Last year for my birthday I took myself off to a GLIMA seminar. For those unfamiliar, GLIMA refers to a collection of wrestling styles and sports from the Nordic people. There are various styles, including trouser grip, where the competitors grapple the belt in a manner comparable to sumo-meets waltzing. There's backhold, where the two fights bind around each other with their arms and try to overpower each other, if any part of the body other than the foot touches the ground, that person loses. Then we come to the version I studied, loose-hold. Loose-hold, or lausatök, is a lot more like other wrestling forms. Pretty much any grip is allowed from most other styles of wrestling, save for the groin and face as far as I am aware. The participants start with left left forward and right hand forward, gripping the forearm. From here, on a ready, set, go style command, you can assume any grip and attempt to throw. It works very much like no-gi judo. It was a lot of fun. One thing I did find interesting is there is a rule similar to the whole 'you can grab the belt but you have to throw' rule I have seen in competition judo. In this case, you may slap your opponent in the face. When the fight goes to the ground, there's a few different rulesets, but the one we used at the seminar was interesting and completely different to what i am used to from Judo: You have to get off them and retreat out of arms length. In otherwords, get a dominant position, apply pain techniques (digging knees and digits into soft places and fighting to get them to let go) before springing off them and getting away before they can either grab hold or get to their feet. It was antithetical to my usual grappling, but in the past when I was in the bujinkan, applying 'pain techniques' such as digging a thumb/boshiken into someones neck or softer body areas to cause discomfort isnt unusual to me. It was a lot of fun learning this and approaching grappling from a different angle. In other parts of the seminar, we worked some stick fighting into grappling. You can either disarm the attacker to win, or you can throw and take them to the floor to win. We all took turns applying this. I actually have some footage of me doing this, which I will upload soon. Overall, I was really impressed with the style. It feels like it addresses some of the grappling I have with a no gi mindset, and the 'get off and away' approach feels like an area of grappling i dont see touched all that much. I will be continuing going to seminars on the style to build up my grappling. Here is footage from the stick drill, Im the lunatic who comes bombing out in the yellow: This is a drill called the ring of fire, where you run laps and anyone in the ring can challenge you. I am no expert in wrestling, and barely consider myself a competant Judo-ka, but I will say this has opened my eyes to thinking about grappling in a new way. Anyway, thats my review. I had fun, I think it's a great discipline and i will keep practicing. Later this year I have the chance to head out to Mongolia to try Bohk wrestling as well, so stay tuned for that when the time comes.
Thank you. My judo coach has a Greco-Roman background and some of that bled into what he taught us. It’s something I like to bring in when I can.
