The benefits of cross training martial arts have become well established over recent decades, but you may not have heard about improving your Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) with other martial arts such as Catch Wrestling, Sambo, and Shooto. Read on below to find out why you should!
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is one of the most popular grappling arts in the world right now, but there are many other styles, particularly wrestling styles, that can provide a massive boost to your Jiu Jitsu training. Among these styles are Catch Wrestling, Sambo, and Shooto. These wrestling and grappling styles have developed some amazing and devastating submissions and holding techniques that can be added to your Jiu Jitsu to really level up your game.
Catch Wrestling
Although the true origins of Catch Wrestling have been lost to time, this system is deeply rooted in Lancashire England and its largely considered to be the roots of the modern professional wrestling sport. During the late 1800’s and early to mid 1900’s, as part of a travelling carnivals show, catch wrestlers would feature in athletic spectacles where the general public could challenge them to win cash should they be able to pin or submit them. Not knowing who their potential matches for the day may be, the catch wrestler had to prepare for the worst case scenario so there was a need for quick and aggressive submissions. Due to challengers often arguing with referees over pin stoppages, submission wins were preferred so there would be no chance for a challenger to argue if the match was stopped prematurely as a submission was always clear and decisive.
Sambo
Sambo was developed in Soviet Russia in 1923 by two martial arts practitioners, Viktor Spiridonov and Vasili Oshchepkov. These men were tasked to bolster the Red Army's unarmed combat capabilities and were subsequently enlisted to gather knowledge from a range of different martial arts to create the ultimate combat training method. Sounds like a familiar philosophy? It should. This is also the basis for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), and thus, Sambo is a form of MMA as well. Sambo came to incorporate techniques from many well known martial arts such as Karate, Judo, Ju Jutsu, and many Slavic wrestling styles. Within much of the world today, it remains a very popular combat sport system.
Shooto
Finally, Shooto is a Japanese mixed martial art that was created in 1985 by Satoru Sayama. Shooto is a very popular combat sport in Japan and is thought to have been the platform that gave rise to the popular MMA promotion PRIDE FC. The striking training method used in Shooto is thought to come predominantly from Muay Thai, although the training methods are adopted to account for the wrestling component in Shooto as well. The majority of throwing, grappling, and wrestling techniques in Shooto are incorporated from Catch Wrestling, Sambo, Judo, and Ju Jutsu. With preferred wins coming from either knockout via strikes or submission techniques, Shooto is another martial art with powerful submissions that can supplement Jiu Jitsu training really well.
The Benefits of Cross Training
Due to the incredibly diverse wrestling foundations of Catch Wrestling, Sambo, and Shooto and the underpinning philosophy in these arts of aiming to subdue an opponent as quickly as possible, many of the submission and pinning techniques are amazingly applicable to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for both competition, and general self-defence. One prime example of this, is the positions from which practitioners of the styles will execute devastating submissions on opponents.
Typically in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, the methodology is to continue to grapple with our opponent until we reach a position of almost undefendable control, and then we begin to attack our deadly submissions to finish a fight. While this remains somewhat true for Catch, Sambo, and Shooto as well, practitioners of these martial arts train a wide array of attacks from positions that are typically thought to have less control over the opponent. The submission attacks themselves are aimed to control the opponent whilst simultaneously submitting them. Attacks designed to finish a fight are even executed from quite bad positions which can completely reverse the outcome of a match!
Now, of course it's true that this is also done with some techniques in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but there's a trove of fantastic revelations to be gained by mixing BJJ and these other wrestling arts, particularly in adding some of the very effective and quickly applied submissions from bad or less controlling positions into your Jiu Jitsu game.
If you're interested in improving your Catch, Sambo, Shooto, or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu skillset, or learning about how these martial arts can be successfully blended into a devastating combination, then come try our classes at Ascend Martial Arts or call us for more information! We'll see you on the mats soon!
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