SAMBO Leg Locks and Creating your Core Base Study
November 8, 2009 – 10:53 amEvery fighter should have a base martial art, a specialty which fits his/her physiology and psychology. From this sturdy foundation, you build your comprehensive fighting strategies.
Without any “core” art, under stress of sudden, overwhelming or unfamiliar circumstances, you will fall to the level of your fitness, rather than the technique of your fighting. This is how you’re neurologically wired.
Fitness is only meant to be a supplement, not a substitute to your fighting technique. But if you haven’t mastered one art as your basic foundation, then you will fall to the level of your genetic reflexes (such as the startle reflex). Fitness is limited in duration. Fighting technique is limited only in education.
My foundation is Russian SAMBO, and within SAMBO, my expertise is in grappling, groundfighting and lower-half positional submissions. If surprised, outnumbered or disoriented, my default switch of throws and locks/breaks engages. However, once I regain my wits, which facing resistant partners (like randori, sparring, competition) allows you to do, then I can access my more peripheral skills. Crises does not always allow that time, so I always concentrate on refining my mastery in my base.
The great discovery about your specialization is that because of your depth of exploration, you often innovate new aspects and details that contribute to the art’s body of knowledge. Please allow me to share the coaching method that I’ve created based upon making SAMBO my core study.
Scott Sonnon
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3 Responses to “SAMBO Leg Locks and Creating your Core Base Study”
Very cool. Interesting how the side saddle position is now gaining popularity as the “50/50 guard” as practiced by Hall, the Mendes brothers, etc. The positional leg lock material you started putting out a few years back seems to be getting more prominent in the sub grappling competitions…
By Brian on Nov 10, 2009
Brian, it was bound to spread. Back in the early 90s, I opened the first public Russian martial arts school in USA. With an open-mat policy, we quickly realized how we had to modify the SAMBO-vs-SAMBO strategy to meet the incoming barrage of disparate strategies… in particular the positional fighting approach of Brazilian Jiujitsu. It took me nearly a decade to compile the transitional methods for lower-half positional fighting. And now it’s becoming a widespread phenomenon. Love it!
By Scott Sonnon on Nov 10, 2009
“Fitness is limited in duration. Fighting technique is limited only in education.”
Sometimes I think we place so much focus on the fitness we do forget the fighting. Or at least I do.
Good Stuff Coach!
By Dale Moss on Nov 18, 2009