Joseph
Chen
Poor
health was the
dominant feature of his early years. The source of his poor health was
the lack of food of any kind during his mother's pregnancy. He was born little
and weak, a sign that he might not live long enough to reach
adulthood.
The problems became more apparent when he developed acute asthma at the age of one and a half.
As a result of poor health, he did not start school until he was 9 years old. Poor health kept him home, mostly indoors for the first 9 years of his life. From grade 1 to grade 5, he went to school half of the year. During winter months chronic bronchitis kept him from attending school.
During this period of time, his main illness was with his heart, liver, lungs and arthritis. It was this kind of desperation that lead to his pursuit of martial arts. Unlike most Chinese martial artists, Joseph Chen did not start his career at the age of 8. There was no natural talent in martial arts, there was no enthusiasm in martial arts and he was not destined to be a great master from birth.
His early Start in martial art was with a hand copied manual of army combat training techniques borrowed from a friend. Over the pursuing years, he would study Sitongchui (Four-Open-Fist of Weifang, Shandong Province) from a local master; Baji and Taizu from a neighbor; Xiao Wushou (Small-Five-Hand); Da Wushou (Large-Five-Hand) and
With practice and training, he gradually regained his health. He gained strength and put on weight (he was severely under weight before). He started looking normal to young people of his age.
Then his
kung fu
exploits began.
He organized the young people in his town into groups. He
coached them and trained them. Each group would compete with other groups.
The beach along the Hongning River (Wulian County, Shandong Province) banks became their meeting place
everyday after school. There were times when things got rough and he had
to discipline the trouble-maker. His reputation in martial arts started to
spread in his town.
In
1978, most of his group were recruited to be on the school team that competed in
the Weifang District wide (the district was consisted of 7 counties of about 6
hundred thousand people each) martial arts competition held in Wulian County.
The indeed played a major role in ensuring that their county, the host county
finished the event with most awards. Chen did not participate in the competition
himself but helped coach each one of the competitors. Next