Origins and influences Vasili Oschepkov was one of the first foreigners to learn
judo in Japan and had earned his
Nidan (second-degree
black belt, out of then five) from
judo's founder,
Kano Jigoro. Spiridonov's background involved indigenous martial arts from various Soviet regions as well as an interest in
Japanese jujutsu (though he never formally trained in it). His reliance on movement over strength was in part because during World War I, he received a
bayonet wound which left his left arm lame. Both Oschepkov and Spiridonov independently hoped that Soviet military hand-to-hand combat techniques could be improved with an infusion of the techniques distilled from other foreign martial arts. 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 formulating efforts by their students and
military staff. While Oschepkov and Spiridonov did have occasions 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, many techniques from
jujutsu,
judo, and other martial systems joined with the indigenous fighting styles to form the sambo repertoire. When the techniques were perfected, they were woven into sambo applications for personal self-defence,
police,
crowd control,
border guards,
secret police,
dignitary protection,
psychiatric hospital staff,
military, and
commandos.
Development In 1918,
Lenin created
Vsevobuch (General
Military Training) under the
leadership of N. I. Podvoyskiy to train the Red Army. The task of developing and organizing Red Army military hand-to-hand combat training fell to
K. Voroshilov, who in turn, created the
NKVD physical training centre,
Dynamo. Spiridonov was a
combat veteran of
World War I and one of the first
wrestling and self-defence instructors hired for Dynamo. His background included free wrestling (i.e.
catch wrestling),
Graeco-Roman wrestling, many
Turkic folk wrestling styles, and Japanese
jujutsu. As a combative investigator for Dynamo, he travelled 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 the most practical aspects of the world's fighting systems into one comprehensive style that could adapt to any threat. Oschepkov had observed Kano Jigoro's distillation of
tenjin shin'yō-ryū,
kitō-ryū and
fusen-ryū jujutsu into
judo, and he had developed the insight required to evaluate and integrate combative techniques into a new system. Their developments were supplemented by
Anatoly Kharlampiyev and I. V. Vasiliev who also travelled 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. Kharlampiyev is often called the "father of sambo". This may be more legend than fact, since he only had the longevity and political connections to remain with the art while the new system was named "sambo". However, Kharlampiyev's political manoeuvring is single-handedly responsible for the USSR Committee of Sport's accepting sambo as the official combat sport of the Soviet Union in 1938 – decidedly the "birth" of sambo. So, more accurately, Kharlampiyev could be considered the father of "sport" sambo. Spiridonov was the first to begin referring to the new system with a name similar to 'sambo'. He eventually developed a
softer style 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 World War I bayonet injury, which greatly restricted his left arm and thus his ability to practise wrestling. Refined versions of sambo are still used today or fused with specific sambo applications to meet the needs of Russian commandos.
Running up to an Olympic sport status After being recognized by
FILA (known since September 2014 as United World Wrestling) in 1968, by the U.S. National
Amateur Athletic Union in 1972, and after being included to the programme of the
1973 World Wrestling Championships along with Graeco-Roman and Freestyle wrestling (which are indeed Olympic sports,) sambo was rapidly making its way to become an
Olympic sport. The first World Cup was contested in 1969.
Don Curtis, a member of the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Committee, had predicted in 1975, that the Russians would introduce sambo wrestling in the 1980 Olympics programme in Moscow. In 1975 the first United States National Sambo Championships were held in
Mesa, Arizona, in 1977. It was contested along with G.R. and Freestyle at the first
Pan American Wrestling Championships in
Mexico City, and included in the schedule of the upcoming 1983
U.S. Olympic Festival and the
1983 Pan American Games (the
1983 Pan American event in
Caracas became the first and subsequently the last edition of sambo at the Pan American Games.) In 1979 the National AAU Sambo Committee established several annual awards to honour outstanding persons in the sport of sambo wrestling. By the 1980s it has been included to
Pan American Games,
National Sports Festival and
AAU Junior Olympics programme. But as a result of political complications of the
1980 Olympic boycott which arose after the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, sambo was at first reduced to a
demonstration sport at the
1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow,
USSR. But later, because of the sport's strong association with the Soviet Union, it was removed from demonstration sport status. It is true that youth sambo was demonstrated in the Games' opening ceremonies; however, sambo was never formally recognized as a demonstration sport. This common error in history books is noted in several sources including
From SAMOZ to SAMBO by Anatoly Makovetskii and Lukashev's
History of Hand-to-Hand Combat in the First Half of the 20th Century: Founders and Authors. Furthermore, the official documents of the 1980 Olympic Organizing Committee do not mention sambo as a participating sport in the Games. Nevertheless, Jerry Matsumoto, Head of the U.S. Sambo Association, saw in 1990 sambo becoming an Olympic sport, at least at the demonstration level, within the next eight years.
Today In 1968,
FILA accepted sambo as the third style of international
wrestling. In 1985, the sambo community formed its own organization,
Federation International Amateur Sambo (FIAS). In 1993, FIAS split into two organizations, both of which 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 the U.S., disagreements between the sport's organizers and the rise of
Brazilian jiu-jitsu in the 1990s slowed down the growth of sambo before the success of several sambo fighters increased its popularity a decade later. In 2005, FILA reached an agreement with FIAS "West" and re-assumed sanctioning over sport sambo. However, in 2008, FILA again discontinued sanctioning sambo and sambo is now notably missing from the UWW website. At present, only FIAS sanctions international competition in sport sambo. In 2014 FIAS and FILA signed a cooperative agreement. While this does not place sambo back on UWW's recognized list, it does move towards unity and prevents future 'turf wars' regarding the sport's promotion. A similar agreement was signed by FIAS and the International Judo Federation in 2014 as well. Both FIAS and the World Combat Sambo Federation host international combat sambo competition. The American Sambo Association has continued to host freestyle sambo tournaments in the US and Canada since 2004. These events are unrecognized by UWW. Rumours rising in 2012 stating that sambo will be included as a demonstration sport in the 2016 Olympics are therefore not supported by any facts, and thus sambo is still a very long way from maturing into an Olympic sport, notwithstanding the effort that is being put into the matter. Indeed, given the intention of the Olympic Committee to remove classic
wrestling from the Olympic roster, there are rumours that sambo is highly unlikely to ever make it to the Olympics. However, sambo has been included in the 27th Annual Summer Universiade for the first time in history. FIAS submitted an application to the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) to consider sambo for the 2020 Games and has devoted 2010–2013 to creating a sambo commission in the International Sports Press Association (AIPS). As of 30 November 2018, sambo has indeed received temporary recognition by the IOC. This close relationship is reestablishing the global popularity and media emphasis on sambo. == Uniform and ranking ==