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Huo Yuanjia霍元甲was born in 1868 in Xiaonanhe Village in Jinghai County, 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 he was from a family of traditional wushu practitioners, Huo Yuanjia was born weak and susceptible to illness (he hadasthma 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 (aka Chiang Ho) from Japan to teach his son academics and the values of humility and perseverance. In return, Chen was taught the Huo family's style of martial arts, Mizongyi. Against his father's wishes, Huo 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 visited the Huo family and had a fight with Huo's older brother. Huo's brother was defeated and to the surprise of the family, Huo fought against his brother's opponent and defeated him. Because Huo proved that he was physically able to practice wushu, his father accepted him as a disciple. In later years, Huo went on to challenge martial artists from neighboring lands and his fame grew as he defeated more and more opponents in bouts.
Huo joined his father at work as a caravan guard. One day, while escorting a group of monks, Huo was confronted by an aggressive bandit leader who threatened to attack the monks with his bandit followers. Huo fought against the bandit leader and defeated him. News of his feat spread and added on to his growing fame. In 1896, Huo 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 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 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 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 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 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.
Huo Yuanjia suffered from jaundice and 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's 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 died on August 9, 1910, at 42 years of age. In 1989, the tomb of Huo 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 was introduced to a Japanese doctor by the judo instructor as his health declined. The doctor prescribed some medicine for his condition, but Huo's health continued to deteriorate. Huo was admitted to Shanghai Red Cross Hospital, where he died two weeks later. Although Chen 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.
