Huo Yuanjia - Legacy and Expansion of Chin Woo

Legacy and Expansion of Chin Woo

Huo died only months after helping to found 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, Xingyiquan master Geng Xiaguang, and Wu Chien Chuan, the founder of Wu-style taijiquan. In June 1910, the Eastern Times announced the establishment of the Chin Woo association in Huo's name. It was the first civil martial arts organization in China that was not associated with a particular school or style.

During the period of 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 prevented the Manchu ruling class from exercising full control over the Han Chinese. With their new freedom, Huo'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 Chinese Communist Party 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's 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, Sri Lanka, Poland, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Switzerland.

Huo was survived by three sons and two daughters, and now has seven grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.