science of In-Fighting .