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Before the advent of Buddhism in India, medicine had already discovered and codified the vital points of the human body. It is said that their practical applications to fighting were made on live subjects by local fighters.

In ancient Greece, where courage and physical development were valued at their highest, it is said that around 800 B.C. every Greek male was adept in pankration, a very violent form of fighting which often ended with the death of one of the contestants. Pancration was then a basic training for war as well as a popular sport.

a. The Chinese Origins: Kempo

One of the most influential forms of fighting was begun in China more than three thousand years ago during the Shu period when the Yellow River district was unified. This fighting art, ch'uan-fa, or kempo in Japanese (the way of the fist), is illustrated in the Kansho, an old Chinese book. Later, around 770 B.C., when nomadic Mongolian tribes invaded Northern China, they introduced a form of fighting which was to influence the development of both Chinese wrestling and boxing. This form, called sumo, was a test of strength between two contestants wearing ram heads, thus its first meaning, "evaluating the strength of the horns."