Who Am I?

My name is Aris Makris, owner and Master Instructor of the Spartan Pankration Academy in Laval, Quebec, Canada with the rank of PAIDOTRIVIS "Delta" taxis.I am also the Official representative under the Hellenic Minister of Sports for the World Pangration Athlima Federation for Pankration in Canada. With 34 years training in the martial arts I have been teaching Pankration in Montreal, Canada for the last 20 years.

In The Beginning.

I started training from a very young age and was influenced, like everyone else by legendary fighters such as Bruce Lee and other actors in Chinese Kung fu Movies. I was instantly bitten by the Martial Arts bug and became fanatical for anything that could make me move like that. Having gone through many systems and training methods like, Greco Roman Wrestling, Chinese Boxing, Muay Thai, Viet Vo Dao, Boxing, Judo, Jujitsu, Kyokushin Kai, Wing Chun, Chow Gar, Kajukembo, Cabales Escrima and Cacoy Canete Doce Pares Eskrima/Eskrido in which I am still active today I went through different phases in my training based on my real life experiences. I have been a doorman for 25 years in Montreal's worst clubs and have been able to do quite well in handling myself under the worst circumstances thanks to my training approach.

My Frustrations.

I started with the Asian arts in my first year in high school, I was also introduced to Greco-Roman Wrestling which gave way to broader view of combat and plenty of questions in the process. These questions would go beyond the scope of this biography. Because I, like many others of my generation grew up on the streets, it gave way for the ever present likelihood of getting into a street fight. Although I had, and still have great respect for my teachers then, I was frustrated that my myriads of questions could not be answered and my thirst unquenchable to know more that I started quest to find these answers and wandered between several studios, dojos and academies, more often than I possibly could, doing 2 or more arts at the same time on different days. What a trip it was. I was getting swamped by so much info that it felt as if I was in Martial Arts heaven. I'm sure my teachers weren't all that happy, but no one at that time was teaching all aspects of combat in Canada. I needed to learn since I was bitten badly.

The Road to Pankration.

Around 1980, although very steeped into my culture's ancient and modern history, I had heard about Pankration but only in passing, until I was given a book of Mas Oyamas Karate in which he stated that "if it wasn't for the Greeks who came out with Pankration we would have nothing today" that stirred me up and had me focused in that direction. I was once again bitten and was headed to another direction to find out any and all information pertaining to this grand part of my history. Around that same time, I was given another boost after having seen the Father of Modern Pankration, Kirios Jim Arvanitis, a Spartan himself, in a well known martial arts magazine the "Black Belt", and that set the flame a blazing. It was obvious now and inevitable which way my life would go at any cost. Pankration was out into mainstream and I was pulled into that direction stronger than ever before. Having pulled out every source available, ancient and modern and having my experiences as a solid base, in 1985, I had transitioned full time into a Pankration type drilling and training methodology.

Being of Spartan blood makes me extremely proud and although I cannot claim any direct bloodline lineage to the great masters I do not consider myself any less of a Pankratiast I have tried to stay true to the spirit of the ancients. I wake up knowing that in some small way me and my students some how keep the link alive and connected with the ancients through our training and through our respect to them, and by the way we live our lives. Today, I head the Spartan Pankration Academy, and I am proud to say that I have an extraordinary group of students, dedicated and loyal to the art. These students gave me the opportunity to see myself the knowledge that I have acquired over the years by jumping from one system to another. I do now use that knowledge to educate them with a complete program the way I believe the ancients would have wanted it. I am proud of my heritage and history, they demonstrated to us several times that we should go beyond the barriers of tongue and color and honor only the individuals heart. By that I am proud of having students and friends like Franky Bertucci, my second in command who is Italian and proud of it. Peter Pavlatos who is obviously Greek, but has none the less earned being my 3rd in command. Aladino Boulad our Doctor, friend and hard working example of what anyone can accomplish if he or she puts his mind into it. He portrays the epitome of the healthy physician. Jimmy Pasic who has been himself an example , and big Mike Psaroulakis who believed long enough to see some great results unfold in front of him. These are only some of the people who are proud to have taken up a lifestyle , as Leonidas said before going off to Thermopiles, where " we discard the life of comfort and leisure and enroll into the Academy of Discipline and Sacrifice"………………. The Palestrai! By that definition they are all Spartans.

PANKRATION, then and now............an overview.

PANKRATION is in the understanding of how human being develops and transforms himself into a complete warrior and by which methods that objective is accomplished. Necessity is the mother of all inventions / creations and PANKRATION is its child. The ancient Greeks were known to examine and analyze everything and anything especially when it came to the business and art of war. PANKRATION was the product of the need, not to succeed, but to win over one's enemies or opponent.
For someone to have a firm understanding of PANKRATION ,it is very important to understand its history (link to history page) and reason for its development and for what type of conditions it was developed and practiced. Before we dwell into the past, let's look at the development of, or should l say changes and adjustments that Martial artists had to make in the late 20th century. In just under 50 years Martial Arts went through a revolutionary transformation largely because of its competitive nature. All those traditional systems were put under the magnifying glass and went through a complete make over by the time the UFC was in its 4th show, by pitting one style's approach against the other.

Except for those who continued to practice the traditional Oriental arts for meditative, cultural or other non combative reasons, the rest who were interested in the business of combat and its applications took a, what would be termed, as a different route, an "untraditional or unorthodox" road to Martial mastery. And look at how far we have come in no more that 50 years. Now, let's go back to ancient Greece and imagine the change and progress one had to undertake in his martial arts training to stay alive on the battle field when his shield was thrashed to shreds and his sword had bent out of proportions or hacked in two. That was the reasoning behind the development of Pagration. In other words the demands of the Hoplite were enormous and because the risk of him loosing his shield and sword were very present, he had to make sure that he could overcome his enemy with "hands, feet and teeth" as Philostratos says.

Surviving was not the mentality here. To "Survive" harbors a different mindset. You could fight your way and run out of the battlefield to a safer place and hide to survive. That was not the mentality of the Greeks then and still not today, for those that are familiar with Greece's modern history. The mindset that was embedded into the Greek hoplite or Pankratiast and all other athletes then, was to "WIN" over his enemy. That was the same intention during all the athletic events and especially in the "Olympic Agones", as it should be termed.

There are many historical examples to show that Pankratiasts, even Olympians were deadly fighters as we are reminded of Polydamas the multiple Olympic winner who was invited to give an exhibition for the Persian royal court, only to find himself ambushed and tricked into fighting for his life with three of the King's fully battle geared and most battle experienced Immortals. Polydamas was given but a stick as a weapon. In the end three Immortals lay dead as the result of the Pankratiast's skill.

When training for extreme conditions, one takes every situation that might and can occur in the heat of the battle into consideration. I said earlier that in Sparta, the mentality was, which has been scientifically proven that, one reacts and performs according to the way one trains. If you placed no restrictions to your training then there are no restrictions by which means you will take out your opponent. Having said that, let's be clear that fluke has no more than 2% occurrence in battle and all else is calculated hard trained spontaneous reflexive skill!

By those standards and those alone was PANKRATION developed and practiced then, and by the same principles do we train today and for the last 20 years at the PANKRATION Academy in Laval, Quebec, Canada, which is the only PANKRATION academy in the country that adheres to the training as close to the Spartan methodology as circumstances permit us to.

Athens 2004Olympic Flame Relay in Montreal, Demonstration, CBC Television, Interview, CH Global TV, Mtl., Que.

Modern Pagration Anti Drugs Benefit, Odessye Satelite TV, Canada wide Radio

Modern day Pankration Stages a Comeback." CBC`s Olympic Web Site. Toronto, Ont.

"Modern Pankration Makes a Comeback." The Suburban. Mtl. Que.

Contribution to the Martial Arts, USA Choy Lay Fut Federation.

For the Contribution of Modern Pankration, Bak Fu International Federation, USA