Martial Arts Program of the USSR (SAMBO )

Series Summary

SAMBO, sometimes called Sombo, is a martial arts program developed in the former Soviet Union in the 1930s. SAMBO is an acronym which roughly translates to “self-defense without a weapon,” and is one of four wrestling styles of amateur competitive wrestling recognized by the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles. There are four systems of SAMBO which include Sport Sambo, Self-Defense Sambo, Combat Sambo & Special Sambo. Similar to Judo, the goal of SAMBO is to stop an armed or unarmed attacker in the amount of time possible.

In this series of free video martial arts lessons, you'll learn SAMBO self defense techniques for beginners. President and Co-Founder of the American Sambo Association Stephen R. Koepfer demonstrates multiple rolls, fall, grips, throws, trips, chokes and combination moves that are the basis of Sambo training. He also explains the philosophy behind Sambo and offers tips to those thinking of learning this martial art. So watch these free videos and learn how to defend yourself against an attacker, armed or unarmed.

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village, I'm Stephen Koepfer at New York Combat SAMBO in New York city, and today I'm going to be demonstrating beginning SAMBO. SAMBO is a Russian marital art developed in the former Soviet Union in the early 20th century and it was essentially intended to be a hand to hand combat system for it's new red army soldiers. Over the decades, a sport version has evolved. What I'm going to be showing you today is basically the sports techniques of SAMBO. SAMBO is an acronym, SAMBO, for self-defense without weapons in the Russian. There's 2 branches of SAMBO. A combat SAMBO, which is still whole ties to the self defense side of things and the sports side, which is mainly throwing grappling. We're going to be covering the sports side today."