Ancient Greek Fighting Techniques
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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.
Asia’s list of fighting styles and hand-to-hand combat disciplines seems without end: This is where Karate, Judo, Taekwondo, Jiu Jitsu, and many other styles came from.
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.
You’ll find that much of the world’s best hand-to-hand combat and fighting styles are very similar to the Greek fighting techniques. In fact, the Greek techniques often rival the others!
Pankration uses a variety of different techniques that are frequently used in other fighting styles. They include kicking, striking, wrestling, and boxing. Pankration also uses techniques such as the use of pressure points and joint locking; this is how these techniques first became widespread.
The use of physical strength when fighting an opponent is often not the focus in many martial arts styles. In some cases, strength is disregarded completely.
On the other hand, strength is important in many Greek fighting techniques. Good examples including striking and grappling techniques.
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.
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