dummy
It seems more likely to me that he just re-arranged the mainland China Wing Chun dummy form which had a lot more movements into a 108 movement, 10 section form. Later he thought 8 sections with 116 movements were nicer and so re-arranged the movements to fit that model. Other students of Yip Man also re-arranged, added and subtracted movements from the form to create their own.
Wang Kiu has what he calls a live dummy form which means the two people version of the standard 108 movement wooden dummy form. He said that before the first wooden dummy was built by the Cheung brothers, Yip Man showed him the dummy in a restaurant where there was no dummy and so he learned a two people version of it. Later he just taught the wooden man version. It doesn't really matter which you know because all the movements are the same and even in the Wang Kiu version people just train a randomized dummy at some point (like Jackie Chan's innovation in some movie). The main thing is to be able to use all of the movements in combat and not to learn some pre-arranged form. The form is just the basics for getting started, like your dictionary of movements.
In the Wang Kiu live dummy form one side punches and the other side does the dummy stuff. For example in section 1 of the 108 movement wooden dummy, side A throws a punch, side B does either a Bill sau to the outside or a Tan and punch to the outside, then side A throws the second punch and B replies with either a Tan and punch or an inside Pak sau (depending on which way he started - with a bill sau or Tan and punch). Then A throws the third punch and B responds with a Bong sau. The neck pulling hand can be added right after the tan and punch or the slapping hand mentioned above (Pak sau) can be interpreted as a variation on the neck pulling hand. Anyway there are all kinds of variations possible. Then there is also the random dummy where on partner steps in and continuously attacks while the other partner does anything from the whole dummy form to defend. The dummy can also be split up into a whole bunch of 1, 2 or 3 step sparring drills like the Karate people do and then put these to use in regular sparring activity. Lots of movements from the forms can be practiced on the dummy. The Pan Nam dummy form shown on the Pan Nam tape has probably more than 200 movements.
One Yip Man student by the name of Patrick Chow said that after you train hard on the dummy for two years, then you can throw it out. Others mind you would say that the dummy is a lifelong training partner when you don't have any other training partner. It is best to have a training partner who is better in skill level than you are and who hits back and can point out errors.
Ray
Victoria, British Columbia, Wing Chun