About Us:

Team Pradal Serey is a competing team presenting out of the City of Lynn, and we are located at 34 Astor Street, Lynn, Massachusetts. We hope to be a strong participant at national and international venues such as grappling, K1 style (stand up), Boxing and Martial Arts tournaments both professionally and amateur.

Our Purpose:

Our purpose is to promote belonging and help influence our young people in the understanding of strong healthy values and the discipline of living life with the highest purpose through the discipline of martial arts.

Future Goals and Objectives:

Our future goal and objective is to revive and educate Pradal Serey to others who are interested in Khmer, the unique style of warriors, and expose this art through competing on a national and international level, both amateur and professional.

Brief History on Pradal Serey:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pradal_serey

The word Pradal Serey in Khmer language means "free fighting style." It is the oldest style of martial arts in Southeast Asia. The evidence is carved in an eloquent Khmer arts display on walls of the ancient city of Angkor, showing Khmer traditional soldiers displaying combat techniques involving knees, elbows, and kicks and including varied weaponry. This fighting technique was the army's standard combat style at the time of the Khmer Empire's maximum expansion (9th century AD).

Unfortunately, this deep-rooted century's old arts and all forms of Khmer culture and heritage have almost come to extinction during Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979). The Khmer Rouge announced Year Zero and systematically destroyed the country's infrastructure. All "enemies of the revolution" were executed. These included teachers, aristocrats, educated people, monks, doctors, artists, foreign-speaking Cambodians, actors, singers, and Khmer boxing Pradal Serey practitioners. Everybody else was sent for re-education to labor camps upcountry, which later became sadly known as the "killing fields." Millions died of starvation, diseases, and summary executions. Thirty-one years later, as survivors of the Khmer Rouge holocaust who are fortunate to have come to the United States together, we are now joining in the efforts with Cambodia to slowly revive and reclaim what belongs to the Khmer people. Pradal Serey practitioners all over the world are working in unity with Khmer people in Cambodia to diligently bring back to life these unique ancient Khmer martial arts. In doing so, we are honored to name our team Team Pradal Serey as a way to uphold the ancient traditional way of the Khmer warriors of Angkor, and we hope to bring exposure of this art to the world in a respectable manner.

This is what we are about and where we are going: