JUDO: Sambo's Judo roots

Kano Jigoro's Kodokan Judo is the most popular and well-known style of judo, but is not the only one. The terms judo and jujutsu were quite interchangeable in the early years, so some of these forms of judo are still known as jujutsu or jiu-jitsu either for that reason, or simply to differentiate them from mainstream judo. From Kano's original style of judo related forms have evolved, some now widely considered as distinct arts.

SAMBO

Sambo has a long history and several versions of it's history exist. The Soviets did not exactly share the truth when it came to history. In fact, sometimes, the truth was simply erased for various political reasons or on the whim of certain leaders.

Vasili Oshchepkov a Russian who at age 19 was admitted into Japan's Kodakan by Kano himself in 1911. In 1914, he was the first Russian, the first European judo black belt under Kano. Oshchepkov went on to create Sambo from judo's influence, integrating other combative techniques into his new system.

Oshchepkov had observed Kano’s distillation of Tenjin Shin’yo Ryu jujitsu and Kito Ryu jujitsu into judo, and he had developed the insight required to evaluate and integrate combative techniques into a new system. It was Oshchepkov's unique acumen - the foresight to see Kano's genius in distilling Jiujitsu into a deliberate, educational process.

In 1918, Lenin created Vseobuch (Vseobshchee Voennoye Oobuchienie or "General Military Training") under the leadership of N. Podovoyskiy to train the Red Army. The task of developing and organizing Russian military hand-to-hand combat training fell to K. Voroshilov, who in turn, created the NKVD physical training center, DYNAMO - and Spiridonov was the 1st combatives trainer hired.

In 1921, Oshchepkov served in the Red Army as a commander traveling covertly for special purpose missions into China. In 1923, Oshchepkov and Spiridonov collaborated with a team of other experts on a grant from the Soviet government to improve the Red Army’s hand-to-hand combat system.

In 1929, Oshchepkov was invited to DYNAMO, where he took the sportive form of SAMOZ, coupled with the Randori (or "Fluid Practice") concept of Judo and the physical education conditioning of Wushu to form SAMBO, with two divisions: sportive and combative. Sportive SAMBO was to be for maintaining the general fighting élan and esprit de corps, and combative SAMBO for refining practical fighting techniques.

Sportive SAMBO included three venues: hand to hand fighting, grappling, and bayonet fencing. Combative SAMBO a comprehensive curriculum address UNARMED H2H conduct.

Oshchepkov was enamoured with the principle of force-on-force training with a fully resistant opponent to have "realism". But just as importantly was Oshchepkov's study of physical training, early kinesiology and biomechanics, from pioneers such as Muller, Buk, and Suren. This heavily influenced this style of SAMBO in later years, posthumously from Oshchepkov.

Oshchepkov was killed during the political purges of 1937 for refusing to deny his education in Japanese judo under Kano. Oshchepkov was arrested in the dead of night, led to a Siberian Gulag and subsequently shot in the head for his fraternization with "Japanese imperialists."

After Oshchepkov's death, Sambo's founder was erased, then replaced and it's history was revised to be a compilation of techniques from various Soviet Republics, instead of being based on a Japanese art, a completely Russian composed combat system and sport.

In their History of Sambo, Dr. Brett Jacques and Scott Anderson wrote that in Russia "judo and SOMBO were considered to be the same thing" - albeit with a different uniform and some differences in the rules.

This historical clip from Russia shows the original Sambo demonstrated by one of its forefathers, Vasili Oshchepkov, before his assassination by Stalin during the political purges of 1937: