| FACTOID #1 |
Greek martial art was revived from its ashes
as one of the earliest contemporary forms of MMA in the late-1960s by innovative Greek-American
Jim (Demetri) Arvanitis. Technically schooled in various fighting
styles,
it was Arvanitis' athleticism, creativity, ethnic patriotism,
and skills as a historian and researcher that brought
pankration back to life as a cohesive combat system. This monumental
effort has been well documented over three decades. |
| FACTOID #2 |
Arvanitis opened the first Spartan Academy
for the teaching of his modern pankration in the
greater Boston area in 1971. |
| FACTOID #3 |
Greek martial art (Mu Tau) and combat sport pankration
were first exposed to mainstream martial artists when Arvanitis
was featured on the cover of Black Belt magazine in 1973. |
| FACTOID #4 |
Modern pankration is pronounced "pan-cray-shun"
as opposed to the native Greek pagratio. Arvanitis
modified the old term as early as 1971 and popularized it
throughout the world in the years that followed. Interestingly
enough many today use his exclusive term but were nowhere to be
found until now. |
| FACTOID #5 |
Greece, the homeland of sport pankration,
did not restore its own tangible contemporary form of the sport until
the creation of the Hellenic Federation of Pagration Athlima
in 1995. The pagration there, however, is more akin to
traditional Asian
karate than freestyle combat. |
| FACTOID #6 |
Arvanitis is a 15-time Hall of Fame inductee,
is a member of the prestigious World Head of
Family Sokeship Council, and is endorsed as the "Father
of Modern Pankration." |
| FACTOID #7 |
Arvanitis has been a constant media presence
for the past 30 years having been featured in over 150 international
magazine articles since the landmark Black Belt cover story
in 1973. |
| FACTOID #8 |
Arvanitis was the first to write full-length
books devoted to sport pankration and Hellenic combat methods. |
| FACTOID #9 |
Arvanitis' website (www.spartanacademy.com) was one
of the first martial arts sites on the Internet. It remains
the premiere site dedicated to Modern Pankration. Currently there
are thousands that simply "borrow" information from it. |
| FACTOID #10 |
Modern pankration is not meant to be an
exact replication of the original Hellenic combat sport. What
remains from classic renderings and literature serve as but a
blueprint for its framework. Arvanitis was cross training in
striking and grappling systems long before MMA existed, and used this
knowledge to restore it into a comprehensive
fighting art similar to that of his ancestors. |
| FACTOID #11 |
Modern Pankration is NOT Hellenic karate
with its preset forms and colored belts. Many Greek instructors
conveniently use the terms pankration or pammachon for the style
they teach, but it is in fact karate. |
| FACTOID #12 |
The torch of Greek martial art, as a modern
scientific combat method that embraces an ancient legacy, continues to be carried first and foremost by Arvanitis.
His influence has been felt not only in the U.S. and present-day
Greece, but throughout the world. |
