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SAMBO
(Contributor: Alex Levitas - alevitas@iil.intel.com)
Intro:
SAMBO is an acronym of Russian words "SAMozaschita Bez Orujiya"
- "Self-Defence Without Weapon".
Origin: Russia
History:
SAMBO was created in the 1930's. Official recognition of new
art was in 1938. At first it was named "free-style wrestling",
then "free wrestling," and in 1946 was renamed "SAMBO." This system
is compilation of techniques from a number of martial arts including
Japanese and Chinese martial arts; national martial arts of USSR
area natives (Georgians, Armenians, Mongols, Russians etc.); French
wrestling and other arts. At the time of the 2nd world war the
system was widely "tested" by the Soviet army. "Special" techniques
were added at the time, for example fighting in cells, quick-and-quiet
sentry killing, and so on. Because of the number of criminals
in the Soviet army at that time (during WWII each prisoner was
"invited" to the front with each year at the front worth two or
so years of their sentence) SAMBO experts acquired many lessons
on criminal street fighting, and a number of these techniques
were included in SAMBO. SAMBO continues to accept new techniques
and modify old ones.
Description:
Today, SAMBO is built from 3 parts: the sportive part (Olympic
sport), the self-defense part, and the special or combat part.
The sportive part is similar to Judo but with some differences
in allowed techniques. SAMBO allows leg locks were Judo does not,
but Judo allows choking but SAMBO does not. There are somewhat
more techniques in SAMBO than in Judo.
The self-defense part of SAMBO is similar in form to Aikijujutsu
because it is intended to be entirely defensive. The founder of
SAMBO said this about the self-defense part:
"We give defensive weapons to citizens. Some people say that
this kind of martial art may be learned by criminals or hooligans
and used against citizens. Don't worry! This art does not include
even one attacking technique! If a hooligan will learn, he will
be able to apply it only against another hooligan who will attack
him, but never against a citizen."
There are many specific techniques for defending specific attacks,
including escaping from grips and chokes, defenses against punches
and kicks, defenses against weapons (knife, stick etc.), and floor-fighting.
The self-defense part of SAMBO is based on body movements and
locks with a few punches and kicks. The object is to allow defense
but not to injure the opponent more than necessary because this
part was created for citizens. In the former Soviet Union the
law was that if you injure your opponent more than needed in a
self-defense situation you could receive a 5 year prison term.
Some of the self-defense techniques are based on sportive SAMBO.
The third part - combat SAMBO - was created for the army and
police. It is a very severe, and dangerous system. If the idea
of sportive SAMBO is "Take points and win," and the idea of the
self-defence part is "Don't allow to attacker injure you," the
idea of combat SAMBO is "Survive, and if someone hinders you -
injure or kill him." Combat SAMBO includes sportive and self-defence
techniques, but uses them in different ways. For example, sportive
SAMBO uses the traditional shoulder throw of Judo and Jujutsu.
In combative SAMBO the throw is done with the opponents arm rotated
up and locked at the elbow, and can be done to throw the opponent
on his head. If the opponent attempts to counter by lowering his
center of gravity and pulling backwards (as is taught in sportive
SAMBO) the arm will be broken. Combative SAMBO teaches shoulder
throw counters that might be able to deal with a locked arm like
kicking out the opponents knee and pulling back by the hair or
eye sockets.
In addition to modified sportive and self-defence techniques,
combat SAMBO includes kicks, punches, "dangerous throwing" (throws
that can't be include into sportive part because they cause injury),
locks on the spine, things that are prohibited in sportive wrestling
(biting, for example), many "sadistic dirty things," working against
weapons (with or without a weapon of your own), tricks like putting
your coat on your opponents head (works nicely), floor fighting
(very strong), fighting in closed space (small room, pit, stairs),
quick-and-quiet sentry killing, and so forth. Students also learn
strategy and tactics of fighting alone or in groups against single
or multiple opponents. SAMBO is less popular today in Russia because
the influx of oriental martial arts in recent years. But, the
development of SAMBO has continued and elements of it are incorporated
into other modern combat systems.
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