Wing Chun Fist

This martial arts technique has an oral history (versus a written one), so very little can be said for sure about its origins. Wing Chun (or Wing Cheun) is a Chinese martial art that emphasizes short combat strokes.

The characters mean "Singing Spring Fist" (Spring as in springtime).

If you are wondering, the spelling and pronunciation of this martial arts style in English come from the Cantonese pronunciation of these characters. The second character sounds similar in both Mandarin and Cantonese, but the first is quite different. The official romanization from Mandarin is "yong3 chun1 quan2" or "yǒng chūn quán". This can also be romanized from Cantonese as "wing2 cheun1 kyun4". The numbers after the letters indicate which tone to use when pronouncing each sound.