Powerful Greek Fighting Techniques

Which country do you most strongly associate with martial arts? If you said Asia, that's understandable. After all, Asia was the continent that gave birth to many of the most popular fighting arts in the world.

From Judo to Jiu Jitsu, Karate to Taekwondo, the list of hand-to-hand combat and fighting styles that came from Asia seem 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.

The best fighting and hand-to-hand combative styles closely resemble Greek fighting techniques. If anything, the Greek techniques often rival many of the other styles.

Boxing, striking, kicking, and wrestling are common fighting techniques that Pankration shares with plenty of other fighting styles. Pankration also first brought joint locking, pressure points, and other techniques into widespread use.

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 of the Greek fighting style refers to strength. Pankration is formed from two Greek words: "Pan" refers to "all," "kratos" refers to "force" or "strength."

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.

Believe it or not, many of the mixed martial art modalities we see today actually stem from the early days of the Greek fighting techniques 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.