I've been curious as to what might have been the fighting style for ancient Byzantines. In searching for "greek martial arts" I found a style called "Pankration" that is virtually unknown in the US. Here is a very interesting video published this month on "Your Greek News". Aris Makris, a pankration trainer in Montreal and the subject of the video, claims that Greek martial arts documentation dates back as far as 12000 (yes, 12 thousand) years with legend going back as far as 25000 years, and that this far older than Asian styles touting 2000 years of legend. At the very least, it seems well known that Pankration was introduced to the ancient Greek Olympic games in 648 B.C.
Here is what the International Federation of Pankration Athlima has to say about it:
"Pankration Athlima is an ancient Olympic Greek martial art and athletic combat sport that was an integral part of the ancient Olympic games for well over 3,000 years . The origin of the sport can be traced to the mythical Greek demi-God Hercules and is recorded in history to have been one of the most exciting events of the Ancient Olympic Games dating as far back as 648 BC. The propagation of Pankration is attributed to Alexander the Great, who is credited to have taken the sport with him across his conquests over Europe and finally to India, where it merged with Kalari Payattu and spread across Asia to become the father of all the Oriental Martial arts that we know of today."
Ah, HA! So were we (Americans) suckered into thinking the Chinese invented martial arts, or are we just generally ignorant of world history, or is it just me that's been out of the loop?
1 comments:
the 300 spartans at the end of the battle of thermopylae fought using the pankration (...whith their bare hands and teeth...)
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