Bruce Lee’s Wing Chun Friend Has Died

Wing Chun Master Hawkins Cheung passed away on Sunday February 3rd 2019, in Los Angeles. Rest In Peace.

He was a top student of Yip Man and Hong Kong classmate of Bruce Lee’s. He was born sometime around 1940 and grew up in Kowloon. Hawkins was drawn to martial arts given his small size, he easily became angry and was full of youthful energy. At the Francis Xavier Intermediate School in Hong Kong he first met and befriended Bruce Lee, who had recently been expelled from the much more prestigious LaSalle School. Mr Cheung was either 13 or 14 when he began to study Wing Chun kung Fu with Ip Man, sometime around 1954. Interestingly, he was at first unaware when his friend Bruce also began to study with the same teacher, probably because the two were attending class at different times.

Hawkins continued to study with Ip Man until 1959 when he went to college. After finishing college Cheung returned to Hong Kong in 1962. He continued to study with Ip Man until the time of his death in 1972. In total, it appears that Hawkins Cheung enjoyed about 15 years of study as Ip Man’s student, both before and after college. While many individuals trained with Ip Man, due to retention problems and Ip Man’s many moves, relatively few students could claim such long periods of continuous training.

To help promote the art of Wing Chun Hawkins Cheung immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s, a few years after Ip Man’s death. He set up a series of successful schools in Los Angeles and introduced countless students to Ip Man’s art. Around 1980 he was running a school with Dan Inosanto in Culver City, Los Angeles. In 1989, Hawkins Cheung closed the Ventura Blvd. School, and opened his final location a few miles away. This third school ran until 2014.
In his later years, he was recognized as the most senior Ip Man Wing Chun instructor in the U.S., as well as one of the top practitioners in the world. However the world really only knows him for testing and proving his practical Wing Chun skills on the streets in Hong Kong, alongside Bruce Lee and Wong Shun-Leung in the 1950s.

Nevertheless, he also held a third degree black belt in Goju-Ryu Karate. Throughout his career, Sifu Cheung instructed many students from various law enforcement agencies, including the F.B.I., as well as members of some elite U.S. military special ops-capable units, such as the Marine Corps’ Force Recon. In addition, he has been featured in many martial arts publications, including Black Belt, Inside Kung Fu and Martial Arts Illustrated. In addition, he has prepared and trained actors within the entertainment industry for action roles in motion pictures, both in the U.S. and Hong Kong. Cheung was also something of an early adopter in the area of film and video recording and established a YouTube Channel in 2013.

He will be remembered as “Bruce Lee’s friend,” and something that he was proud of. Also how he influenced and perpetuated the Wing Chun legacy and the part he played in its evolution in the west as it moved onto the world stage.