Sambo
СамбоA Soviet system of grappling and joint locks combining judo with the folk wrestling of the USSR; the combat version also allows strikes.
Quick Facts
RussiaCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Catalogs & Databases for Sambo
About Sambo
Sambo was created in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s as a training system for the army and police. The name is an abbreviation of the Russian "samozashchita bez oruzhiya" — self-defence without weapons. Its creators Vasily Oshchepkov (a student of Kano and a judo dan holder) and Viktor Spiridonov combined judo and jujutsu with the folk wrestling of the peoples of the USSR: Georgian chidaoba, Armenian kokh, Tatar köräş and others. The technical profile follows from that. Sambo has strong throws and unusually developed leg locks — knee and ankle techniques that judo does not permit in competition and that passed from sambo into MMA. Chokes, by contrast, are banned in sport sambo. There are three forms. Sport sambo is jacket wrestling with throws and locks. Combat sambo adds punches, kicks, elbows, knees and chokes — it is the closest thing to MMA, and many Russian UFC fighters came out of it. The civilian line concentrates on self-defence. Competitors wear a kurtka (a short jacket with a belt) and shorts, with wrestling boots; the grips are therefore different from both judo and BJJ. Internationally sambo is governed by FIAS and has held permanent recognition from the International Olympic Committee since 2021, though it is not on the Olympic programme.
Styles & Branches
Combat branch of Soviet sambo: adds strikes, kicks and weapon defense to throws and locks, fought in protective gear.
Dynamic international sport variant of Sambo wrestled on sand.
Original self-defense branch of Soviet Sambo focused on soft joint locks and protection.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.