28.06.1938–23.01.2001
Moy Yat
Moy Yat (1938–2001) studied from 1957 under Ip Man, a teacher of Wing Chun, and from 1962 taught at his instruction. After his teacher’s death he moved to New York and taught there until he was sixty. He wrote six books on Wing Chun, carved seals and painted; his stone tablets on the history of the style are reproduced in one of the books.
Biography
In his last book, “Luk Dim Poon Kwan”, Moy Yat named five senior students: Jeffrey Chan, Sunny Tang, Henry Moy, Lee Moy Shan and Micky Chan. He named them, rather than merely mentioning them: over the years thousands of people passed through his hands.
He was born on 28 June 1938. Nothing is known of his childhood and family, and I will not guess.
In 1957 he became a student of Ip Man (the name is also written Yip Man), a teacher of the Wing Chun style of kung fu (詠春, also romanized as Ving Tsun or Wing Tsun). Ip Man died on 2 December 1972, so the apprenticeship lasted about fifteen years. Moy Yat was one of the master’s early students in Hong Kong. In 1962, at his teacher’s direction, he began teaching himself in Hong Kong. In 1965, according to some accounts, he founded a school in the city, the Wing Chun Moy Yat Martial Arts and Health Institute (詠春梅逸国术健身学院). After Ip Man’s death he went to New York: by one account in 1973, while others give only the move itself, after 1972. He began teaching in Brooklyn. Students came to him from across the Tri-State Area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut). They included William Moy, Moy Yee Hop (Julian Cordero), Benny Meng, Leo Immamura, Anthony Dandridge, Steve Manchester, Lakis Philippou and others. He stopped teaching at sixty. His students’ students now run schools in several countries; the list of direct students he kept on his website had twenty-four names.
Besides kung fu he painted, carved seals and wrote poetry and prose. The stone tablets recording the history of the lineage, the main principles of Wing Chun and the genealogy of the school became the best-known part of his work in stone, and prints of them are included in the book “Wing Chun Kuen Kuit”. In all he wrote six books: “108 Muk Yan Jong”, “Wing Chun Kuen Kuit”, “A Legend of Kung Fu Masters”, “Dummy: A Tool for Kung Fu”, “Wing Chun Trilogy” and “Luk Dim Poon Kwan”.
He died on 23 January 2001. William Cheung, head of his own organization, “Traditional Wing Chun”, said at the time that it was a loss to Chinese culture, calling Moy Yat a learned man, a good painter and a poet. For the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing the Chinese government issued a series of commemorative stamps and a collectors’ album in a limited edition of 7,200 copies; Moy Yat is named among the wushu (martial arts) practitioners shown in the album.
Profile notes