During his life, Grandmaster Ip Man taught many students the principles and techniques that they needed to know to claim knowledge of the art of Wing Chun. But some students, even though they had learned all the techniques of Wing Chun, still remained with the Grandmaster; why? -- because of his Sum Fat.

While Sum and Fat can individually be translated -- they mean "heart" and "law" respectively -- the sense that they carry as a phrase is not readily translatable into the English language. There are phrases that are close: "essential character," "genius," "insight." But none of these phrases or words convey the richness and depth of the idea of Sum Fat. For example:

• While "essential character" captures the essentiality and individuality of Sum Fat, it fails to convey the sense of talents and skills enriched by hard work; not just given, but shaped and distilled by living.

• And again, while "genius" conveys the extraordinary quality and individuality of Sum Fat, it tends to limit one to the intellectual achievements--too narrow a definition for a word that includes not only intellect, but also one's skills and one's way of life.

• Then there is "insight." However, this word doesn't quite convey the richness of Sum Fat, failing, as it does, to convey the necessity of learning by experience.

You can see that Sum Fat is difficult to translate because of the depth and breadth of its meaning. But the difficulty in translation does not mean that there is nothing to be said about Sum Fat -- only that it may take more than a single English word or phrase to say it. To help you understand how we are using Sum Fat in this article, we have attempted to answer this question: "why does Sum Fat matter to Wing Chun?"