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International Federation of Amateur Sambo
Sambo
Also known as	Sombo, Cambo
Focus	Mixed
Country of origin	USSR
Creator	Viktor Spiridonov, Vasili Oshchepkov, Anatoly Kharlampiev
Olympic Sport	no

Part of the series on Russian martial arts
Types
Fistfight Sambo Systema Spetsnaz GRU hand-to-hand combat style
Important people
Mikhail Ryabko Vladimir Vasiliev Fedor Emelianenko
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Sambo (Russian: самбо—also called Sombo or Cambo and sometimes written in all-caps) is a modern martial art, combat sport and self-defense system developed in the Soviet Union and recognized as an official sport by the USSR All-Union Sports Committee in 1938, presented by Anatoly Kharlampiev.

The word Cambo(Sambo) is an acronym of САМозащита Без Оружия (SAMozashchita Bez Oruzhiya) meaning "self-defense without weapons" in Russian. Sambo has its roots in Chinese Shuaijiao, Japanese judo and traditional folk styles of wrestling such as Armenian Koch, Georgian Chidaoba, Moldovan Trîntǎ, Uzbek Kurash, Mongolian Khapsagay and Azerbaijani Gulesh.

The founders of Sambo were Vasili Oshchepkov (who died during the political purges of 1937 for refusing to deny his education in judo under its founder Kano Jigoro) and Viktor Spiridonov. They independently developed two different styles, both with the same name. Spiridonov's style was a soft, aikido-like system developed after he was maimed during World War I.¹ Anatoly Kharlampiev, a student of Victor Spiridonov, is often officially recognized as the founder of Sport Sambo.

Styles

Sport Sambo

Although it was originally a single system, there are now five generally recognized styles of Sambo:

• Sport Sambo (Russian: Борьбa Самбо,Bor'ba Sambo) is stylistically similar to amateur wrestling or judo. The competition is similar to judo, but with some differences in rules, protocol, and uniform. For example, in contrast with judo, Sambo allows all types of leg locks, while not allowing chokeholds and focuses on throwing, ground work and submissions.²
• Self-defense Sambo, which is similar to aikijutsu, jujutsu or aikido and is based on self-defense application, such as defending against attacks by both armed and unarmed attackers. Many practitioners consider Self-Defense Sambo as part of Combat Sambo and not a system unto itself.
• Combat Sambo (Russian: Боевое Самбо, Boyevoye Sambo). Utilized and developed for the military, Combat Sambo includes practice with weapons, including disarming techniques. Competition in Combat Sambo resembles older forms of judo and modern mixed martial arts, including extensive forms of striking and grappling. The first FIAS World Sambo Championships were held in 2001.
• Special Sambo - developed for Army Special Forces and Rapid Reaction Police (Militsija) teams and other law enforcement formations. The Special Sambo style differs from team to team due to different tasks and aims; however, the base of any special system developed in that field is of course Sambo. The term "Special Sambo" is a relatively new term which refers to specialized versions of combat Sambo.
• Freestyle Sambo - uniquely American set of competitive Sambo rules created by the American Sambo Association (ASA) in 2004. These rules differ from traditional Sport Sambo in that they allow choke holds and other submissions from Combat Sambo that are not permitted in Sport Sambo. Freestyle Sambo, like all Sambo, focuses on throwing skills and fast ground work. No strikes are permitted in Freestyle Sambo. The ASA created this rule set in order to encourage non-Sambo practitioners from judo and jujitsu to participate in Sambo events.

Uniform and Ranking

A Sambo practitioner normally wears either a red or a blue jacket kurtka, a belt and shorts of the same color, and sambovki (Sambo shoes). The Sambo uniform does not reflect rank or competitive rating. Sport rules require an athlete to have both red and blue sets to visually distinguish competitors on the mat.

In Russia, a competitive rating system is used rather than belt colors like judo and jiujitsu to demonstrate rank, though some schools around the world now institute belt colors as well. The rating system is called Unified Sports Classification System of the USSR, with the highest athletic distinction known as the Distinguished Masters of Sport in Sambo.

Examination requirements vary depending on the age group and can vary from country to country. The examination itself includes competitive accomplishment as well as technical demonstration of knowledge. Higher level exams must be supervised by independent judges from a national Sambo association. For a rating to be recognised, it must be registered with the national Sambo organization.

History

Origins and influences

The founders of Sambo deliberately sifted through all of the world's martial arts available to them to augment their military's hand-to-hand combat system. One of these men, Vasili Oschepkov, taught judo and karate to elite Red Army forces at the Central Red Army House. He had earned his nidan (second degree black belt out of then five) from judo's founder, Kano Jigoro, and he was one of the first foreigners who learned Judo in Japan and he used some of Kano's philosophy in formulating the early development of the new Soviet art.

Sambo was in part born of native Russian and other regional styles of grappling and combative wrestling, bolstered with the most useful and adaptable concepts and techniques from the rest of the world.

As the buffer between Europe and Asia, Russia had more than ample opportunity to evaluate the martial skills of various invaders. Earlier Russians had experienced threats from the Vikings in the West and the Tatars and Genghis Khan's Golden Horde from Mongolia in the East. The regional, native combat systems included in Sambo's genesis are Tuvan Khuresh, Yakuts khapsagai, Chuvash akatuy, Georgian chidaoba, Moldavian trinta, Armenian kokh, and Uzbek Kurash to name a few.

The foreign influences included various styles of European wrestling, Japanese jujutsu, French Savate and other martial arts of the day plus the classical Olympic sports of amateur boxing and Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling. Sambo even derived lunging and parrying techniques from the Italian school of swordsmanship.

Sambo's early development stemmed from the independent efforts of Oschepkov and another Russian, Victor Spiridonov, to integrate the techniques of judo into native wrestling styles. Spiridonov's background involved indigenous styles of Russian martial art. His "soft-style" was based on the fact that he received a bayonet wound during the Russo-Japanese War which left his left arm lame. Both Oschepkov and Spiridonov hoped that the Russian styles could be improved by an infusion of the techniques distilled from jujutsu by Kano Jigoro into his new style of jacket wrestling. Contrary to common lore, Oschepkov and Spiridonov did not cooperate on the development of their hand-to-hand systems. Rather, their independent notions of hand-to-hand combat merged through cross-training between students and formulative efforts by their students and military staff. While Oschepkov and Spiridonov did have occasion to collaborate, their efforts were not completely united.

Each technique was carefully dissected and considered for its merits, and if found acceptable in unarmed combat, refined to reach Sambo's ultimate goal: to stop an armed or unarmed adversary in the least time possible. Thus, the best techniques of jujutsu and its cousin, judo, entered the Sambo repertoire. When the techniques were perfected, they were woven into Sambo applications for personal self-defense, police, crowd control, border guards, secret police, dignitary protection, psychiatric hospital staff, military, and commandos.

Development

In 1918, Lenin created Vseobuch (Vseobshchee voennoye obuchienie or General Military Training) under the leadership of N.I. Podovoyskiy to train the Red Army. The task of developing and organizing Russian military hand-to-hand combat training fell to K. Voroshilov, who in turn, created the NKVD physical training center Dinamo.

Spiridonov was a combat veteran of World War I and one of the first wrestling and self-defense instructors hired for Dinamo. His background included Greco-Roman wrestling, freestyle wrestling, many Slavic wrestling styles, and Japanese jujutsu. As a combatives investigator for Dinamo, he traveled to Mongolia and China to observe their native fighting styles.

In 1923, Oschepkov and Spiridinov collaborated (independently) with a team of other experts on a grant from the Soviet government to improve the Red Army's hand-to-hand combat system. Spiridonov had envisioned integrating all of the world's fighting systems into one comprehensive style that could adapt to any threat. Oschepkov had observed Kano's distillation of Tenjin Shin’yo Ryu jujutsu and Kito Ryu jujutsu into judo, and he had developed the insight required to evaluate and integrate combative techniques into a new system. Their development team was supplemented by Anatoly Kharlampiev and I.V. Vasiliev who also traveled the globe to study the native fighting arts of the world. Ten years in the making, their catalogue of techniques was instrumental in formulating the early framework of the art to be eventually referred to as Sambo. Here, Oschepkov and Spiridonov's improvements in Russian wrestling slipped into the military's hand-to-hand-combat system.

Kharlampiev is often called the father of Sambo. This may be largely semantics, since only he had the longevity and political connections to remain with the art while the new system was named "Sambo". However, Kharlampiev's political maneuvering is single-handedly responsible for the USSR Committee of Sport accepting Sambo as the official combat sport of the Soviet Union in 1938—decidedly the "birth" of Sambo. So, more accurately, Kharlampiev could be considered the father of "sport" Sambo.

Spiridonov was the first to actually begin referring to the new system as one of the "S" variations cited above. He eventually developed a softer, more aikido-like system called Samoz that could be used by smaller, weaker practitioners or even wounded soldiers and secret agents. Spiridonov's inspiration to develop Samoz stemmed from his injury that he suffered that greatly restricted his ability to practice Sambo or wrestling. Refined versions of Sambo are still used today or fused with specific Sambo applications to meet the needs of Russian commandos today.

As an Olympic Sport

It is often stated that Sambo was a demonstration sport at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, USSR. Youth Sambo was demonstrated in the Games' opening ceremonies; however, Sambo was not formally recognized as demonstration sport. Several sources note this common error in history books including History of SAMBO by A. Makoveski and Lukashev's History of Hand-to-Hand Combat in the First Half of the 20th Century: Founders and Authors ³. Furthermore, the official documents of the 1980 Olympic Organizing Committee do not mention Sambo as a participating sport in the Games. ⁴

Today

The FILA accepted Sambo as the third style of international wrestling in 1968, until the Sambo community formed its own organization, Federation International Amateur Sambo (FIAS),in 1985. In 1993, FIAS split into two organizations, both used the same name and logo and the two groups were often referred to as FIAS "East" (under Russian control) and FIAS "West" (under US and Western European control). This split mirrored the last days of Cold War politics of the time as well as the recent break-up of the Soviet Union. In 2005, FILA reached an agreement with FIAS "West" and re-assumed sanctioning over sport Sambo.⁵ However, in 2008, FILA again discontinued sanctioning sambo and sambo is now notably missing from the FILA website.⁶ At present, FIAS sanctions international competition in sport and combat sambo.

Practitioners

Champions

The World Sambo Academy in Kstovo, the venue of many Sambo competitions

• Blagoy Ivanov, Won the 2008 World Sambo Championships beating Fedor Emelianenko.
• Fedor Emelianenko, World Combat Sambo Champion and Russian Combat Sambo Champion. He was the last heavyweight champion of the former PRIDE Fighting Championships and current WAMMA heavyweight champion.
• Andrei Arlovski, former UFC heavyweight champion. He was also the Junior World Sambo Champion, as well as a silver medalist in the World Sambo Championship and World Sambo Cup.
• Clinton Burke, NCAA wrestling finalist and All-American from the University of Oklahoma, was a four-time finalist in world competition beginning in 1987, when he earned a silver medal in the World Cup in Tokyo. He won World Championship silver medals in three different weight classes (62 kg, 68 kg, and 74 kg), closing his career in 1993 as runner-up in the World Championships in Kstovo, Russia.
• Lance Campbell Sport Sombo World Champion. One of only eight grapplers selected to compete in the Ultimate Submission Showdown.
• Amy Ehlenfeldt, an accomplished US judo player; she won the 1991 FIAS World Championships in Montreal, Canada, becoming the first American woman to achieve victory over a female USSR competitor.
• Aleksander Emelianenko, Fedor's brother, is a two-time Russian national Sambo champion and two-time world Sambo champion in the absolute divisions.
• Jason Gabrielson, Three-time World champion, one-time World Cup champion, Pan-American Games champion, Sixteen-time US Champion competing in all age groups. Only US lifetime undefeated champion. Was nominated for the American Sambo Association's Pioneer of American Sambo award. Is also a champion wrestler and judo competitor.
• James Chico Hernandez, the first Sambo Champion to be featured on a box of Wheaties Energy Crunch. He is a World Cup Vice-Champion, US National Sambo Champion and British Sambo medalist
• Scott Sonnon, Honourable Master of Sports in Sambo from the AASF [1], was nominated for the American Sambo Association's Pioneer of American Sambo award, World Sambo Games Silver Medalist, USA Grand National and Pan-American Sambo Champion, and USA National Sambo Team Coach.⁷ Sonnon specializes in no-gi Sambo for mixed martial arts competition.⁸
• Ron Tripp, 1994 World Champion and 7 times World Medalist capturing 8 US National Titles and 6 Pan Am Golds during his career. A Judo champion and current president of USA Judo. Tripp was promoted to 10th degree in Sambo in 1995 and became America's first Distinguished Master of Sport in 1996. Also in 1996, he served as World Team Coach at the Tokyo World Championships. At the 1993 U.S. Sombo Championships, he scored a controversial win over Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu legend Rickson Gracie.⁹
• Igor Yakimov, World Judo Champion, as well a world Sport Sambo Champion and a medallist at the Combat Sambo world championships.

Fictional practitioners

• Boris Ivanov and Alexander Kareda from the manga Shijō Saikyō no Deshi Ken'ichi (aka History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi)
• The fictional character Blue Mary of the King of Fighters video game series uses a stylized version of Sambo.
• Sergei Dragunov of Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection uses the military version of Sambo.
• Bayman and Leon of the Dead or Alive game series both use Combat Sambo.
• Cyrax and Sektor use Sambo in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.
• Zangief uses a variation of Sambo and integrates it into Pro Wrestling.
• Professional wrestler Dave Taylor was a Sambo champion^{citation needed} in England and is a third-generation^{citation needed} practitioner of the sport.
• Mikhail Bakunin of the TV series Lost appears to use Sambo, probably due to his military training before joining the DHARMA Initiative.
• Michael Westen uses Sambo as part of his under cover operation in the Burn Notice episode 'Comrades'.
• Ansar Chalangov, a mixed martial arts competitor who has appeared in two fights in UFC's welterweight division.

Well-known practitioners

• Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, is Master of Sports in both Sambo and judo.
• Vladimir Kozlov, a Russian professional wrestler currently performing on WWE's "SmackDown" Brand, has experience in Sambo and various other forms of MMA.
• Oleg Taktarov, UFC 6 Champion, UFC '95 Ultimate Ultimate Tournament finalist, and actor.
• Megumi Fujii, a currently undefeated female MMA fighter. She is known as the Princess of Sambo. She is currently training in catch wrestling under former PRIDE Fighting Championship top heavyweight contender, Josh Barnett.
• Sergei Kharitonov, a PRIDE Fighting Championship competitor
• Satoko Shinashi, an accomplished Japanese mixed martial arts competitor often called the "Queen of MMA"

Footnotes

Beth Miller- self defence expert and acomplished grappler.

Sources

• FILA Sombo Rules - May 2006
• Sombo handbook - by Bruce Gabrielson, PhD
• Creation of Sambo - by Michail Lukashev, first published in Physical Culture and Sport magazine N9-10/91.
• Classical SAMBO - with many examples and pictures.
• About Sombo - Sambo overview at AnyMartialArt.org
• CST Magazine Interview with Steve Koepfer from the American Sambo Association - information about combat and freestyle Sambo.
• New York Times Article and Video covering the history of Sambo - published July 19, 2008.
• LA Talk Radio's Kip Brown discusses Sambo on In The Can - Aired September 13, 2008.
• G4 Network's Attack of the Show covers Sambo Aired October 1, 2008.
• Russia Today covers the 70th Anniversary of Sambo - Aired October 22, 2008

External links

Organisations

• FIAS (Federation International Amateur Sambo)
• Asian SAMBO Federation
• American Sambo Association
• United States Combat SAMBO Association

Other

• Listing on US and international sambo schools, practitioners, and organizations
• RMAX Sambo Video Clips, Articles and Technique Tutorials
• Photoalbum (SAMBO, information database) | ru
• Nepobedimyy (1983) at the Internet Movie Database
• SAMBO, information database | ru
• http://www.sombojoe.com Clubs in Ohio and Kentucky