UNITY is the beacon that has been enlightening the path of every ELYWCIMA school in Europe since 1992 .   

In the vast and various world of martial arts, the ELYWCIMA represents something completely new in Europe. It firmly holds together every school of Wing Chun that is born and will grow under the umbrella of the Lok Yiu family whose members’ mission is to bring to everyone’s attention what is considered, rightly so, to be the most traditional and original Wing Chun, in all its purity of forms and simplicity of style. In fact, the organization is the European descendent of the Chinese LYWCIMAA, the Lok Yiu Wing Chun International Martial Art Association. Its former president and co-founder was Wilhelm Blech who can be still considered the European representative of Master Lok Yiu.

BEGINNINGS 

In 1992, Master Lok Yiu commissioned his student Wilhelm Blech to found a European organisation with the aim to make the Lok Yiu Wing Chun teaching available to everyone. The second goal, though, was also to make sure that the technical standards and principle values were also protected and maintained. This is the main reason why the ELYWCIMAA did never consider its activity as a mere business to be pushed trough at any cost. The idea behind the ELYWCIMAA’s mission is to grow schools around Europe at the peace of each instructor development and readiness. To every Sifu, the ELIWCIMAA asks to constantly work and train in order to reach a level of Wing Chun always more specialised; only by owning the Lok Yiu Wing Chun to its core, a Sifu will be capable of transferring his students his knowledge easily and simply.  Today the ELYWCIMAA is present in 5 European countries.

FORMER PRESIDENT: WILHELM BLECH

Wilhelm Blech was born in 1952. Since the age of 16, he decided to challenge himself with different forms of fighting disciplines such as Boxe, Tang Shou Dau, Tang Lang, and Taw Kwon Do and it’s unquestionable that his immense curiosity, headstrong ambition and physical propensity to training drove his passion further and further. However, there is only 1 milestone that truly defined the future and purpose of Wilhelm Blech’s life: the meeting with his, soon to be Sifu, Master Loy Yiu. Always in search of perfection and of answers that could placate his desire to look for the truth in kung fu, in 1992, he decided to go to Honk Kong, taking with him 3 of his oldest students: the brothers Andreas and Rolf Wichter and Wagner Detelef. The journey was expensive and uncertain since neither Wilhelm Blech nor his pupils had any idea if and how such a prominent representative of the Chinese Wing Chun tradition, the only alive direct disciple of the Great Master Yip Man, would ever even consider the idea of offering up his time to some foreign strangers. Yet, Wilhelm Blech’s obstinate determination was absolute. 

At all costs, he wanted to measure what he had previously learned against the man who has been detaining such an exclusive understanding of the true nature of Wing Chun. Great surprise and astonished incredulity hit the journeying party when they were welcomed by the Lok Yiu family’s natural affability. All questions were answered with no rigid pride; space and time were given to those who wanted to show what they have been learning in Europe about Wing Chun. Master Lok Yiu himself didn’t spare any compliment. The atmosphere was uninformal and appreciative but only after Lok Yiu rose from his seat to make a demonstration of his Wing Chun, Wilhelm Blech understood why: nothing could ever be feared by those who retained such an impressive, unique, fluid, efficient, and almost unbelievable style of Wing Chun. No confrontation could have ever threatened them. At that point, Wilhelm Blech knew that he had found his life purpose. He would have earned the Lok Yiu family’s sincere and deep trust and would bring back to Europe their own Wing Chun style, protecting with his own name the traditions and standards set by Lok Yiu himself while teaching everyone, who was eager to learn, what, for him, has become the only true Wing Chun. In 1992 Wilhelm Blech officially founded the ELYWCIMAA with the blessing of Lok Yiu. Every person who enters this great organization knows that they will learn wing Chun as the authentic style of the Great Master Yip Man.