Ng Mui


Ng Mui is said to have been one of the legendary Five Elders—survivors of the destruction of the Shaolin Temple by the Qing Dynasty.
She is said to have been a master of various martial arts including the Shaolin martial arts, the Wudang martial arts, Ng Ying Kung Fu and Yuejiaquan, and the family style of Yue Fei. She is also credited as the founder of the martial arts Wǔ Méi Pài, Wing Chun, Dragon style, White Crane, and Five-Pattern Hung Kuen.
She has been associated with various locations, including the Shaolin Temple in either Henan or Fujian, the Wudang Mountains in Hubei, Mount Emei in Sichuan, a supposed White Crane Temple, the Daliang Mountains on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan, and additional locations in Guangxi and Guangdong. According to one folk story, she was the daughter of a Ming general.

Wing Chun

According to the Wing Chun master , Ng Mui was residing and studying at the Henan Shaolin Monastery; she managed to survive its destruction by Manchu forces due to her Sifu becoming a traitor after she defeated him during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor.
She fled to the White Crane Temple.
where she met a girl of fifteen named Yim Wing-Chun whom a bandit was trying to force into marriage.
Ng Mui taught Yim Wing Chun how to defend herself by distilling Shaolin martial art knowledge into a system that Yim Wing Chun could learn quickly, and use without developing great strength.
was written in the Kangxi Emperor's own hand.

Five-Pattern Hung Kuen

Dragon

Modern Dragon style historians relate that Shaolin nun Ng Mui, who is said to have originated the Dragon style, was one of the last members of the temple before its first destruction, which they date to 1570.
The Shaolin Gung Fu Institute of the Pacific Northwest agrees with the date of 1570 for a destruction of the temple and states explicitly that Dragon style was created at the Henan Shaolin Temple c. 1565.

Wǔ Méi Pài

In the Wǔ Méi Pài tradition, Ng Mui—the daughter of a general in the Ming imperial court—fully developed her practical style in the Forbidden City. To develop balance and leg strength she trained on upturned logs, in a pattern she invented. She was travelling when her parents were killed in the Manchu capture of the Ming capital. She took refuge in the White Crane Temple, and became an anti-Qing rebel, teaching her style only within the Temple. The style uses instantaneous counters, and slower movements from Bodhidharma and Qigong.

White Crane

According to the genealogy of Tibetan White Crane, "Ng Mui" is the Chinese name of the Tibetan monk Jikboloktoto, who was the last generation of transmission before Sing Lung, who brought the art to Guangdong. This account is most different from the others, with a male Ng Mui, the absence of a Manchu menace to flee from and, given the dating of Sing Lung's relocation to Guangdong to 1865, a 19th-century setting.

Popular culture references

In Michelle Yeoh's 1994 movie Wing Chun, the main character's teacher was based on the legends of Ng Mui. In a 2010 film Kung Fu Wing Chun, also about the origins of Wing Chun,
Ng Mui is played by Kara Wai.