Huo Yuanjia, was a Chinese martial artist and co-founder of the Chin Woo Athletic Association, a martial arts school in Shanghai. A practitioner of the martial art Mízōngyì, he is considered a hero in China for defeating foreign fighters in highly publicized matches at a time when Chinese sovereignty was being eroded by colonization, foreign concessions, and spheres of influence. Due to his heroic status, legends and myths about events in his life are difficult to discern from the facts.
Huo Yuanjia was born in 1868 in Xiaonanhe Village in Jinghai County in Tianjin as the fourth child of Huo Endi's ten children. The family's main source of income was from agriculture, but Huo Endi also made a living by escorting merchant caravans to Manchuria and back. Although born to a family of traditional Wushu practitioners, Huo Yuanjia was born weak and susceptible to illness (he had asthma and at an early age he contracted jaundice that would recur periodically for the rest of his life) so his father discouraged him from learning traditional Wushu.
Huo Endi hired a tutor named Chen Seng Ho (Chiang Ho) from Japan to teach Huo Yuanjia academics and the values of humility and perseverance. In return, Chen was taught the Huo family's style of martial arts, Mízōngyì. Against his father's wishes, Huo Yuanjia still wanted to learn Wushu. He secretly observed his father teaching students martial arts during the day and practiced them at night with his tutor.
In 1890, a martial artist from Henan Province visited the Huo family and had a fight with Huo Yuanjia's older brother. Huo's elder brother was defeated and to the surprise of the family, Huo Yuanjia fought against his brother's opponent and defeated him. Because Huo Yuanjia proved that he was physically able to practice Wushu, his father accepted him as a disciple. In later years, Huo Yuanjia went on to challenge martial artists from neighboring lands and his fame grew as he defeated more and more opponents in bouts.
Huo Yuanjia joined his father at work as a caravan guard. One day, while escorting a group of monks, Huo Yuanjia was confronted by an aggressive bandit leader who threatened to attack the monks with his bandit followers. Huo Yuanjia fought against the bandit leader and defeated him. News of his feat spread and added on to his growing fame. In 1896, Huo Yuanjia went to Tianjin and made a living there by working as a porter in the Huaiqing pharmacy there and by selling firewood.
In 1901, Huo Yuanjia responded to a challenge advertised by a wrestler from Russia in Xiyuan Park, Tianjin. The wrestler openly called the Chinese "weak men of the East" as no one accepted his challenge to a fight. The Russian forfeited when Huo Yuanjia accepted his challenge. The Russian told Huo that he was merely putting on a performance in order to make a living and made an apology for his earlier remark in the newspaper.
Between 1909 and 1910, Huo Yuanjia traveled to Shanghai twice to accept an open challenge posed by a British boxer Hercules O'Brien. The two of them had arguments over the rules governing such boxing matches and eventually agreed that whoever knocked down his opponent would be the victor. However, O'Brien never fought Huo, opting to leave town instead.
Between 1909 and 1910, Huo Yuanjia founded the Chin Woo Physical Training Center (later known as Chin Woo Athletic Association) with his close friend Nong Jinsun as president of the association. Huo Yuanjia was encouraged by close friends and sponsored by Sun Yat-sen and Song Jiaoren who were living in Tokyo, Japan. The center was meant to be a school for learning the art of self-defense, improvement of health and mind. Wushu gradually grew to become a sport as it is today.
Huo Yuanjia suffered from jaundice and now tuberculosis and started seeing a Japanese doctor for medication and treatment. The doctor, a member of the Japanese Judo Association based in Shanghai invited him to a competition upon hearing of his fame. Huo Yuanjia's top student Liu Zhensheng competed with a Judo practitioner. Although there were disputes over who won the match, both sides generally agreed that the disagreement culminated in a brawl and members of the Judo team were injured, some with broken fingers and hands, including the head instructor.
Huo Yuanjia died on August 9, 1910 at 42 years of age. In 1989, the tomb of Huo Yuanjia and his wife was relocated. Black spots were discovered in the pelvic bones, in which Tianjin Municipality Police Laboratory confirmed that they contained arsenic. Consequently, it is difficult to ascertain whether his death was caused by malicious poisoning or the prescription of medicine. This was because arsenic trioxide has been used therapeutically for approximately 2,400 years as a part of traditional Chinese medicine.
Historian Chen Gongzhe, who was also one of Huo's students, believed that the cause of his teacher's death was hemoptysis disease. Chen wrote that Huo Yuanjia was introduced to a Japanese doctor by the Judo instructor as his health declined. The doctor prescribed some medicine for his condition, but Huo Yuanjia's health continued to deteriorate. Huo was admitted to Shanghai Red Cross Hospital where he died two weeks later. Although Chen Gongzhe did not mention that the medicine prescribed by the Japanese doctor contained arsenic or any other poison, some leaders of the Chin Woo Athletic Association speculate that Huo was poisoned around the time of his death.
Huo Yuanjia died only months after helping to fund the Chin Woo Athletic Association. Before his death, he invited Zhao Lianhe of Shaolin Mizong Style to teach in Chin Woo and Zhao agreed. Subsequently, a number of other martial arts masters agreed to teach at the school. They included Eagle Claw master Chen Zizheng, Seven Star Praying Mantis master Luo Guangyu, Xingyi master Geng Xiaguang, and Wu Chien Chuan, the founder of Wu style Taijiquan. In June 1910, the Eastern Times announced the establishment of this association in the name of Huo Yuanjia. It was the first civil Kung Fu organization in China that was not associated with a particular school or style.
During the Japanese sphere of influence, the Twenty-One Demands sent to the Chinese government resulted in two treaties with Japan on May 25, 1915. This separated the Manchurian ruling class from exercising control over the Han Chinese. With their freedom, Huo Yuanjia's students purchased a new building as headquarters for the organisation and renamed it Chin Woo Athletic Association. Re-organization, publications of books and magazines, and new styles of martial arts other than what Huo taught, were accepted under the mantle of the new association. In 1918, Chin Woo opened a branch at Nathan Road in Hong Kong.
In July 1919, the Chin Woo Association sent five representatives to Southeast Asia to perform a missionary program to expand activities overseas. They were Chen Gongzhe, Li Huisheng, Luo Xiaoao, Chen Shizhao and Ye Shutian. They made their first stop in Saigon, Vietnam where they opened the first Chin Woo school outside of China. Later, they opened schools in Malaysia and Singapore as well. By 1923, these five masters had opened schools all over Southeast Asia and visited nine different countries.
In 1966, Shanghai's Chin Woo school was forced to discontinue its activities by the Communists due to the Cultural Revolution plan, whose goal was to destroy old ideas, culture, customs in order to modernize China. Those restrictions were later lifted in 1976 and activities were continued in Shanghai Chin Woo.
Currently, Chin Woo is one of the largest Wushu organizations in the world with branches in Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Poland, Canada, UK, U.S., Australia, and Switzerland.
Huo Yuanjia was survived by three sons and two daughters, and now has seven grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.
霍元甲（1868年1 月18日－1910年9 月14日、得年42岁)，字俊 卿，早籍河北省东光县，迁移直隶省静海县（今属天津市），出身于枣园里的一户贫穷人家，排行第四，幼年体弱，在27岁以前基本上生活在故乡，时常挑柴到天津去卖。28 岁后到天津当上码头装卸工，后来在农劲荪开设的怀庆药栈当帮工，升任掌柜。父亲霍恩第务农为业，生有四名子女：霍元卿、霍元甲、霍元栋。
1909年，41岁的霍元甲，由农劲荪绍来上海，接受由陈公哲、陈铁生所创办“精武体操会”中主教武术。
张园比武
任职报馆的陈铁生，在报章中宣传上海张园擂台比武事件。该埸擂台比武开始、司仪说明相约好西洋力士奥皮音 比试，可惜力士最终离开中国。1910年，“精武体操会”易名精武体育会，霍元甲任主教席。精武英雄
民国后，精武刊物说霍元甲生在一个迷踪拳（又名燕青拳，相传是梁山好汉卢俊义和燕青所 创）的世家。父亲霍恩第不让他习武，可是霍元甲暗中练习，并在24岁那年击败了一位外乡高手。这 个传说被拍成了电视剧。传说死因
又说霍元甲被日本人下毒药害死。这个说法，在1960年代末1970年代初首次被李小龙搬上银幕（电影《精武门》，李小龙演陈真）。 但其实历史上并没有“陈真”这一个人物。病逝
有一个说法是霍元甲死于肝病，霍元甲长久以来患有黄疸，众所周知，当时霍元甲患了肝臓之病。但是，必须指出的是，1989年， 霍家在给霍元甲与其妻坟墓迁移时，发现霍元甲的遗骨上有黑色斑点。经过天津市公安局实验室检测该黑色斑点为砷化物（即砒霜）。而当时霍元甲的主治医生为日本人。 也可能与服用中药中的雄黄， 主要成分为硫化砷。霍元甲在创立精武体育会之后数月内即逝世，随后，精武会由元甲之兄元卿、次子东阁任教。各地分会相继分起，十数年后，海内外精武分会达43处，会员逾40 万之众。
孙中山先生赞扬霍元甲“欲使国强，非人人习武不可”之信念和将霍家拳公诸于世的高风亮节，亲笔写下了“尚武精神”四个大 字，惠赠精武体育会。
霍元甲 逝世经过
根据精武体育会创办人陈公哲记录：“霍先生原患有咯血病，自寓所深居时，时发时愈。日人有卖仁丹药物者，时到旅邸，出药示霍，谓之可愈咯血而治肺 病。霍先生信之，购服之后，病转加剧。霍先生得病之由，谓少年之时，曾练气功，吞气横阙，遂伤肺部，因曾咯血，面色蜡黄，故有黄面虎之称。自迁之王家宅 后，霍先生病转加剧，由众人送入新闸路中国红十字会医院医治二星期，即行病逝。众人为之办殓，移厝于河北会馆，时在1909年阴历八月间。越一年运柩北 返。”source: wikipedia
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