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U.S. Sombo Newsletter
November, 2007 (Newsletter in Adobe Acrobat format)
Greetings friends, fellow grapplers, wrestlers, and martial artists, This month, the 4th Annual North American Freestyle Sambo Championships and the Sombo Joe Open will both take place. For more information, see the upcoming events section below. In this issue, I review the new History Channel program, Human Weapon, and we have a feature on Sombo from USSA President, Josh Henson. If you have story ideas, or suggestions relating to future issues of this newsletter, please drop me a line at teamusa@sombo.us. We also welcome article submissions. If you are interested in writing an article for future inclusion in our newsletter, please submit the article to me via email at the address listed above.
Yours in Sombo, Lance Campbell Vice President, United States Sombo Association
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2) Review: Human Weapon By Lance Campbell
The History Channel has a new series called Human Weapon. The show features professional MMA fighter Jason Chambers and former professional football player, Bill Duff as they travel the globe to study various martial arts. The show takes a look at the historical developments of each martial art. At the end of each episode, they face a challenge against experts in the discipline they are studying.
they adapt to different techniques. In each episode they learn a variety of techniques from various experts in the given art they are studying. They also under go training and conditioning exercises for each art.
Pankration, Krav Maga, and MMA. While they have not yet trained in Sombo on the show, they have made reference to the style on a couple of occasions. The Human Weapon page on the History Channel’s web site lists Sombo as a style, so I remain optimistic that we might see an episode devoted to our art. For more information on Human Weapon, or to find program listings, go to http://www.history.com.
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By Josh Henson
the Sport of Korea and Judo is the Sport of Japan. Although a number of people also refer to Sombo in the same way, technically, there was no "official" or National Sport of the USSR. In terms of popularity, the Olympic sports were highly promoted as part of the larger Communist propaganda mission to the world. As a result, the most favored spectator sports were probably the ones the Soviets dominated, including gymnastics, athletics, figure skating, ice hockey and wrestling. Soccer football was probably the most widely practiced participant sport in terms of numbers, numbering millions of participants. Estimates of the number of Sombo practitioners at any one time in the Soviet Union range from 250,000 to 500,000. But, according to one historian, “Sombo sprang from the soul of the Soviet Union and reflects the essence and persona of the Soviet era.”
Perhaps the two most distinctively Soviet sports were gorodki (a kind of bowling with sticks) and Sombo (a composite style of jacket wrestling with submission holds, also practiced as a form of self-defense without weapons for Soviet soldiers). Sombo and Gorodki were so much a part of the native Soviet sports culture that they were the only sports specifically named in an agreement for sports and cross cultural promotion signed by the Soviet sports authorities with the U.S. President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in the 1980's, during the height of the Cold War. Sombo was so widely considered the embodiment of the Soviet character and spirit in sports that it was actually included as a cultural event rather than a sport when it was included in the Cultural Festival of the World University Games in Buffalo, New York in 1993. In making the case for Sombo’s inclusion in those games, The FIAS president Josh Henson told the organizing committee that “Sombo is more than a sport—it is the embodiment of sporting spirit of the Soviet Union.”
Unlike Gorodki, Sombo has spread around the world. Gorodki predates the Soviet Union, but Sombo was actually created during the Soviet era. The various men who synthesized the basic elements of Sombo essentially began their work around the time the Soviet Union was founded. The recognized "birth date" of Sombo is generally given as November 16, 1939, the day that Sombo was formally recognized as a sport by the central sports authorities of the USSR, although it actually began to take shape at least twenty years earlier. In other words, Sombo paralleled the life of the USSR: It began just as the Soviet Union came into existence and came of age just as the Soviet Union became a world superpower as a result of the Second World War, which shaped much of the collective consciousness of the USSR until its end.
Sombo is sometimes unofficially considered the national sport of the USSR because it was a true child of the Soviet system in many ways: It began around the time of the revolution, developed during the early days of the Communist reign and was specifically promoted within the Soviet military beginning in the time of Stalin as a means of self defense without weapons (and therefore known to all males who did army conscript service during that period, which is most of the Soviet men during its existence). In addition, Sombo is a composite of the folk styles of wrestling from the various Soviet republics, making it a synthesis of the many subcultures and local sport traditions of the former Soviet Union--a fairly unique status.
It is interesting to note that the last team in any sport to compete in world championships under the flag of the Soviet Union was the 1989 Soviet Sombo team. That team won the team title for the Soviet Union at the World Sombo Championships in Montreal in 1989 on December 31, 1989, at 11:30 PM on the very last day of its legal existence. When the red and yellow hammer and sickle banner of the USSR was raised at the medal ceremonies that night, it was the last time it was ever officially raised representing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which ceased to exist less than an hour later. Some athletes on that team went to sleep one nationality and woke up another. They all left home Soviets and returned home Russians.
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4) New & Events Modesto Junior College to Host Martial Arts Festival Including Sombo and Grappling The Modesto Junior College wrestling team will be co-hosting a martial arts festival in May of 2008 which include USA Wrestling sanctioned Sombo and Grappling tournaments. More information will be released as it becomes available.
Russian Bear Tour Moscow March 2008 2 weeks training with Boretz Sambo Academy Merited Master of Sport, 3x World Champion Igor Kurrinoy will instruct all participants Tour concludes with competition in; The Kurrinoy Cup!
Fabulous opportunity for Juvenile wrestlers to learn the discipline in it's homeland and to be instructed by the best!
Cost: $2500.00 (unless world oil prices raise and affect airfare rates)
Delegation size: Parents; you are welcome BUT, you must declare immediately!
March 2008 is fast approaching! Do not hesitate to declare. Contact: Bob Charette for details 406-855-1332 On the Web: snswrestling.com
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THE NEW GF SHORTS ARE IN STOCK!
http://www.grapplingfighter.com
Now on sale for $30/pair at http://www.grapplingfighter.com
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5) 2007 Sombo Event Schedule - November 4 Ultimate Sambo Open Florida, NY
For more information about upcoming events please contact Lance Campbell, USSA Vice President at teamusa@sombo.us or visit http://sombo.us/events.htm.
- From U.S. Sombo with a little editing from us (color, highlights, etc...)
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