Wing Chun, Ving Tsun, Wing Tsun or Wing Tjun???!!

The martial art Wing Chun is sometimes referred to as Ving Tsun, Wing Chun, Wing Tsun  and even Wing Tjun, amongst some other names. More recently research shows people write Wing Chun, Ving Tsun and Wing Tsun.

The reason for these differences is because Chinese text does not translate accurately into Western linguistics or the written word. However, the name really isn’t important, the most important thing is that the student learns the principals and concepts of this effective self defence method. The martial art is a style of Kung Fu,  and with it comes different Sifus with different enterpretations and ideas of basically the same art. Because of this some people felt the need to differentiate, weather be through lineage, copyright or people simply claiming a new style. The ‘Trade Marking’ of some terms is purely for business and not anything else, the only two spellings that are based on phonetics are ‘Wing Chun’ and ‘Ving Tsun’, one arising from Western English Speakers (Wing Chun) and the other (Ving Tsun) from Non-English Speakers.

The Chinese characters are for Wing Chun are 詠春, which when spoken in its native tongue (Cantonese (Guandung wa- 廣東話) sounds closer to ‘Wing Chun’ give or take a few sound emphasis!! It is for this reason I prefer the ‘Wing Chun’ spelling of the art but at the end of the day what matters is we are all part of the same family, developing an art that we are all passionate about.