WHAT IS SAMBO?

In the 1930s, the Soviet military commissioned a guy named Vasili Oshchepkov to build a combat system. He combined the best elements from Judo, folk wrestling, and striking, and called it Sambo, or “self defense without weapons”. The whole point was to take the best parts of multiple martial arts and synthesize them into one system.

Today Sambo has three components: stand-up grappling, ground grappling and submissions, and striking. Judo, Wrestling, BJJ, and Striking are the core.