Originally Posted by
KPM
It is a muddled topic from the start. Not "muddled thread." When Ip Man wrote an article about the history of Wing Chun for publication, he mentioned nothing about Leung Bik. People around in that era have said that the Leung Bik story was added later. And its not even clear that Ip Man was the one that added it.
If you have details of CWS's Wing Chun, I've love to hear about them! Do you have a source or reference? Because the Wing Chun taught later by his son likely has many additions and embellishments and not at all what his father taught.
However, if you compare the Wing Chun that Ip Man taught early on in Foshan and to Leung Sheung in HK, there are many similarities to YKS Wing Chun. Now that may very well be because the Wing Chun taught to both Ip Man and YKS was very similar from the start! So its hard to say. But given the passion for Wing Chun that Ip Man displayed, does anyone really believe that if he was hanging out with and friends with another Wing Chun guy like YKS that had a good reputation of his own, was senior to Ip Man, and came from another branch of the tree....that Ip man wouldn't have exchanged with and learned from him??
As far as Leung Bik. Someone turned up photos of both Leung Jan and Leung Bik a couple of years back but I've never read that these were actually authenticated in any way. People have gone back and tried to find traces of Leung Bik in HK and turned up nothing. This lead to the idea that Leung Bik may have been a nick-name. Some have said it was actually Fung Wah, who was a student of Leung Jan in Foshan, but not his son. So there is that possibility. As noted, it is a somewhat "muddled" topic!