Russian Sambo is a martial arts style and self-defense system that was formulated in the former Soviet Union during the early 1900’s. In that sense, it does not have as long a history as some of the Asian styles. Sambo has roots in several different martial arts types, drawing from many of the older styles.
The History of Russian Sambo
Sambo was meant to be a melding of all of the different martial arts styles available to come up with the most efficient one yet. Living in what amounts to a bridge between Europe and Asia, the Russian people were certainly introduced to a variety of martial arts styles via contact with the Japanese, Vikings, Tatars, Mongols, and more. The combination of what worked from these styles served as the building blocks to what is now referred to as Russian Sambo.
Vasili Oshchepkov, the Karate and Judo trainer for Russia's elite Red Army, was one of the founders of Sambo. Like any trainer worth their salt, Oshchepkov wanted his men to be the most proficient of all in martial arts techniques. With a second degree black belt in judo from Jigoro Kano himself — making him one of the rare non-Japanese to hold such a distinction at the time — Oshchepkov felt that he could work to formulate a superior martial arts style by adding what worked from judo to what worked from the Russian native wrestling styles, karate, and more. While he worked on finding these techniques, another man by the name of Victor Spiridonov, who had extensive training in Greco-Roman and other forms of wrestling, was also working on taking what worked and leaving out what didn't to revolutionize hand-to-hand combat techniques. Interestingly, Spiridonov's work was no doubt influenced by the fact that he received a bayonet wound during the Russo-Japanese War that left his left arm lame.
Thus, the style he worked toward was softer in nature. In other words, rather than meeting power with power, he hoped to truly utilize an adversary's strength against them by deflecting their aggression in a direction that they did not want it to go.
In 1918, Vladimir Lenin created Vseobuch or General Military Training to train the Red Army under the leadership of K. Voroshilov. Voroshilov then created the NKVD physical training center Dinamo and brought together several qualified instructors. Along with this, Spiridonov was one of the first wrestling and self-defense instructors hired at Dinamo.
In 1923, Oschepkov and Spiridonov collaborated to improve upon the Red Army's hand to hand combat system. Anatoly Kharlampiev and I.V. Vasiliev, both of whom had studied martial arts around the world extensively, joined in this collaboration. A decade later, the techniques they brought to the table and combined served as the outline for the style that would eventually become known as Sambo.
Given his political connections and the fact that he had the ability to stick with the formulation of the art through the early stages into the time when it was named, Kharlampiev is often referred to as the father of Sambo. Along with this, he is the one that truly campaigned for Sambo to become the official combat sport of the Soviet Union, which became a reality in 1938. However, there is evidence to suggest that Spiridonov was the first to actually use the word Sambo to describe the martial arts system that they had all contributed to. Sambo actually translates to "self-defense without weapons."
When the techniques of Sambo were finally cataloged and perfected, they were taught and used by the Soviet police, military, and more; though each was changed to meet the needs of the particular group using it.
In 1981 the International Olympic Committee came to recognize Sambo as an Olympic sport. The International Olympic Committee announced in 2018 that Sambo was among the sports whose international governing bodies achieved temporary IOC recognition, a move that brings our martial art one step closer to eventual Olympic status.
Sambo fighter have gone on to dominate the sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). The likes of Fedor Emelianenko, Oleg Taktarov, Igor Vovchanchyn, Andrei Arlovski, Khabib Nurmagomedov, held world titles in major MMA promotions. Proving that Combat Sambo is the most complete martial arts, covering the 3 main components of hand to hand combat, striking, submissions and wrestling.
