Grappling and geography: One of the great pleasures of spending a long time in the sport of grappling is the opportunity to see various styles of grappling from around the world. My sport is jiu jitsu, in particular the Brazilian style derived from the work of the Gracie family. Living in NYC and having students who compete globally, we often get a look at others styles Of grappling from around the world, and the what we see is often incredibly impressive. Whether it be Judo players from Japan and Korea, Sambo athletes from Russia, Senagalese wrestlers from Africa, Mongolian hybrid grapplers (somewhere between Judo and wrestling) and many others, they each carry a distinctive style has has tremendously impressive strong points, from which a jiu jitsu stylist can learn and improve. One geographical area in particular has long impressed me with its incredible depth of grappling talent, out of all proportion to its population numbers – the Caucasus regions. This area, separating Europe and Asia, running from Black Sea to Caspian Sea, encompassing whole countries, such as parts of Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Iran, along with republics/federal regions such as Dagestan, Ossetia, Chechnya and others, has produced an unbelievable number of world class wrestlers that have produced incredible results in Olympic and World championships competition. The sheer number of all time greats coming out of this area clearly points to the fact that whatever training systems these fellows have in operation, it is clearly one of the absolute highest quality. The wrestlers from these regions often appear to have a distinct style and approach and like jiu jitsu athletes, pride themselves on the refinement and quality of their technique above all else. I always get the feeling that if they put their attention to jiu jitsu, they would excel at it in a short time. The NYC area has a big Russian population and so often we get wrestlers from the Caucasus stop by and they always impress with their smooth and subtle style. Here, Rustam Chsiev, combining wrestling with submissions, impresses the crowd at an EBI event, where he got all the way to the finals against Gordon Ryan.
