Legends of the Martial Arts Masters (7 page)

“Nai Khanom Tom has injured my fighter’s knee,” the captain said. “How did he do that?”

“He waited until the foot was planted, and then he kicked it with his shin,” the captain replied.

“With his shin?” the king said, imagining the conditioning Nai would have had to do to use his shins as weapons.

The captain nodded.

“Well, if your man can’t fight anymore, get him out of the ring,” the king commanded. “I want someone else in there fighting right away.”

“Yes, sir.” The captain rose and, motioning for two of his men to follow, walked to the ring.

“How many has he fought?” the king asked, returning to his place. “He’s getting ready to face his ninth,” said the captain. “It’s been six hours.” Admiration shone through in his voice.

“Who’s your biggest, strongest man?” the king asked. “Send him in. This has gone on long enough.”The captain bowed his head and stood to approach the fight master.

The fight master whispered in his assistant’s ear, and his assistant ran off, returning with a man large enough to be two men. Nai Khanom Tom simply stood in the center of the ring and waited as the giant stepped over the ropes and removed his shirt.

“Perhaps the man never tires,” the king murmured to his captain when he returned. “But I would be willing to bet that he breaks. It looks like your boy there is just the fellow to do the job.”

The fighters squared off, Nai Khanom Tom dwarfed by the giant lumbering toward him. He snuck inside the big man’s guard and elbowed furiously at his ribs, but the great bear of a man didn’t seem to feel the strikes at all. Instead he grabbed Nai Khanom Tom and squeezed him so tightly that Nai Khanom Tom’s face turned red.

“That’s got him,” the king said, clapping his hand in pleasure.

“Yes, your highness,” his captain replied. But the captain saw weaknesses the king had obviously missed. Nai Khanom Tom saw those weaknesses, too. He stomped down hard on the giant’s foot, then elbowed back into him. The giant bent over in pain. Like lightning, Nai Khanom Tom struck, a quick blow to the giant’s head perhaps. The blow was far too quick to be seen clearly. The giant dropped to the mat, dazed.

“What did he do?” the king asked.

“I’m not sure, your highness,” the captain said, “but it seems to have worked.” The giant crouching on the floor of the ring was shaking his head, stunned and disoriented.

Cheers rose from the crowd. “Mmmph,” the king said. “Since when do they cheer the enemy?”

“I believe, your highness,” the captain said, “that they are simply cheering the superior fighter.”

“Yes,” said the king, “yes, I guess he is that.”

Nai Khanom Tom was fighting his twelfth opponent. While his opponents lay exhausted and demoralized on the edges of the arena, Nai Khanom Tom was still on his feet, still dominating the ring. The king found himself respecting the brave man who continued to fight through exhaustion and pain. One would think that he wouldn’t have the strength by now to lift even a finger. But yet he continued to throw punishing knees and elbows. He connected with a fierce elbow to his opponent’s midsection. The man crumpled to the floor, the wind knocked out of him.

Nai Khanom Tom staggered to his corner and leaned against the post. His next opponent prepared to enter the ring.

“Enough,” said the king, standing, then clapping his hands twice. “Twelve is enough. Nai Khanom Tom,” he called loudly. “Come and stand before me.”

Nai Khanom Tom left the ring. He wiped his face on a towel, then handed it to one of several men who had taken up a place in his corner of the ring. He breathed deeply, steadying his breath, then turned, squared his shoulders, and walked to where the king stood waiting for him.

The king looked into the fighter’s eyes, wondering if he would recognize a god if he saw one. What the king saw was a resolve that made him take a step back. This fighter, even after twelve long, bloody fights, could still break him like a twig in mere seconds.

“Nai Khanom Tom,” he said, pushing the fear he felt down deep where it could not affect his voice, “you have fought well. I am a man of my word. You will be given clean clothes and a chance to rest. Then my captain will personally escort you to the Siam border.” Nai Khanom Tom bowed his head slightly. The king saw the muscles of his neck quiver as he did so.

“I have never seen a man fight like you did today,” the king said more quietly. “Be assured that in Burma as well as in Siam, the name of Nai Khanom Tom will be remembered and spoken with respect for many generations.”

W
ing Chun is
a Chinese martial art. It was dev
eloped over three hundred years ago b
y Ng Mui, a Buddhist nun in a Shaolin monastery.
Ng Mui was a very small woman who
found that she was not able to make
standard martial arts techniques work against
people much larger than she was. She
didn’t have a lot of muscle, weight, or
a long reach. What she did have
was speed and the ability to use an opponent’s si
ze against him. After learning her teacher’s
style thoroughly, she began modifying it to suit
her needs. The result is what we n
ow call Wing Chun, a quick efficient style named after
one of Ng
Mui’s best students. This is
the story of that student.

 
Wing Chun

Yim Wing Chun was in love. Her boyfriend, Leong Bok Chao, was handsome, intelligent, thoughtful, and, most of all, hopelessly in love with Wing Chun. He was also leaving on a long journey. That journey would take him away from the northern mountains, where Wing Chun lived, to Fukien in the southern part of China. It would take him across difficult terrain, through a region at war against the Manchurian occupation. He and Wing Chun would be apart for more than a year.

“When I return,” Bok Chao said, “we will get married. I will set up a salt shop near your father’s bean curd shop. We will work together and have beautiful children.”

“Come home safely,”Wing Chun said, holding his hand tightly to her heart. “I can’t imagine a future without you.”

Life for Wing Chun was lonely without Bok Chao. Since her mother died several months earlier, Wing Chun had done the cooking and cleaning for her father. During the afternoons she worked in the family shop. Having work to do was a comfort. Her mother had always told her that if she kept busy, the loneliness wouldn’t hurt so badly. So she scrubbed the house and her father’s shop until it shone. But life without either Bok Chao or her mother had a big hole right in the middle of it.

One day, Wing Chun was in the back of her father’s shop making dao fu, a soft bean curd cheese. She heard her father in the front greet a customer warmly. The two struck up a conversation—her father did love to talk. The customer, a servant of a local warlord, noticed Wing Chun in the back of the shop.

“Is that your daughter?” the customer said.

Her father nodded. “Her name is Yim Wing Chun. It means ‘beautiful springtime.’” His eyes were filled with pride.

“She is very beautiful,” the customer commented, watching Wing Chun’s every move.

“Yes,” her father said. “And she has a wonderful gentle and giving spirit. I don’t know what I would have done without her since her mother died.”

“My lord is looking for a wife,” the servant said. “He is very wealthy and very powerful. Your daughter would want for nothing.”

“I am flattered,” her father said, “but Wing Chun is engaged. She will marry Leong Bok Chao when he returns from Fukien. I’m sorry, but it has already been arranged.”

“I see,” said the servant. “A pity. I know my lord would find her very desirable.”

The next day, Wing Chun was sweeping the shop when a large, elegantly armored man stepped up to the front window.

“Yim Wing Chun,” he said gruffly, almost as though he were issuing a command.

“I am Yim Wing Chun,” she said, setting aside her broom.

“Yes,” the large man said to his servant, the man who had been at the shop the day before, “you were right. She will make a beautiful wife for me.” “Call your father,” he said to Wing Chun. “The two of you will come with me. The wedding will be this afternoon.”

“Sir, I’m engaged.” Wing Chun said. “I can’t marry you. I don’t even know you.”

“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “That doesn’t matter to me. I am a straightforward man. If I like something, I take it. If someone stands in my way, I go right over the top of him. I find it makes life much simpler. Now call your father.”

Wing Chun turned and began to walk home to get her father. She was eager to get away from the terrible man at the shop, and soon found her walk had turned into a stumbling trot and then a run. What an ugly, terrible, altogether nasty man, she thought. I can’t marry him. I can’t. I can’t marry him. Lost in her thoughts and fear, she rounded the corner of a vegetable shop and almost ran into a woman buying a cabbage.

“I beg your pardon,” Wing Chun said as she looked up to see the woman was a Buddhist nun.

“And what has you dashing through the market?” the nun asked, a gentle smile creasing her old face.

“I have to, I have to get my father,” Wing Chun stammered. “He . . . I mean a man, a warlord . . . my father has to . . .”

“Slow down,” the nun replied. “The warlord and your father are not here right now. Right now it is just you and I. There is nothing here that can hurt you. My name is Ng Mui. I am a nun at the White Crane Temple. Take a couple of deep breaths. If you will tell me what has you so upset, maybe I can help.”

Wing Chun breathed in and out. Looking into the gentle face of the woman standing before her, she saw a deep calm. The tension drained from her body, and she began to cry. Before she knew it, she had told the kind nun the whole story about Bok Chao, her mother’s death, the warlord.

“I see,” said Ng Mui. “Let’s go get your father. I think I may have a solution to your problem.”

“So you see,” Wing Chun’s father said to the warlord sitting in their home. “I couldn’t possibly arrange for a suitable wedding in less than a year’s time.”

Ng Mui looked on from the corner where she sat holding Wing Chun’s hand. He was handling the situation just as she had coached him. “I need some time to plan the feast. A great man like yourself should be honored properly on his wedding day. And I need to send word to Bok Chao breaking the engagement. With all the turmoil in the country, it could easily take a year to find him. Yes, I think a year would be appropriate. A year from today you will marry my daughter at a wedding that people will talk about for years to come.”

“A year,” said the warlord. “She had better be worth the wait.” “Oh, she will be,” her father said.

“A year, then.” The warlord stood, cast a quick glance at Wing Chun, spun on his heel, and left.

“That gives us a year to prepare,” Ng Mui said. “Mr. Yee, please send a message to Bok Chao. Wing Chun, meet me tomorrow at dawn outside the gates of the temple. A year is none too long. We must work hard.”

At dawn, Wing Chun walked the path up the hill to the monastery. Just outside the gates in a small garden she found Ng Mui. The old nun stood motionless, her feet about shoulder’s width apart, knees bent, her right hand in a fist pulled back to her side at the waist, her left hand open in front of her chest. On her face was a look of complete concentration. As she watched, Wing Chun saw that the nun was not in fact standing motionless. Slowly, too slowly to be seen, her left hand inched steadily forward. Wing Chun sat down on a bench and watched fascinated.

Ng Mui finished her exercise. Her face damp with perspiration, she turned to Wing Chun and motioned for her to come.

“It’s your turn to practice,” she said. “I see now why I was sent here. I thought it was just bad luck when the war against the Manchurians drove me from my home. But I see now that I was sent here to teach you. You have a year to learn how to turn power, rudeness, and brute force against itself. Here. Stand like this.”

Spring turned into summer. Each morning Wing Chun climbed the hill to the garden outside the monastery. Summer turned into fall. Her punches and kicks gained speed and power. Winter covered the garden with snow and ice, and Wing Chun learned to keep her feet under her center while moving quickly and effortlessly. Winter yielded to spring. The day of the wedding approached.

“It’s time,” Ng Mui said to Wing Chun on the day of their final lesson. “Send word to the warlord that we need to see him about some last minute details.”

The warlord came into town sitting tall atop a powerful horse. Wing Chun looked up at him, at the heavy armor covering huge muscles, at the thickness of his neck and the size of his hands. He stepped down off his horse and walked over to where Wing Chun, her father, and Ng Mui stood.

“What is this ‘last minute detail’ that’s so important that it couldn’t wait until the wedding tomorrow?” If anything he had grown even uglier in the last year.