Biographical Information

Dr. Andreas V Georgiou

In the domain of martial arts and combat sports, Andreas Georgiou is a long-time expert practitioner, teacher and author. After being involved for many years in other “heavy athletics”—Olympic-style weightlifting and track and field—he became a student of martial arts in the 1990s. He studied Self-Defense and Jujutsu with Slovak national wrestling champion and security professional Peter Patek in the Slovak Republic while on multi-year posting in that country in the mid-1990s. Upon returning to the US, he trained with Master Shihan Julio Zarate in Maryland, from whom he received his Black Belt in Kindai Ryu Jiujitsu (Ryu Jinjiujitsu) in 2001. He subsequently also trained in Jigo Tenshin Ryu Jujutsu with GrandMaster Dong Jin Kim in the Washington DC area. Apart from Jujutsu he has trained in Western Boxing in Finley’s Gym in Washington DC with Coach Henry Thomas and has experience in various other martial arts, such as Iaido, Tai Chi, Kali and Fencing. Over two decades he has enjoyed teaching martial arts and sharing his knowledge.   

In 1997, Dr. Georgiou began his project of researching and comprehensively reconstructing the ancient Olympic combat sport of Pankration, investigating directly the primary sources—in ancient Greek texts and visual arts—and building on the sparse and quite diverse secondary sources in classical studies and the modern martial arts literature. In 2005, Dr. Georgiou completed this project and authored two books on Pankration: Pankration – An Olympic Combat Sport, an illustrated reconstruction, Volume I and Volume II. He also published on Pankration in Black Belt Magazine.  

Andreas Georgiou was born in Greece in 1960 and he has roots in the Peloponnese and in Crete. He received his primary and secondary education in Greece and then studied in the United States, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and in Political Science/Sociology from Amherst College and then a Ph. D in Economics from the University of Michigan. He subsequently worked for 21 years at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, until 2010. In the period 2010 - 2015 he returned to Greece to serve as President of Greece’s National Statistics Office, the Hellenic Statistical Authority. He now resides permanently in the United States.

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