When most people
think of martial arts, the
first region that comes to mind is Asia. This is totally
understandable; that continent is after all where many of the
world’s most popular fighting arts originated.
Karate, Jiu
Jitsu, Judo, Taekwondo…the list of fighting styles and
hand-to-hand combat disciplines that originated from Asia is seemingly
endless.
Did you know however that possibly one of
the oldest martial arts in the world comes from Greece and not from
Asia?
It’s called Pankration and in
addition to having
influenced many fighting styles all over the world, the art is still
being practiced by many aficionados to this very day.
Greek fighting techniques
are similar
to–and can in fact even rival–many of the
world’s best fighting and hand-to-hand combat styles.
Pankration uses a combination of many
different techniques that are
also commonly used in other fighting styles, such as boxing, wrestling,
striking and kicking. It is also here where techniques such as joint
locking and the use of pressure points first came into widespread use.
There are many martial arts that draw focus
away from–and in some cases even completely
disregard–the use of strength as an effective fighting
component.
Many Greek fighting techniques however rely
on a
considerable degree of strength. Grappling and striking techniques are
good examples of these.
Even the name Pankration is a reference to
this
being made up of the two Greek words “pan” and
“kratos”, which means “all”,
and “strength” or “force”
respectively.
Pankration today exists in a greatly
modified form, which in some cases is closer to a hybrid style of
kickboxing, than the form that was practiced in ancient Greece.
There
is also some degree of blurring with the highly popular competitive
sporting event that is known as mixed martial arts. Many mixed martial
arts techniques actually stem from the Greek fighting techniques of the
earliest days of Pankration.
In any case, the Greek martial art still
exists at least partly through the techniques used in these newer
martial arts, and efforts are being made to get it accepted into the
Olympic games once again in the future.