William Cheung or Cheung Cheuk Hing (張卓慶, pinyin

Pinyin

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: Zhāng Zhuóqìng), born ? October, 1940, is a Chinese Wing Chun

Wing Chun

Wing Chun , also romanised as Ving Tsun or Wing Tsun, ; ; is a concept-based Chinese martial art and form of self-defense utilizing both striking and grappling while specializing in close-range combat.The alternative characters 永春 "eternal spring" are also...

 kung fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster

Grandmaster (martial arts)

Grandmaster and Master are titles used to describe or address some senior or experienced martial artists. Such titles may be, to some extent, aligned to the elderly martial arts master stock character in fiction...

 of his lineage of Wing Chun, entitled Traditional Wing Chun (TWC)

Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu

Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu is a style of the Chinese martial art Wing Chun. It is claimed to be the authentic, more effective version of Wing Chun taught exclusively to William Cheung by Yip Man...

. He also heads the sanctioning body of TWC, the World Wing Chun Kung Fu Association.

In 1951, at the age of ten, Cheung started his training in Wing Chun kung fu under the late Yip Man. According to Cheung, it was from 1954 to 1958 that he was a live-in student of Yip Man and inherited the complete system of Traditional Wing Chun.

William Cheung was also a close friend and senior and training partner to Bruce Lee in the Wing Chun system. He was responsible for personally introducing Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...

 to Wing Chun in 1953.

Martial arts

Duncan Leung, a Yip Man student, says it was William Cheung who first made Wing Chun famous in Australia. "In 1957 another early student of Yip Man, William Cheung, immigrated to Australia. On the way there an incident occurred when he locked himself in the sailor cabin and fought more than 10 sailors. This got into all the newspapers and so Wing Chun was even known in Australia then."

Cheung is known for using "Egg Standing" to demonstrate his skill in weight distribution and overall control of his body.

Teaching accomplishments

After moving to Melbourne, Australia to teach Wing Chun professionally in 1973, Cheung began operating a martial arts school. In 1976 he was elected the President of the Australian Kung Fu Federation.

Writings

Cheung has produced a number of videos, including The Wing Chun Way, Tao of Wing Chun, My Life with Wing Chun, Wing Chun – Advanced Training and Applications, City of Dragons, CMT – Cheung's Meridian Therapy and PRO-TEKT: A Personal Protection Program.

Challenge

His fight with Emin Boztepe

Emin Boztepe

Emin Boztepe is an American martial artist of Turkish origin who held German nationality prior to naturalization. He first came to prominence for his fight in 1986 with noted Wing Chun practitioner William Cheung, and he continued to gain attention in the 1990s with a public challenge of the...

, then a student of Keith R. Kernspecht

Keith R. Kernspecht

Keith Ronald Graf von Rothenburg Kernspecht, better known as Keith R. Kernspecht , is a German martial artist and entrepreneur....

, in 1986, at a seminar in Germany, caused controversy in the wider Wing Chun community.

See also

• Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu
  Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu
  Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu is a style of the Chinese martial art Wing Chun. It is claimed to be the authentic, more effective version of Wing Chun taught exclusively to William Cheung by Yip Man...