Passing the word to all the Military guys interested in Mixed Martial Arts.
There will be a All Armed Forces Pankration Tournament held April 29th at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. Pankration competition allows body strikes, take downs and submissions in a Double elimination Wrestling Style Format. Two skill levels are available, the Novice division is for one year or less total Martial Arts training and Open division is for over one year training. Both skill divisions have 9 weight classes.
Individual awards for 1st, 2nd & 3rd place finalists and team awards for the top three Open division teams.
Last years tournament drew 83 Athletes from the Marines, Navy, Air Force and National Guard. The event is open to all Military Active and Reserve.
The tournament will be conducted by the Unified Amateur Pankration League at the 52 area fitness center located in the Northern Part of Camp Pendleton that houses the School of Infantry. Exit I-5 at Basilone Rd (Orange/ San Diego County line) and enter the base. Proceed about 2 miles on Basilone Rd to the 52 area fitness center.
Just curious about the two divisions - seems like some young guys with just a little over a year of training would get thrown into the open division with guys who've been training/competing for a much longer time.
Do guys stick w/ Pankration for years and years or do they move onto MMA?
The ammount of novice competitors are much larger than open so we need to get guys in the open bracket to ensure competition. We do not allow Pro's in the Open division so the average competitor has trained MMA for 2 years.
Some of our non Military tournaments have 3 skill levels with the Open division requirments either over 18 months or two years but we often get allot of sandbaggers in the lower disvsions so it's hard to enforce.
Sandbagging is not as much of a problem with the Military events
Just came back from the meeting at Camp Pendleton. They are open for Canadian Armed Forces but it may be too much "logiostical" work at this point for an individual competitor. We can put it in the planning process for next year but if you can get a team from Canada I will push hard for this year.