Sambo in Basel

The story of sambo

Sambo ( Russian: самбо) is a Russian-Soviet martial art that has its roots in Japanese Judo / Jiu-Jitsu as well as in the traditional martial arts and wrestling styles of Europe and the area of ​​the former Soviet Union .

Sambo was developed by the Soviet army starting in 1923 to improve their close combat training. The development goal was to merge the most effective techniques of traditional martial arts into a system suitable for military training.

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The first pioneers of sambo were Viktor Spiridonow and Vasily Oschtschepkow . Oshchepkov was executed on Stalin's orders in 1937 after he was accused of being a Japanese spy. He had spent a large part of his life in Japan, where he trained directly with Kanō Jigorō , the founder of Judo.

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Anatoly Charlampiev , a student of Spiridonow, is officially regarded as the founding father of sambo as a sport. It was thanks to his commitment that sambo was recognized as a competitive sport by the Sports Committee of the USSR in 1938.

The international sambo federation is called Federation International Amateur Sambo (FIAS).

The German Sambo Association e. V. (DSV) is the umbrella organization of the German sambo clubs and is an official member of FIAS.

 

Sambo in competition

There are two styles of competition in sambo:

• Sports (borba) sambo is a competition with similar rules as in Judo or Olympic freestyle wrestling. Throws, fixation of the opponent on the ground and levers on arms and legs are allowed. In contrast to judo, strangle holds are prohibited.

• Combat (Buoyewoje) Sambo is largely similar to modern mixed martial arts competitions. The competitors wear head protection, mouthguards, groin guards, shin guards and light gloves. The rules leave considerably more leeway than those of the sports sambo. In addition to throws, fixations and levers, blows and kicks as well as strangleholdings are permitted.

Victory can be achieved in both categories either by a point lead after the time has expired or by submitting the opponent prematurely (e.g. due to a lever technique, in Combat Sambo also KO), a clean throw (similar to the Ippon in Judo) that the thrower does not touch the ground with any part of the body other than the feet and the thrown lies on the ground with his back, or superiority.

 

Sambo at Dynamic Sports Basel

Our trainer Nico has many years of martial arts experience in various areas as well as combat experience. He likes to pass on his passion and beginners as well as seasoned fighters are welcome in his training sessions.