I'm not sure if this should be in this forum, because it deals with Mongolian Bukh wrestling, but I have to bring up Mongolian Bukh in order to ask my question about more European styles of wrestling.
So here go's:
Bukh, the National wrestling style of Mongolia. You wear a small vest with an open front, boots, and a very tight, tiny pair of pants. You are allowed to grab any of the clothing, and may grasp the legs for any of your attacks. It's very similar to freestyle wrestling except for the fact that you can grab the clothing and that if something other than your hands and feet touch the ground (i.e. knees, ass, shoulders) you lose.
Now, there are styles of wrestling all throughout Eurasia that use either pants or a jacket or a belt or all of the above to grab on to. Some of these styles do not allow touching of the legs with the hands, some styles are fixed holds (on the belt only, on the collar only, and you can't let go) some styles do not allow tripping with the legs (such as Koresh, tatar wrestling) so you must only do suplex-like throws.
My question is, and this is probably impossible to know but I think some discussion on it could be interesting, since the mongols invaded much of eurasia, were all of these styles offshoots of Mongolian Bukh? Or were the rules developed on their own, you think?
No doubt the Mongols influenced all of these culture. I'm wondering whether the fixed hold systems like tatar wrestling, and the jacket systems like georgian chidaoba, are just limited forms of bukh, and bukh was the complete original form. Or, perhaps Bukh has evolved from an older style of fixed hold belt wrestling, such as the type seen in ancient artwork (think of that Mesopotamian Sculpture with the two belt wresters with vases on their heads.)
I've heard it argued that fixed hold wrestling is the oldest form of wrestling.
Any ideas?
So here go's:
Bukh, the National wrestling style of Mongolia. You wear a small vest with an open front, boots, and a very tight, tiny pair of pants. You are allowed to grab any of the clothing, and may grasp the legs for any of your attacks. It's very similar to freestyle wrestling except for the fact that you can grab the clothing and that if something other than your hands and feet touch the ground (i.e. knees, ass, shoulders) you lose.
Now, there are styles of wrestling all throughout Eurasia that use either pants or a jacket or a belt or all of the above to grab on to. Some of these styles do not allow touching of the legs with the hands, some styles are fixed holds (on the belt only, on the collar only, and you can't let go) some styles do not allow tripping with the legs (such as Koresh, tatar wrestling) so you must only do suplex-like throws.
My question is, and this is probably impossible to know but I think some discussion on it could be interesting, since the mongols invaded much of eurasia, were all of these styles offshoots of Mongolian Bukh? Or were the rules developed on their own, you think?
No doubt the Mongols influenced all of these culture. I'm wondering whether the fixed hold systems like tatar wrestling, and the jacket systems like georgian chidaoba, are just limited forms of bukh, and bukh was the complete original form. Or, perhaps Bukh has evolved from an older style of fixed hold belt wrestling, such as the type seen in ancient artwork (think of that Mesopotamian Sculpture with the two belt wresters with vases on their heads.)
I've heard it argued that fixed hold wrestling is the oldest form of wrestling.
Any ideas?