Legends of Kung-Fu #21 Crouching Tigresses - Women in Kung-Fu Traditional Chinese culture is undoubtedly male-oriented, and traditional Chinese kung-fu is, without doubt, one of the most male-dominated facets of Chinese history. Even the time honored traditional kung-fu flick usually revolves around a male hero. But with the recent popularity of movies like Disney's Mulan and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with their female protagonists, people are taking a different look at how gender plays into traditional Chinese martial arts and its history. Let's start with the most masculine of Chinese martial artists and the first household name in martial arts across the world - Bruce Lee. From his prime in the late 60's and early 70's to the present, Bruce Lee stands as a paragon of manly power and strength. His fighting skills, both on and off the big screen, brought countless people in to martial arts studios around the world, not to mention millions of marketing dollars to companies smart enough to use his likeness. Yet, over a century earlier, two women laid the foundations of Bruce Lee's martial art skill. A Buddhist nun, Ng Mui, who according to legend was fleeing the destruction of the southern Shaolin Temple, taught a modified version of the Shaolin style fighting system to a village girl named Yim Wing-Chun as a means of avoiding her arranged marriage to the village bully. This system, based on simplicity, directness, and maximum output with minimum effort drew converts from other martial arts styles, flourishing in southern China and eventually established its greatest following in Hong Kong following the Communist Revolution. Christened after one of its founding mothers, the fighters produced by the "Wing Chun" school were fearsome fighters on the streets of Hong Kong, all practicing a style founded by a woman. Fast forward to the early 1990's: I was just starting to go around and meet the who's who in kung-fu in the Los Angeles area. For those of you who don't know, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco are the areas with the greatest concentration of Chinese martial artists in the USA, so I had the opportunity to meet and mingle with some of the people who were pioneering the Chinese martial arts in the mainland United States. At that time, I was far more focused on the Shaolin-based arts than I am now, and one of the most vivid memories I have of that time was visiting Douglas Wong's school in Northridge and watching his wife, Carrie Ogawa-Wong, performing a steel-whip form with incredible speed and power. It was that performance that convinced me that you didn't have to go learn wushu to perform a beautiful form, and could still retain validity in combat. Watching her demonstrate weapons or empty hand techniques, you could clearly see that a petite woman could beat the living hell out of a full grown man without compromising her femininity or grace. Mark Dacascos's stepmother, Malia Bernal, is another woman whose presence as a Wun Hop Kuen Do kung-fu stylist has opened doors and minds. While I personally haven't met her, those who have met her told me great things about her - from her incredible domination of the tournament scene as a forms and fighting competitor, to her excellence as an instructor. Mark Dacascos, who appears in the upcoming French action film Brotherhood of the Wolf, writes about the rigors of training with Bernal and her competence as a martial artist on his website. And if you recall my column on Choy Lay Fut's three pronged attack, John Wai's wife, Francine, is quite the kung-fu artist herself. Having started off with Wah Lum style praying mantis kung-fu under the tutelage of her esteemed uncle, Chan Pui, Francine Wai later studied Choy Lay Fut with Chan's close friend, Lee Koon-Hung. While Wah Lum kung-fu gave Wai a strong foundation and graceful forms, she says that she loved the rush of working on practical fighting techniques and sparring in the Choy Lay Fut school. Now while I can't exactly produce a photo of Ng Mui or Yim Wing-Chun, I can tell you that the three women I mentioned in regards to modern kung-fu are definitely not butched out, tomboyish, muscle-bound, nor any other adjective that would detract from their absolute femininity, grace, and power. As Francine Wai so aptly sums it up, "People don't always see that the role of women in kung-fu, especially in today's world, is growing. Women don't have to be relegated just to the Tae-Bo or cardio-kickboxing classes. We can be powerful without being obnoxious, graceful without being weak. Isn't that the perfect balance of yin & yang for traditional kung-fu?"
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