The ancient Greek Olympic games had three combat sports. They were boxing, wrestling and pankration. Pankration was the ancient equivalent of today's cultural phenomenon, mixed martial arts.
Pankration of the ancient Greek era wasn't without its critics. The people of ancient Greece, specifically the Spartans, were critical of the rules imposed during pankration. This is not unlike what is happening in the UFC today. The Spartans objected to the amount of rules imposed during the ancient pankration matches. They believed these matches were governed by too many regulations. The rules in ancient pankration were as follows:
No biting.
No hair pulling.
No fishhooking. (fingers pulling the sides of the mouth)
No eye poking.
Anything other manuevers were fair game and there was no time limit to the matches.
Today's MMA's scene continues to evolve. During the inception of the UFC and other MMA tournaments, there were fewer rules. As the sport continues to grow, rules creep in and continue to mount. Rules are certainly intended to maintain the fighters' safety, but they also have an influence on the outcomes of the matches. One can comfortably argue that legal hair-pulling by Royce Gracie favorably influenced the outcome of his fight against Kimo.
How will the sport evolve next? It will be interesting to see if the the changes will mirror that of traditional martial arts or evolve in a way that will push combat sports into new and innovative directions.
I like the rawness of MMA. Its primitive nature seems to offer an antidote to the edge that the traditional martial arts is lacking. That's why I continue to train in other combat sports. It enhances and inspires my traditional study.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment