IKHANDA African Fighting Arts Magazine, along with Professeur Elombe Myles welcomes you to "AFRICAN THROWDOWN," the website for authentic African Martial Arts.
Martial Arts have always been central to African culture. The tradition of systemized fighting originated hundreds of thousands of years ago* in BANTU Africa and gradually spread to the rest of the continent. For many ethnic groups in Africa, learning a system of fighting is part of the traditional requirements for transition from boyhood to manhood. As a result of this, Africa has literally thousands of systemized methods of fighting that can trace their lineage back to pre-dynastic Bantu culture*(over 100,000 years.)
*We must point out that this entire website operates from a metric of total African cultural immersion. Consequently, we express hoplology, measurements, religion, archeology, anthropology and history in terms of African concepts.
Up until this moment, the rule of thumb regarding the display and transmission of our fighting arts has been discretion. However, with the recent horrific acts of inter-ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kenya and Kongo/Angola, several "Mato Oputs" were conducted by the esteemed Bantu Council of Elders. Simultaneously, the decision was made by several leading Haitian Hougans and Cuban Babalawos that African people today need to be reintroduced to the empowering elements of their collective culture. Amakhanda African Combatives International was chosen to introduce these hitherto unknown sciences to the communities of African peoples throughout the Diaspora. The belief is that the principles endemic within the practice of their traditional fights can have a transformational effect on their concepts of identity and purpose.
This website will feature several Authentic African Fights from all over the world. This shall be in the form of pictures, movie clips, writings and interviews with the Masters of these systems.
It is our hope that through the lifting of the veils of ignorance, we will reconnect to our overculture, and see the way clear to a future filled with promise, integrity and strength.
Welcome.
Professeur Elombe Myles
African ThrowDown
Authentic African Martial Arts
This page was last updated: April 26, 2008
