No Crane, No Gain
Ng Mui Is a Legend We Bow Down to March 11, 2015 12:01 AM
We think she’s called Five Plums cause that’s the average number of swollen bruises she leaves you with.
Karl Smallwood is the head writer, researcher and all round gopher of...
Ng Mui, a.k.a., Five Plums, was a legendary female martial artist known for inventing more ways of shattering a man’s collar-bone than college football and Jägerbombs combined.
Ng Mui’s story begins, unsurprisingly, in the world-famous Shaolin Temple where she spent the better part of her youth learning to turn her hands into knives made of bone and fabulously well-moisturized cuticles. There are various stories and legends suggesting that Mui was perhaps the daughter of a famous Ming general, but we’re not going to discuss that because Mui’s legend is badass enough in its own right.
This was an easier graphic to find than the 10,000 horses who actually represented her.
Very little is known about Mui’s early life other than that she learned to snap necks and cash checks at the Fujian Shaolin Temple prior to it being destroyed by the Qing government sometime between 1647 and 1732 (history is annoying like that sometimes). When the temple was destroyed, Mui was one of the legendary “Five Elders” who escaped, leaving her free to continue drop-kicking the nutsacks of her enemies into next week. Before we continue though, can we just stop for a second to appreciate how radical the name “The Five Elders” is? Seriously, China, why does all your stuff have the coolest names?
With her childhood home lying in smoking ruins and a price on her head, Mui made her way to the White Crane Temple, the students of which studied White Crane kung fu, a style Ng Mui is largely credited for creating. Now White Crane kung fu, at the time, was regarded as one of the most deadly forms of kung fu in the entirety of China, so deadly in fact that it was the kung fu of choice for people trying to kill other master martial artists. Meaning Ng Mui invented the style of kung fu you learned to kick everyone’s ass.
Saddened by the knowledge that her beloved kung fu was being used for murder, Ng Mui promised herself that she’d invent an even deadlier and more powerful style to counter it, which is a hell of a life goal, even for a person who painted her nails by punching through someone’s chest cavity.
Before we get to this new style though, we need to discuss the other styles of kung fu Mui came up with. These names read like a list you’d be banned from calling your kids out of fear their first day at school would result in all of their classmates exploding in fear. Along with her signature White Crane style, Mui is also credited with inventing Plum Blossom Boxing, Dragon Shape Boxing, Chu Family Mantis style, Dog boxing and Five Plums Boxing. However, the problem with all of these martial arts, as *****in’ as they were, was that they placed emphasis on brute strength, which Mui didn’t like.
A more dapper ass-kicker seldom existed!
We’re not saying that Mui didn’t have the strength to utilize any of these martial arts effectively, because she totally did, she’s widely considered one of the most gifted martial artists of her era, what we are saying though is that Mui personally felt like she could develop a better style more suited to her slender, female frame. But before she could do that, she needed inspiration.
This inspiration came when, while training, Mui saw a crane attacking a snake, (some sources say a fox). Rather than using her superior kung fu to punch the animals into mist, she observed the movements of the animals, particularly the movement of the crane’s wings and developed a new, superior form of kung fu based upon them.
Mui then taught this as-of-yet-unnamed form of kung fu to a local girl she had befriended called, Yim Wing-Chun with the express intention that Wing-Chun use it to beat the **** out of a local bully trying to coerce her into marriage. Mui was so impressed that the she christened this new style Wing Chun in her honor. So we’re all clear here, yes we’re talking about the same martial art studied by both Bruce Lee and his mentor, the legendary Yip Man. So the next time you watch a Bruce Lee movie and see him snapping someone’s shins with his eyebrows, just remember that he’s using a fighting style that was originally taught to a lady so that she could beat up a rapist.
If that isn’t a legacy, we don’t know what is.
We just have kung fu for kung pao.
Karl Smallwood is a freelance comedy writer you can hire! His work has been featured on Cracked, Toptenz and Gunaxin. You should probably click those links to make sure he isn’t lying. He also runs his own website where he responds to the various pieces of hate-mail he’s gotten over the years, in fact, he got so much hate-mail that he wrote a book about it that you can buy on Amazon. When he isn’t writing, Karl also Tweets and uploads pictures of himself drinking on Facebook.
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